Tools that Rock: Using the Bird for Research

Here are some cool ways to use Twitter as a research tool:

1. Set up a poll - there are applications such as PollDaddy (http://twitter.polldaddy.com/), twtpoll (http://twtpoll.com/),
and StrawPoll (http://strawpollnow.com/welcome/) to name a few.

2. Hook into a Web based survey tool. You can embed Tiny Url links
to existing tools such as SurveyMonkey to conduct a survey, much like
you would via email. The advantage to using this method is that you can
gain access to people via their Twitter accounts in real time.

3. TweetStats - If you are trying to find out how often you are tweeted, you can
run this too to check @reply habits.

4. Trendrr

This tool is a new favorite to use in order to track statistics across multiple social network platforms, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and others. Provides graphing and trending for keywords. This application is ideal for tracking Twitter searches, and comparing information.

5. Tweetmeme

If you’re looking to do research on retweeting and link-sharing on Twitter, Tweetmeme provides retweeting stats for articles on Twitter. It’s best for recent events, but does have legacy.

Twitturly and Retweetist also do similar things. Also be sure to try out Twist if you want to graph out Twitter trends.