Infinite Path

Twitter can be used to predict how successful a movie will be at the box-office, according to latest research that has been published on the Arxiv website.

The technology firm Hewlett Packard assessed three million tweets about 25 movies and discovered that the rate at which the messages were produced could be used to predict box-office takings. Furthermore, when the content of the tweets was assessed, further predictions could be made about a movie’s success. This was done by using a technique called sentiment analysis, in which the tweets were classed as being positive, negative or neutral about a specific movie.

Bernardo Huberman, speaking to BBC News, cited a couple of examples as proof of the power of social networking sites such as Twitter. His team predicted that ‘The Crazies’ would take $16.8m during its opening weekend. It took $16.06m. Meanwhile, they predicted that ‘Dear John’ would take $30.71m, whereas it took marginally less at $30.46m.

Speaking about the research, Dr. Huberman stated: “We developed algorithms to analyse these tweets and measure the rate at which they were produced. Our intuition was that the faster people tweet, the more likely they are to go and see it”.

The technique of sentiment analysis worked with ‘The Blind Side’ and ‘New Moon’. The former was received positively and eventually picked up an Oscar nomination. Meanwhile, the latter was greeted more negatively and after a strong opening weekend, its takings significantly dropped.

The research proves that word of mouth is sometimes the best form of advertising and clearly movie companies will be hoping to harness this, and the power of Twitter, to make more money and develop more successful and engaging movies. Word of mouth worked for ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ back in 2002 but now there are more mediums out there on which the average film fan can make their voice heard.

It is clear that Twitter, Facebook, and other social blogging services are leading the way in providing a forum upon which people can critique anything from films and music, to science and politics. It is also clear that the application of this research has potential beyond the movie industry. It could also be used to predict how well a product is likely to be received in the marketplace, how popular a band may become, and researchers are already monitoring the micro-blogging site to see if any trends can be discovered regarding the forthcoming UK general election.

The power of social networking is now such that it can have a significant influence on our daily lives and can alter the profitibility of companies, the direction of the arts, and perhaps even the nature of politics. If Twitter does play a signficiant role in the general election, it will clearly demonstrate how influential such technologies now are and how companies and politicians will need to appeal to the vast number of online critics who have the power to express their views through social networking.