Word Cloud, an interesting lens + tracking tool

Two months after I posted my word cloud, I revisited it via Tweetstats, and can see how by looking at a word cloud over time, I can track how my focus has shifted.

I use a lot of short URLs, via Hootsuite –hence the looming OW factor!

But also News and Flu has come into play. The latter has loomed large ‘cos I’ve talked about the communications implications of  my social media engagement around swine flu, and pandemic planning exercises at Decision Theater, my workplace.

My marketing and media side tells me that this would be a great way to keep track of a long term event.

Speaking of which, here’s a word cloud (left) about news in Iran –with an interesting visual twist. It was made from 84,000 tweets.

Word and Tag clouds could be used from variety of crowd-sourced sites. Take this: I looked up a word tag cloud on Michael Jackson –from people who tagged stories via Delicious. You can be sure the cloud’s focus would move from ‘legacy’ and ‘Barbara Walters’ to messier topics such as estate, drugs etc.