The Midwinter Tracker, which gathers tweets and Flickr photos related to Midwinter and displays them in one place, is now operational.
Developed by Heather Devine, the Midwinter Tracker currently includes materials that bear the hashtags #alamw10, #alamw, #alamwttt (for Top Tech Trends), and #totebag (for "ALA Midwinter Meeting Snark"). "The tracker for ALA Annual 2009 tracked 18 different hashtags, so I would anticipate that more will be added as hashtags are decided on for different events and activities," Devine said.
Users can view tweets and pictures by hashtag and by day, or display everything chronologically. Statistics are also available by tag or by day, and images can be navigated by thumbnail or by flipping through larger versions in a pop-up window. Plus, to combat "Twittephemeralness"—the difficulty of finding tweets once the event they reference is past—the Tracker has a database component that will archive tweets for access long after they become unsearchable on Twitter.
Devine developed the Tracker independently for Annual and the Special Libraries Association Annual Conference last year. More details about the initial concept and the 2009 Annual Tracker are available at Devine's blog, Flex Your Info.
