Now, this is interesting.

These days, I've been working a lot with social networking and new social media, primarily in the forms of this blog, Facebook, and Twitter. It fascinates me that with one touch of a button, I can direct all of my friends - friends on vacation in Connecticut and Colorado, friends just a few miles from this office, and even friends in the Ukraine - to read this blog post that you - wherever you happen to be - are reading right now. I'm also interested in what other people are doing with these technologies - this morning in particular, those people are researchers at Northeastern University and Harvard University.

The project, called "Pulse of the Nation: U.S. Mood Through the Day, as inferred from Twitter", pretty much does exactly what the title describes - it looks at Twitter updates across the United States throughout the day and determines the general mood.

Perhaps, like me, you're a more visual person. You're in luck! There's a video, which I've embedded below.

To learn how it works, visit the Pulse of the Nation website! I would try to explain, but let's face it: it will be easier for both of us (you'll actually understand how it works; I'll avoid making embarrassing mistakes and just generally being confused) if you check out their website.

Most interesting bit to me? The fact that people are supposedly so happy in the morning. I like the morning, but the graphs on the Pulse of the Nation page indicate that people are at their happiest at 6 AM. That seems a little extreme to me.

One last question, purely out of curiosity: are you more likely to update your personal Twitter when you're happy, or are you more likely to update when you're upset? Or, like me, do you forget that it exists for longer than is probably acceptable?