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Cryptocurrencies provide a mechanism to flip that around. Maybe what happens is the people who power the applications end up with all the money, and the person who created the application ends up with very little of it. Check the link for more from the @Nyustern Token Summit.
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Over the past months I have developed a process for understanding elections through the lens of Twitter data. Combining and comparing Twitter metrics, the process provides an ordinal representation of where the candidates stand amongst one another. I am excited to announce the process will be unveiled over the coming weeks as a website, named Twitterwonk. It is my hope Twitterwonk will serve as a tool for better understanding elections as we further immerse ourselves in the age of new media. To kick us off, here is a visualization displaying the Twitterwonk Score for the Republican and Democrat frontrunners. Good luck to all the candidates, and may Twitterwonk serve you.
As of January 27, 2016, Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls (Real Clear Politics). Here we present how Trump hit, Hillary fired back and left the goal open for The Bern.
Displaying a composite score, calculated with Twitter data in a process outlined in my previous post, the visualization presents the decline that allowed Bernie Sanders to rise above Hillary Clinton.
It started on December 8, 2015, when Donald Trump released his statement on preventing muslim immigration. Over the next two weeks, Hillary Clinton would respond to Trump in a fury of statements on foreign policy, ultimately leading to her decline. And while Bernie Sanders also responded to Trump, he did not waver from domestic policy, which better resonates with the compassionate tone of both Democrat candidates. Christmas brought a change in tone for Hillary, but by this point it was too late: Sanders had already gained the lead. Here are the kind of statements on domestic policy that reversed Hillary’s decline.
“There’s no reason for teachers and nurses to ever pay higher tax rates than top CEOS.”
“It shouldn’t be so hard to be a working parent.”
“We need to make it easier for women to get ahead at work while still being there for their families.”
NYMAG just published a profile on Trump supporters and the appeal to “Testicular Fortitude”, i.e. strength. While many pages could be spent on the topic, it rings clear that the Commander-in-Chief must be compassionate at home and ruthless abroad. A word no short of “destroy” is expected in reference to America’s enemies (used by President Obama, Trump, and Sanders), especially during times of uncertainty. Hillary’s gift for empathizing with the other has made her a skillful Secretary of State, and it may have cost her The White House.
Donald Trump: 6/16/15 – 1/16/16
Most Mentioned Moments on Twitter
Celebrity businessman Donald Trump has single handedly disrupted the right-wing political playbook with a winners and losers worldview delivered through a charismatic, entertaining social media feed, shaping what remains of mainstream media. Find below his Top 16 Tweets since 6/16, when Trump announced he would run for President.
Guns, Fences, ISIS, God, Christmas, Obama, Hillary, and George W — take note America!
Who will win the 2016 US Republican and Democrat Presidential Nominations?
For the time period 11/1/2015 – 11/30/2015, my team of researchers at NYU Stern collected Twitter data on the following candidates:
We designed a prediction algorithm using these five metrics:
The heat map represents the ordinal ranking produced by the algorithm.
Grouping the candidates by party, and comparing the results to actual poll rankings we see the algorithm matches the ordinal representation of the Democrat Candidates and has Ted Cruz as second among the Republicans, behind Donald Trump. 
While the Ted Cruz point is not consistent with current polls, we believe Twitter to be a directional leading indicator and predict Ted Cruz to break away from the other Republican candidates in the coming weeks. This visualization, based on the algorithm, shows Ted Cruz gradually pulling away from Ben Carson and Marco Rubio.
Interestingly, we find a relationship between Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton, such that when the difference between their scores decreases, Rubio surpasses Clinton in direct comparison polls.
Taken together, we predict the 2016 Democrat Presidential Nominee to be:
We predict the 2016 Republican Presidential Nominee to be:
If not,
Based on his ranking according to the algorithm in addition to his standing in direct comparison polls with Clinton, we believe the 2016 Republican Vice Presidential Nominee to be:
For more details about the study, please email ash487@stern.nyu.edu
Special thanks to Troy Manos, Tarang Dawer, and Keita Shimizu.
“I come from the ‘60s, a long time ago,” Hillary Clinton said at Saturday’s Democratic Presidential debate, in response to a question about student activism. The gaffe has mostly fallen on deaf ears.
Hillary Clinton is 68 years old. She was born October 26, 1947. Here is a visualization showing the age distribution of US Presidents upon assuming the Oval Office.
To date, only three US Presidents between the ages 65-69 have assumed the Oval Office. Once again, Hillary Clinton is 68 years old. She “come(s) from the ‘60s, a long time ago.”
Granted, the US population is aging. However, when selecting Presidents, this aging US population has trended towards younger Presidents.
Age upon assuming Oval Office: Barack Obama, 47 years old; George W. Bush, 54 years old; Bill Clinton, 46 years old.
Hillary wishes to dispel the age perception. HFA recently posted the SnapChat logo wearing a most recognizable pantsuit.
Of all the social networks, Snapchat skews youngest. According to Business Insider, 45% of Snapchat users are between the ages 18-24.
Thus, a strategy has emerged: capture the young mind. Win the unspoiled voter, who is excited by the prospect of casting her first vote. Btw, Hillary uses Snapchat.
Further evidence of the strategy:
Twitter Banner displaying young prospective voters
HFA blog post appealing to youth and “a new age”
We should expect age to become a louder issue as the campaigns unfold. For reference, here are the ages of all the candidates, both Democrats and Republicans. Those between the ages 44- 60 are in bold.
Hilary Clinton, 68 years old
Bernie Sanders, 74 yeards old
Martin O’Malley, 52 years old
Donald Trump, 69 years old
Ben Carson, 64 years old
Marco Rubio, 44 years old
Ted Cruz, 44 years old
Jeb Bush, 62 years old
Carly Fiorina, 61 years old
John Kasich, 63 years old
Rand Paul, 52 years old
Emotion drives our decision-making. By appealing to emotion, others can persuade us to make decisions. We experience this during political campaigns.
Donald Trump knows the power of emotion. A charismatic leader, Trump infuses his speeches with appeals to emotion. Sentiment analysis makes this clear.
Comparing Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I sampled tweets from their respective profiles, published between Monday October 5, 2015, and Sunday October 11, 2015. Using sentiment analysis, each tweet was given a score between -1, the most negative, and +1, the most positive. Plotted across the 7 days, the results are displayed below, with Trump in red and Hillary in blue.
Trump exhibits a noisier sentiment artifact. Trump has almost no tweets with a sentiment score of 0. Trump peaks at +1 nine times; Hillary peaks at +1 three times. Using statistics, we see with Trump there is a greater range of sentiment, with a tendency towards positive sentiment. The Median Sentiment for Donald Trump is 0.21, whereas the Median Sentiment for Hillary Clinton is 0. The Standard Deviation for Donald Trump is 0.39, whereas the Standard Deviation for Hillary Clinton is 0.30.
| Donald Trump | Hillary Clinton | |
| Median Sentiment | 0.21 | 0.00 |
| Standard Deviation | 0.39 | 0.30 |
So why does this matter? Noisy sentiment drives engagement.
The chart below shows average tweet engagement for the respective profiles, for tweets published between Monday October 5, 2015, and Sunday October 11, 2015.
| Donald Trump | Hillary Clinton | |
| Avg. Retweets | 1028 | 783 |
| Avg. Favorites | 2136 | 1196 |
– Trump received 1.31 retweets for every 1 retweet Clinton received
– Trump received 1.79 favorites for every 1 favorite Clinton received
So while some political analysts doubt Trump’s ability to win over the Republican Establishment, these findings clearly show Trump resonates with the people who have direct access to him on Twitter. Like television before it, social media has ushered in a new era of political campaign strategy, and we must ask, how will this new means of communication influence the selection of the Republican Presidential Nominee.
Like television before it, social media has ushered in a new era of political campaign strategy. Over the next year these strategies will evolve, in terms of resource allocation and audience targeting.
This visualization displays Twitter Engagement and Money Raised by GOP Candidates (source: Twitter API & Federal Election Commission). For Twitter Engagement, the orange is Average Retweets, and the Blue is Average Favorites. We see Donald Trump with highest Twitter Engagement and lowest Money Raised in Q3 2015. Rather than raising money from wealthy individuals, Trump has leveraged his celebrity status to propel himself top of mind among the American public. While some question the legitimacy of Trump’s intention to run, the more legitimate question is how will social media shape modern politics, as voters now have greater access to the candidates, some of whom have “celebrity” status?
It has been written 15% of all Internet traffic is cat-related. Whether you believe this statistic, there is no doubt cats inhabit the digital space. To cite more popular examples, we have encountered LOL Cats, Grumpy Cat, and Lil’ Bub…what cuties! To date, there are 72 million media tagged as “cat” on instagram.
With so many kitties purring around the interwebz, how might a content creator know where to start? Well I have created a visualization showing the most popular cat breeds by hashtag on instagram. Enjoy, and MEEEEEEEOW!!!
