Using Twitter to gauge the mood pulse of the US

An interesting study that uses twitter posts analyzed against a word list that shows the various moods of the US over time: Pulse of the Nation: U.S. Mood Throughout the Day inferred from Twitter. They show the various states in a map where the size of the state indicates the volume of tweets and colours indicate the various moods. Interesting depiction is that the West Coast is consistently happier than the rest of the county.