Library of Congress to Archive Tweets

[Logan Westbrook]

Library of Congress to Archive Tweets

The US Library of Congress is to archive every public tweet made since the service started in 2006.

Do you use Twitter? If so then everything you've ever tweeted publically is to be archived in the US Library of Congress, from the tweet about how cute your dog is, to the tweet about the epic burrito you just had and everything in between. You'll be in good company too, as some very notable people use Twitter.

"Important tweets in the past few years include the first-ever tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey [http://twitter.com/jack/status/20]," said Matt Raymond, one the Library's official bloggers. "President Obama's tweet about winning the 2008 election [http://twitter.com/barackobama/status/992176676], and a set of two [http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/786571964] tweets [http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/787167620] from a photojournalist who was arrested in Egypt and then freed because of a series of events set into motion by his use of Twitter."

The tweet archive will offer an insight into the everyday lives of people through what they shared on their twitter feeds, much like the personal letters and diaries of previous centuries. A lot of it is going to be trivial fluff, but as a rich and detailed slice of life, it's unprecedented.

Source: Ars Technica [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/library-of-congress-were-archiving-every-tweet-ever-made.ars]


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[Proteus214]

Twitter, a staple of American culture and sociological tool of the future? PSHAW! That's just silly, never gonna-

Fuck me, a pig just flew past my window.

 

[Kiithid]

Immortality through tweets! Until the online dbs goes bb that is.

OT: I wonder how they'll cope with the expenses of either maintaining databases, or the massive ammount of paper it would take to print every tweet. A good idea nevertheless, ah if the egyptians had tweeter and online databases.

 

[Jedoro]

What's next, Facebook statuses? People in the future are going to think we were all retarded.

 

[WrongSprite]

Cool. I think it's a great idea. From an Historians point of view, anyway.

 

[MrPop]

I think that everyone should embellish the truth slightly to make ourselves seem more impressive to future generations. Maybe even use a code.

E.g:

"I just finished wrestling a dinosaur just so I could get a copy of the Times"

That could be mean pushing through people to get to McDonalds. The code is in it's infancy at this moment but I think it will go far. Make sure though not to record the code at all though.

This may right some bells if you watch videos from the Onion... The one about stashing porn

 

[Jared]

Cool. I think it's a great idea. From a Historians point of view, anyway.

Certainly agree.

And, I like to think what I have said is going to be stored forever, its my little footnote in history! Even if it is in American history...

 

[Sir Kemper]

Twitter, a staple of American culture and sociological tool of the future? PSHAW! That's just silly, never gonna-

Fuck me, a pig just flew past my window.

Should have shot it, 'Dems flyin' pigs be good eatins'

Anyway, i actually find this pretty cool, it's an interesting way of recording the smaller aspects of history.

 

[samsonguy920]

Gee, I wonder who was the brains behind this? It won't be hard to figure that out, he was referenced in the article. I just hope they aren't using even more resources by putting the tweets on hardcopy. Oy vey.

What's next, Facebook statues? People in the future are going to think we were all retarded.

Oh, we already have a lot more out there that will help do that.
Afterthought: However, Nathan Fillion's tweet [http://twitter.com/NathanFillion/status/4662307257] about his one special moment with Jonathan Frakes working on Castle being preserved does give me a bit of a warm feeling.

 

[Armored Prayer]

*Slowly tilts head* Really?

I mean I can understand for some of the more important tweets, but even the non important ones?

 

[Xan Krieger]

What's next, Facebook statuses? People in the future are going to think we were all retarded.

Not if they get stupider with time. They're gonna think we were friggin' GENIUSES.

Like Idiocracy? That movie was a documentary from the future and it scares the crap out of me.

OT: Just out of curiosity are they going to print them or store them electronically? Either way it's gonna take a hell of a lot of room that could better be spent gathering useful information instead of what someone just had for dinner or how hot their waitress was at Sonic.

edit: Wait a minute, isn't the library of congress funded by tax dollars? If so I suddenly no longer want to pay taxes if that's how they're going to be spent.

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

What's next, Facebook statuses? People in the future are going to think we were all retarded.

Yea, I just deleted half my tweets.

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

*Slowly tilts head* Really?

I mean I can understand for some of the more important tweets, but even the non important ones?

Yea, everyday people have given us so much information about history, like Samuel Pepys' diaries a few hundred years ago. And random graffiti on various buildings as well.

 

[oppp7]

Good to see our tax dollars going to a good cause. /sarcasm

 

[Armored Prayer]

*Slowly tilts head* Really?

I mean I can understand for some of the more important tweets, but even the non important ones?

Yea, everyday people have given us so much information about history, like Samuel Pepys' diaries a few hundred years ago. And random graffiti on various buildings as well.

I guess that true, but the historians will have to dig through a lot of crap to find the gems.

 

[Proteus214]

*Slowly tilts head* Really?

I mean I can understand for some of the more important tweets, but even the non important ones?

I know I was joking about it a few responses back, but there is legitimate value to this. Don't think of it as the tweets themselves, but of the aggregate information that can be pulled from analyzing massive amounts of tweets. It's kind of like looking at a big picture of what the world is thinking and doing at any given moment.

 

[Virgil]

This is a very terrifying thought.

I mean, I definitely see how cataloging this is valuable and would potentially be useful to researchers and academics and future-people who want to try to figure out where everything started to go wrong...

... but still. It's twitter.