Trend Explainer README

Justin Cheng Heran Yang Stephen Moseson

Data Sources

• Twitter API
  • Trends (http://apiwiki.twitter.com/w/page/22554753/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-trends-location)
  • Locations (http://apiwiki.twitter.com/w/page/22554752/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-trends-available)
• Bing API
  • Web search (http://www.bing.com/developers/s/API%20Basics.pdf)
• Wikipedia API
  • Search suggestions (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Opensearch)

Mashup

We take the top trending topics for a certain location at a certain time from Twitter, and then search Bing and Wikipedia to try to explain what these top trending topics mean. For example, if there is a trend "HelloWorld", we search Bing for "HelloWorld" and parse the top result description, and also Wikipedia for "HelloWorld" and parse the top result description. Each set of trending topics is stored as an entry in a feed corresponding to a specific location. In other words, each entry is a snapshot of the currently trending topics at a specific time at a specific location.

Installation

Requires Rails 3.0.5+, Ruby 1.9+ Run "bundle update" in the root folder of this project to install all required gems.