http://voidmagus.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] voidmagus.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] thistlechaser 2010-02-19 08:24 pm (UTC)

Actually, older people seem to love Facebook. My parents, all their coworkers, all their friends - constantly on facebook. I check my account a couple times a week at most. For me, I use it to keep in touch with some friends from highschool. That's about it.

Twitter is everything I despise about facebook and the blog-o-sphere combined - the average person will say absolutely fuck-all 24/7 when given the opportunity.

That said, I have found a single use for twitter. I do a decent amount of investing, as I've been told I'll be managing a considerable amount of finances when I get older, and I'll be expected to do a good job. Besides all the algorithms I run on just pure numbers when analyzing feasibility of a particular investment, I can use various APIs to query Twitter for a particular string (say, a particular stock symbol). A few simple algorithms run across data returned, and I can have a roughly quantified analysis of public sentiment in regards to a stock or fund. It is absolutely astounding how many brokers post their moves to Twitter, and it makes for an excellent guide of what not to do.

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