Identifying and forecasting shifts in the mood of social media users

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9015089-B2
Application number	US-201313750230-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 25, 2013
Priority date	Apr 17, 2012
Publication date	Apr 21, 2015
Grant date	Apr 21, 2015

Abstract

Quantitatively identifying and forecasting shifts in a mood of social media users is described. An example method includes categorizing the textual messages generated from the social media users over a selected period of time into a plurality of word categories, with each word category containing a set of words associated with the mood of social media users. A score indicating an intensity of the mood of the social media users is calculated for each word category, wherein a value of the score and its corresponding time point define a data point for the word category. Subsequently, breakpoints in the mood of social media users are determined so that the breakpoints minimize a sum of square errors representing a measurement of a consistency of all data points from inferred values of the scores of the data points derived using the breakpoints over the selected period of time. Further, space of all possible breakpoints for the word categories are searched to identify a defined number and locations of the breakpoints. Finally the breakpoints over the selected period of time are interpreted to identify the shifts in the mood of social media users and trends between breakpoints.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A quantitative method for identifying shifts in a mood of social media users, comprising:
categorizing textual messages generated from the social media users over a selected period of time into a plurality of word categories, wherein each word category contains a set of words associated with the mood of social media users;
for each word category, calculating a score representing an intensity of the mood of the social media users, wherein a value of the sco…

Assignees

• Mitre Corp

Inventors

• Servi Leslie David
• Elson Sara Beth

Classifications

• G06Q10/00 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F40/289 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06N3/08 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic