we’re introducing a pilot project we’re calling Twitter Data Grants, through which we’ll give a handful of research institutions access to our public and historical data.
This was an area I’d hoped the Library of Congress who’d have solved long ago given they were gifted the data in April 2010. Unfortunately despite the announcement in Jan 2013 that access was weeks away nothing has appeared.
It’s worth stressing that Twitter’s initial pilot will be limited to a small number of proposals, but those who do get access will have the opportunity to “collaborate with Twitter engineers and researchers”. This isn’t the first time Twitter have opened data to researchers having made data available for a Jisc funded project to analyse the London Riot and while I except Twitter end up with a handful of elite researchers/institutions hopefully the pilot will be extended.
Proposals for this pilot need to be in by 15 March. A link is included in the Introducing Twitter Data Grants page.