Mining for tweets of gold

EXUBERANCE about both “big data” and Twitter has of late given way to a degree of scepticism among commentators. Yet Dataminr, a New York startup that analyses the 500m or so tweets sent out daily, goes from strength to strength. Founded in 2009 to scour the Twittersphere for important events and news not yet reported by the mainstream media, the firm now has dozens of customers in finance, the news business and the public sector. In January it and Twitter struck a deal to provide alerts to CNN. In April its tracking of tweets was part of a strategy by the authorities in Boston to avoid a repeat of last year’s terrorist attack at the city’s annual marathon.

Dataminr scores every tweet using about 30 indicators of significance, says Ted Bailey, who launched the firm with two former Yale roommates. Dataminr started out seeking market-sensitive information for investors. It now supplies around 50 financial firms. Then came various arms of government; Mr Bailey claims ten clients, though he will name only the city of Boston.