Gnip And DataSift Begin Selling Archived And Analysed Tweets

Two social data research companies, who last year partnered with Twitter for access to the micro-blogging site’s “fire hose” of public Tweets, have both recently announced they will begin selling mined data in packages.

Gnip, based in Colorado, will allow clients to access Tweets going back 30 days, while DataSift, in San Francisco in the US and Reading,UK, stretches back over two years of Twitter data.

Treasure troves of tweets

Both companies tout their ability to help clients find pertinent data about a brand or product within the estimated 250 million Tweets sent each day, including geographical information.

Gnip’s 30-Day Replay for Twitter was launched in mid-February, with the company claiming that data would be immediately available, without any waiting list.

“We have solved a fundamental challenge our customers face when working with realtime social data streams,” said Gnip’s co-founder and CEO Jud Valeski in a statement. “Since you can’t predict the future, it’s impossible to filter the realtime stream to capture every Tweet you need. Hindsight, however, is 20/20. With 30-Day Replay for Twitter, our customers can now replay history to get the data they want.”

DataSift’s Historics, announced earlier this week, already has 700 companies on its waiting list, including 100 of the Fortune 500. The BBC reports that ‘individuals or developers’ will have to pay £635 per month for the entry-level package, whereas costs will vary for businesses depending on size.

The two year catalogue of Tweets is the key selling point for DataSift. Clients can request specific locational samples (to focus on regional launches and events) or broader global selections for major product launches. DataSift says Historics can be applied to benefit financial trading, brand monitoring, social marketing and broad fields of research.

As would be expected, however, there have been concerns raised about user privacy and potential misuse of the services by advertisers. Both Gnip and DataSift have clarified that all Tweets recorded were shared publicly, and any deleted Tweets and private messages are not archived.

“It’s frustrating, and telling, that now marketers have greater access to my old Tweets than I do,” said Rebecca Jeschke, digital rights analyst and spokesperson for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, speaking to Reuters. “However, this is perfectly legal, if creepy. If you publish your Tweets publicly, that allows all sorts of folks to do all sorts of things with them.”