Twitter by the Petabyte: Using Big Data to Define Market Sentiment

Millions of tweets run through Twitter. It’s the poster child for big data on the Web.

To get data out of Twitter and use it to track sentiment requires tools with considerable processing and computational capabilities.

BigSheets is a tool created by IBM that takes terabytes or even petabytes of Web data and turns it into information that provides business intelligence. The tool can be used for structured or unstructured data from internal or external sources. For instance, it can run streams of Twitter data for days, weeks or even months on particular keywords. That data can then be mashed up with internal information.

To demonstrate its capabilities, IBM evangelist David Barnes created an excellent demonstration video that shows how Twitter can be mined for sentiment about the iPhone, BlackBerry or Android mobile smartphones.

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