{"id":102186,"date":"2014-11-26T14:31:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-26T19:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/public-tweets-now-searchable-background-uses-effects\/"},"modified":"2024-12-19T16:40:33","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T21:40:33","slug":"public-tweets-now-searchable-background-uses-effects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/en-gb\/insights\/blog\/strategy\/public-tweets-now-searchable-background-uses-effects\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter\u2019s historical content archive is now open to the public: here\u2019s all you need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Twitter_bird_logo_2012.svg\"<\/a> Last week, Twitter began to allow its users to search through every tweet sent publicly since the popular social platform was launched in 2006. Described as \u2018the SMS of the internet<\/a>,\u2019 the network has had an impressive history, rise and impact<\/a> since its inception.\u00a0 It has become the platform of choice for celebrities and has, as Rupert Murdoch put it: \u2018helped change the news biz and the world.\u2019 The growth of the platform since the first tweet by its founder, Jack Dorsey (see below) has been constant and the sheer number of messages fired off into the Twittosphere is almost unfathomable.<\/p>\n

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just setting up my twttr<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jack (@jack) March 21, 2006<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Despite complications and persistent obstacles, it was always an objective for the company to index its massive archive of user-generated content and make it searchable for its massive user base.<\/p>\n

Our<\/a> long-standing goal has been to let people search through every Tweet ever published.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It should be noted that this amounts to roughly half a trillion messages, many of which contain links and rich media.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is going to change?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Before this update, Twitter allowed discovery of \u2018relatively fresh user-generated content via an inverted index<\/a> containing about a week\u2019s worth of recent tweets.\u2019 There was a certain amount of dissatisfaction<\/a> regarding the inability to access old tweets. On top of this, the search function itself was quite messy and difficult to use effectively. Although we can\u2019t know the exact workings of Twitter\u2019s algorithms, it was clear that a lot of emphasis was on \u2018nearness in time\u2019 and topics that were currently \u2018hot\u2019 and \u2018trending.\u2019 As project leader, Yi Zhuang put it:<\/p>\n

Our search engine excelled at surfacing breaking news and events in real time, and our search index infrastructure reflected this strong emphasis on recency.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This was, of course, to consolidate its authority as the world\u2019s go-to real-time news source. It is in this area that Twitter dominates and has always dominated, despite continual pressure<\/a> from its larger and more powerful competitors. Having access to this wealth of international opinion and discussion is huge! As a simple demonstration, here are the tweets made by Sohaib Athar on 01 May \u2013 02 may 2011. For anyone who is unaware, Athar is the unsuspecting IT technician who provided accidental digital coverage of US forces storming Bin Laden\u2019s hideout over those dates. \u00a0Now, we can revisit the action. Tweets about from:ReallyVirtual since:2011-05-01 until:2011-05-02<\/a>\/\/<\/p>\n

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