More fuel for Social

I've blogged before about how Facebook advertising doesn't really cut it for me...after all its a communication tool. However once in a while they release some data that gets me excited. Yeah I am a little twisted that way.

The boys over at Facebook have big computers and by capturing and analysing specific words and phrases on public walls they released this chart:



The map tells us the incidences of chat about 'swine flu' over the last week. I even heard there were over 10,000 tweets an hour about it...couldnt find a good chart though!

What's interesting for me is that how information has spread throughout the swine flu outbreak - you could argue that social media has helped to fuel scaremongery. Either way, social media is likely to be one of the primary mediums through which information spreads and gives us some cool charts in the process