From Earthquakes to "#morecowbell": Identifying Sub-topics in Social Network Communications

Social networking websites have become a vital means of communication that can provide information on various topics. The real time nature of the information published on social networking websites coupled with their accessibility as a publishing platform make them a powerful tool for information gathering. Furthermore, many individuals utilize these sorts of platforms to share their knowledge and opinions with others. While this information is useful, there exist a number of challenges to effectively use social networks to gather information about a topic. We propose a methodology that automatically detects sub-topics and groups the social networking messages accordingly.