Location Data Mining - Activity

Location Data Mining

This short activity looks at how much location information, both explicit and implicit, can be 'mined' from various social media sites. All you need is a web browser and a search engine.

Using one of the free social media search tools (such as Twitter Search or Social Searcher), see what location data (for example, references to specific locations or geotagged photos) you can find out about an individual or group of individuals.

Note: You don’t need to create a Twitter account to use the search facility.

You are free to choose one of the suggestions listed below or come up with your own idea for a person or group to research. You might consider one of the following:

a)  A well-known personality of your choice

b)  Yourself if you are a social media user or someone you know

c) Choose an event (maybe a sports or cultural event) and see who's tweeted, blogged and so on about going to be there?

Can you see any patterns in the data?

Given what one of the articles said about past behaviour predicting future actions, are there any indications where the person or group you investigated might be in the future based on what you've found? 

Please share your experiences on the discussion forum.