predicting the markets using twitter for sentiment

[Gurtie]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8755587/Twitter-becomes-latest-tool-for-hedge-fund-managers.html

The millions of tweets posted on Twitter are being analysed by hedge fund managers to predict share price patterns.

sounds very like a conversation some people here have been having on and off for years?

[BoL]

A bit like http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14841018

A study, based on millions of articles, charted deteriorating national sentiment ahead of the recent revolutions in Libya and Egypt.

While the analysis was carried out retrospectively, scientists say the same processes could be used to anticipate upcoming conflict.

Hopefully they remember that people tend to get sarcastic in the face of adversity.

[I, Brian]

Noticed how they refused to make any predictions at all?

Meh, it's amazing how many people are prophets in hindsight.

[rcjordan]

>Noticed how they refused to make any predictions at all?

Yeah, I did and hit the back button right away. Worthless except for after-the-fact hype.

That said, I believe the accuracy of the online betting houses (that we've discussed before) has been fairly well established.  As an extension, the massive social networks should also have some sort of predictive component.

I've always thought that G and the other major search engines likely had specialized departments that sold political and market trend data.  A couple of years ago there was an article about the head of search for Jeeves(??) who was talking about just this.