http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2010/04/how-tweet-it-is-library-acquires-entire-twitter-archive/
So we've finally managed to obtain an archival record of not only VITs--Very Important Tweets--but also every celebritweet, facepalm, and slip of the finger observation. On one hand, I'm a bit unnerved that many of my 16,000 tweets over the last three plus years will be available for casual perusing...forever. On the higher ed front, however, I'm actually excited about the possibility of now being able to retrieve archives for previously-tweeted events that were hashtagged, but fell off the recoverable Twitter timeline. This would support an argument for better hashtagging and recordkeeping via Twitter.
Every public tweet, ever, since Twitter's inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. That's a LOT of tweets, by the way: Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets every day, with the total numbering in the billions. ... Expect to see an emphasis on the scholarly and research implications of the acquisition. I'm no Ph.D., but it boggles my mind to think what we might be able to learn about ourselves and the world around us from this wealth of data. And I'm certain we'll learn things that none of us now can even possibly conceive.
Interesting times.
Two interesting things about this announcement. First, Cole had lamented the loss of his class's use of twitter when he taught Disruptive Technologies two years ago. Hopefully, he'll be able to dig back into that if he wants to.
Second, in today's Collegian, there is an article about the UPUA Student Life and Diversity Chairman who resigned because of racist and homophobic comments that he made on Twitter. He deleted his Twitter account, but the Library of Congress will have a record of his Tweets for the rest of his life.
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2010/04/15/upua_student_life_and_diversit.aspx
I feel sympathy for the guy. College students sometimes say really stupid things, learn from them, and become better people. But that may not have happened if he had just made the comments in private.
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From what I've read, if you delete the tweet or delete your account the tweets go away -- even from the LoC.
This move will be huge for research. Up until this point I was working back room deals to get at the tweets from ci597 two years ago. Now we can do what we need to do without pulling teeth. It is a very interesting and welcomed move!