Exactly where do all the world's tweets come from? This visualization was put together by researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute and it shows off the origins of the entire globe's tweets.
It includes a sample of 20 percent of the planet's geocoded tweets taking during a week long period in March this year, showing 4.5 million data points. It shows off the most prolific twitteres - for geocoded tweets are the United States, Brazil, Indonesia, UK, Mexico and Malaysia. We made the map!
It also shows off the intensity, Twitter penetration which means the darker the rectangle the higher the percentage of internet users on Twitter, making Brazil and Malaysia stand out as the forward looking countries.
By mapping the distribution of tweets in the world it becomes apparent that Twitter is allowing for broader participation than is possible in most other platforms and media. In other words, it might be allowing for a 'democratization' of information production and sharing because of its low barriers to entry and adaptability to mobile devices. Similarly barriers to the dissemination of information, such as censorship, are also visible through the small proportion of tweets originating in China (home to the largest population of internet users in the world).
While on 1 percent of all tweets are geocoded in the first place, some countries may tend to geocode more than others. [Oxford Internet Institute]
