Twitter is opening its vast data reserves to selected research institutions, who could use it to predict flu outbreaks and other events.
"With more than 500 million tweets a day, Twitter has an expansive set of data from which we can glean insights and learn about a variety of topics," says Raffi Krikorian, Twitter's head of platform engineering in a Thursday blog post.
"To date, it has been challenging for researchers outside the company who are tackling big questions to collaborate with us to access our public, historical data."
Institutions can apply for free access to the "Twitter Data Grants" program until March 15. A "small number" will be selected.
The usefulness of Twitter data was underlined in October when NSW firefighters used tweets to help map and respond to bushfires that tore through Sydney's outskirts.
CSIRO-designed software sounded an alarm whenever a cluster of signal words, such as "fire" and "evacuation", were detected in tweets.
The software is monitoring tweets all over Australia in a bid to provide early warnings about other types of emergencies, including tsunamis, earthquakes and cyclones.
