A mobile visualization platform for exploring social media data

Abstract

With the increasing application of using mobile device and social media, large amount of continuous information about human behaviors is available. Data visualization provides an insightful presentation for the large-scale social media datasets. The focus of this paper is on the development of a mobile-device based visualization and analysis platform for social media data for the purpose of retrieving and visualizing visitors’ information for a specific region. This developed platform allows users to view the “big picture” of the visitors’ locations information. The result shows that the developed platform 1) performs a satisfied data collection and data visualization on a mobile device, 2) assists users to understand the varieties of human behaviors while visiting a place, and 3) offers a feasible role in imaging immediate information from social media and leading to further policy-making in related sectors and areas. Future research opportunities and challenges for social media data visualization are discussed.Keywords: Social media, data visualization, mobile device