What is DataTweet?

See the intro page

About the Timeline

If you are logged in to DataTweet, the top-level page http://www.datatweet.net will show a timeline which merges in datatweets with your usual Twitter tweets. If you haven't followed any data streams yet, it will show the same tweets as your twitter timeline. Tweets from data streams are not added to your timeline at Twitter.com - you need to view them here at datatweet.net

How do I choose data to appear in my timeline?

The DataStreams page (linked to from the top bar) shows the available sources. You can explore data streams without having logged into (or signed up with) DataTweet. If you are logged in, clicking the "follow" button on a Stream page will cause its tweets to be merged into your DataTweet timeline.

Filters

A filter on a data stream specifies:

• Conditions governing which Tweets will be shown (eg only earthquakes with magnitude greater than 4)
• Outputs - that is, which properties of each item will be shown (eg "magnitude" and "depth" for earthquakes)
• A limit on how often tweets will be emitted (for example, limiting tweets to only once every 4 hours). If tweets are throttled in this way, you have a choice of emitting a sample tweet, or a summary tweet. The latter will list maxima and minima of numerical fields of tweets that appeared in the stream (and met the condition) during the interval. If the interval is 24 hours, you can also specify the time at which you'd like the sample or summary tweet emitted.

To see an example of some filters, see http://www.datatweet.net/tw/dt_user/following.

The initial filter on a data stream lets all tweets through - this is the filter that is shown in the box when you first visit a stream. The "edit filter" button takes you to a page where new conditions, outputs and frequencies can be specified; after you've adjusted the filter to taste, you can follow the filtered data. You can follow multiple filters on the same stream.

Managing what you follow

The "following" tab on the profile page shows all the streams (and their filters) that you are following, and allows you to edit or delete streams/filters.

Other people's DataTweet pages.

Any user's profile page is at

http://www.datatweet.net/tw/<userName>
Example: http://www.datatweet.net/tw/dt_user

From this page you can see what streams this user is following, view the resulting timeline of data tweets, and any streams and types he or she may have added.

Categories

Some streams are organized by a top level category. For example, the real estate stream is organized by city, and the buoy observations by buoy. The categories are listed as part of the stream's description, which allows you to assess a significant aspect of its content at a glance, and to jump to categories with a single click rather than by setting up a filter.

Publishing to DataTweet

Here are the steps:

1. Define the type of data which will be tweeted using "add type" on type tab of the profile page. For examples of types, see the types tab of http://www.datatweet.net/tw/datatweeter
2. Create a stream to contain the data using "add stream" on the Streams tab of the profile page.
3. POST your tweets to

   http://api.datatweet.net/tw/<username>/Stream/<streamName>/insert()

See the API documentation for details about this call.

Three field names receive special treatment.

If latitude and longitude fields appear, tweets will be mapped at the indicated locations.

If there is a field called guid, its value is taken to be a unique identifier of tweets in the context of the stream to which it is posted. An insert of a post with the same guid as one that was inserted earlier will be ignored. If the guid value is composed of alphanumeric characters, the URL assigned to a tweet will be

http://www.datatweet.net/tw/<username>/Stream/<streamName>/<guid>