In an interesting, yet not so surprising, read from NPR a story about how the FBI wants to track and visualize social media activity using geospatial technology and mapping apps – sounds a lot like what Esri has been doing with their Social news maps and GeoCommons (GeoIQ) with social media map mashups. Apparently, NPR shares that the Bureau wants to access “publicly available information” like Twitter and facebook updates (are these data really public?) and then create geospatial alerts based on suspicious activity.
From the article… “According to the document, the bureau is looking for a mapping app — or a “geospatial alert and analysis mapping application” — that, among other things, helps it search “publicly available” sources like Facebook and Twitter for national security threats.”
For an example of an Esri Social map see also The Esri Occupy Wall Street Social Media Map
