[Air-L] Update on simple historical Twitter hashtag searches a warning

[Cassian Vian]

I checked this with #nickcleggsfault - around three years old and the origin is known. It brought up a lot of tweets, back to the very day the meme started but not back to the very first use of the hashtag. Be wary if using it that it may not be gathering all of the tweets/may still have a time limit on how far back you can search.

Cassian

> From: je.burgess at qut.edu.au
> To: dfreelon at gmail.com
> Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2013 05:06:25 +1000
> CC: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Update on simple historical Twitter hashtag searches
> 
> I would bet it's the former - precisely to improve the search experience for (web) users while keeping the choke on API-enabled data access and storage?
> 
> By the way:
> 
> I note that search in the official iOS app doesn't have the "all" search results function, which is very far from ideal in many circumstances. For example, in a crisis situation there are times when I might want to view all tweets for a search (a location name for example) not just all the popular or socially "relevant" tweets. 
> 
> On 08/03/2013, at 10:19, "Deen Freelon" <dfreelon at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hmm, just tested the search API with an old hashtag and it looks like 
> > it's still only trawling up to a week back in time. Maybe Twitter hasn't 
> > rolled out historical access to the API yet, or maybe I'm just 
> > #doinitwrong. ~DEEN
> > 
> > On 3/8/2013 11:20 AM, Scott Rodgers wrote:
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Dear Air-L,
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> I thought I should follow up with a small but perhaps not so insignificant
> >> update on my query to the list from January (see below) where I outlined my
> >> difficulties in accessing 'historical'
> >> Twitter data, specifically a simple search of all tweets using a specific
> >> hashtag over around a two year period.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Without getting too
> >> prematurely excited, it does seem that Twitter has listened to complaints that
> >> this rather basic search functionality should be provided to general users, not
> >> just big data analysis companies. Today when I searched for a specific hashtag
> >> in the ‘discover’ tab, I noticed that a user can indeed now go back (apparently)
> >> indefinitely and read all tweets using a particular hashtag.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Very best,
> >> 
> >> Scott
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 10:22 AM, Scott Rodgers
> >> 
> >> <rodgers_scott at hotmail.com>wrote:
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >>> Hello all,
> >>> Apologies if I am about to jump in with a
> >> question discussed previously
> >> 
> >>> (if so, I am happy to look through the
> >> archives) but I have been spending a
> >> 
> >>> lot of time trying get a sense of how one can
> >> access 'historical' Twitter
> >> 
> >>> data. A collaborator and I have a fairly
> >> small-scale project, for which
> >> 
> >>> we'd like to look back about 2 years at maybe
> >> 1-3 specific hashtags all
> >> 
> >>> related to a local neighbourhood campaign.
> >> From what I have garnered from a
> >> 
> >>> lot of looking around, the only way to get at
> >> historical data is by
> >> 
> >>> purchasing services from third parties with
> >> access to the Twitter fire
> >> 
> >>> hose. The problem there is that such companies
> >> only seem to offer much more
> >> 
> >>> extensive services than we need - we do not
> >> need, for instance, full-scale
> >> 
> >>> quantitative analytics of tweet data, mood,
> >> and the like. We simply want to
> >> 
> >>> generate a list of tweets using a certain
> >> hashtag over a certain period,
> >> 
> >>> for the purposes of qualitative analysis (it
> >> would be linked with
> >> 
> >>> interviews and other secondary information)
> >>>  .
> >>> Any help or pointers would be much
> >> appreciated.
> >> 
> >>> Very best,
> >>> Scott Rodgers
> >>> www.publiclysited.com
> >>                         
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> >> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> >> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> >> 
> >> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> >> http://www.aoir.org/
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > Deen Freelon, Ph.D.
> > Assistant Professor
> > American University School of Communication
> > Office: Asbury 228A
> > dfreelon at gmail.com
> > http://dfreelon.org
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> > 
> > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> > http://www.aoir.org/
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> 
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/