Careful What You Tweet
Careful What You Tweet: Police, Schools Tap Social Media to Track Behavior by Helen A.S. Popkin NBC News.
… The tools are getting better because there are more ways to get at the flood of data. As Twitter heads towards its IPO, the micro-messaging service is making its exclusive "firehose" of data available (for an undisclosed fee) to a growing number of third parties. While basic (and free) Twitter searches provide a limited amount of results, the Twitter firehose — previously open to only the likes of search engines such as Google and Bing — blasts everything publicly available on Twitter … in real time.
While this firehose is valuable to marketers, data consulting firm BrightPlanet found a way to make it valuable (and affordable) to police departments. For only $150 a month, BrightPlanet's "BlueJay Law Enforcement Twitter Crime Scanner" allows cops to conduct very specific searches within the Twitter firehose…
