Lots of talk on the Internet this week about research -- from Twitter to Facebook to cinnamon cookies -- and you're the subject.
For starters, Twitter and the Massachusetts Insitute of Technology on Wednesday announced a $10 million dollar deal that turns all the (public) tweets over to researchers in the university's new Laboratory for Social Machines.
A Wall Street Journal story announcing the project, points out:
The public nature of Twitter's content has been a goldmine for researchers, who analyze the data to study topics ranging from public sentiment on health and politics to information diffusion. Twitter has said approximately 500 million tweets are sent each day.
And you thought no one cared about the tweets about your lunch.
Facebook got in on the research chatter on Thursday, clarifying its policies for studying users going forward. The social network was criticized earlier this year when it revealed researchers had manipulated people's news feeds to study emotion.
In a post announcing the changes, Facebook's Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer said the company had developed better guidelines for researchers, established a review panel, added a training program and established a research website where studies will be published.
The New York Times' story on the matter boiled it down this way:
