What is the self contradiction that "Firehose" service possesses the possibility to save Twitter that is in trouble?

The issue of "monetization" is always on Twitter, and every time we announce our earnings, we are struggling to establish it as a business so much that information on "sale" overflows. The Twitter is a service that collectively provides users' massive tweets informationFirehoseIt is expected to be a promising revenue source in the Twitter service struggling to monetize, but by selling information to the Firehose service, it loses its strength as Twitter's information dissemination tool It seems that I have a big contradiction that it can not be replaced.

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Tweet users who tweet a lot of tweets have the possibility to use it for information analysis as valuable big data if it is not useful as a unit of data even if it is not profitable on a standalone basis. Twitter himself knows the value that it has as an aggregate of such tweets, and Twitter sells Streaming API that can be accessed all the time in tweets that are constantly overflowing to some companies. This service is called "Firehose", for example, Google uses "Firehose" to provide "real time search" service.


Twitter does not reveal the offer price of Firehose, but in the court battle with Firehose company that occurred in 2012, the offer price of Firehose will be at least $ 1 million per year (about 105 million yen ) It is clear that it is clear that it is over. According to the financial results for the second quarter of 2016, the data licensing division of Twitter posted a 35% increase in profit compared with the same period last year, still advertising revenue of 90% of the revenue of 533 million dollars (about 56 billion yen) Although it supports it, Firehose 's access rights sales business has shown a sharp rise and has the potential to grow into a powerful revenue source for Twitter.

However, there are circumstances in Twitter that I am unhappy to give up Firehose business. Among companies using Firehose, there are companies that independently analyze a large amount of tweet data and use the access right to the purchased tweet data to sell and provide analysis results as information, such as Austin Hold the base ofSnaptrendsThat one. For customers providing this tweet analysis tool, Snaptrends restricts not only private enterprises but also freely expressions on the Internet such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, censors information and controls information Government related institutions of the country are included.

Twitter services are considered to be one of the big threats for government agencies wanting information control. Anti-government demonstration activities occurred mainly in the Middle East since 2010 "Arab Spring"As a result of showing the power of Twitter as an information spreading tool in many ways, monitoring Twitter to contain anti-government organization activities became a natural act for government agencies. In addition, action to monitor the speech on Twitter has already been generalized to pick up the bud of anti-government activity.

ByAK Rockefeller

In 2013 research, one out of every three Internet users of Saudi Arabia uses Twitter, which is much more than the United States, one in every five people in the world. However, in Saudi Arabia, which has many users using Twitter, examples of cases arrested due to a manifestation of intention on Twitter are continuing, for example, in September 2012 "down with the House of Saud (Saud familyTwitter user named Vader · Sabab was arrested on Twitter because of tweet, and in April 2014, the user of a wheelchair Tranvin · Bakuhito who complained about complaints on medical service on Twitter 100 times There is a case that a whiplash of whale and 18 months of work are being imposed.

The Saudi Arabian government is considered to be oppressing people with anti-government philosophy by analyzing Firehose data, and Twitter helps crackdown on government speech by selling access rights to Firehose There is a composition that it is closed.

According to Snaptrends, it is not limited to government agencies that uses data analysis from Firehose, it is revealed that police officials believe that they can use it to survey suspect 's "living behavior pattern". Since 9.11, in the United States is being chased by the act of terrorist acts of terrorism, we use information from Twitter to counter terrorism. Tweets are only 2% of the total geotagged to identify location information, but by analyzing other tweets you can identify the location of twenty percent of the Tweets and Snipptrends Eric Krasson CEO says. Of the tweets taken out of Firehose, pure text data is only 3% of the total, and information that should be called other personal information, such as geotags that can identify the tweeted place, is provided and it is said that the University of California Berkeley "Said Gerald Freeland of the school.


It is pointed out that the reality that a disadvantage can be felt by tweets has made the most influential customers who have used Twitter enthusiastically have hesitated to express their own ideas freely. Fireworth, a powerful revenue source other than advertising revenue for Twitter, which is struggling in terms of business, offers Twitter 's fundamental "Twitter is a tool to promote world freedom of speech" It can be said that it is contradictory to take the risk of reversing the service principle from the root. Jack Dorsey, who announced at the announcement of its performance in July 2016, "User safety is one of the five priorities to bear this year," CEO of Jack Dorss was forced to hand over the handling of Firehose It seems to be.