back to article Twitter a poor predictor of movie success

Twitter users' reviews of movies are kinder than those found on other social networks, but none are good predictors of how a film will fare at the box office. That's one of the findings from a study of movie-related Tweets, plus posts to IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, by a trio of Princeton students. Why Watching Movie Tweets Won' …

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  1. ratfox

    How much of Twitter traffic is astroturfing?

    That's the problem with crowd sourcing from unverified sources. As soon as it becomes popular, it becomes full of fake reports.

  2. Studley

    Randomness

    Funny how researchers from HP identified the exact opposite findings in 2010. It's almost like Twitter users are fickle, random, and not mind-readers.

    And if we're having a "marketing rethink", please PLEASE get rid of trailers featuring "real" people giving their "real" stupid reactions on films? Cheers.

  3. Khaptain Silver badge

    Fundamental flaw

    * Twitter is full of "social media" users.

    * Cinema are usually full of Cinema goers. ( Is "goers" a real word ?)....

    How do they truly expect to correlate between the two.

    Or are they correlating the fact that the cinema often has a dozen or so twats using their "very bright" smart phones in the audience.

    I seem to remember that being called a "Twit" was akin to being called an idiot, on a minor scale...... I suppose therefore that being a Twitter user is therefore akin to Collective Idiotism

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Khaptain

      In English we have a punctuation symbol called a 'question mark'. It looks like this: ?

      It is the accepted convention to place one of these at the end of a sentence to designate that it comprises a question.

      1. DAN*tastik
        Headmaster

        Re: @Khaptain

        I find your punctuative pendantry extremely irritating. Mainly because it has reached heights mine can only dream of. So far at least. I had to upvote you.

        I hope you will be equally keen to correct "would of"ers and "should of"ers. I am tired of fighting illiteracy on my own.

        1. Khaptain Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: @Khaptain

          Mea Culpa, I bow down before my puntuation overlords.

          A couple of things that I truly wish for :

          - A spell check option on ElRegs comment box.

          - The ability to edit posts ( Dear El Reg, please , pretty please, give us this option ).

          - More time to write comments - Quite often I write them whilst answering the telephone or performing some other mundane task. I know, I know that I should stop and take the time but then El Reg would be a lot less of a fun place to hang out.

          I know that this is not a real excuse but I actually speak French all day and my English is taking a severe hit. I am far more likely to be writing a powerpoint, full of bullet points and very little punctation that I am to be writing any serious piece of grammar.

          On top of all that I was a very poor English student, which is obvious really....

          Please accept my humblest, most subservient apologies. All hail the El Reg commentards, without them pedantry would lose its attraction.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @Khaptain

            A couple of things that I truly wish for :

            - A spell check option on ElRegs comment box.

            If you use a decent browser such Firefox and install a dictionary extension you will find that the comment box is spell checked for you.

        2. SYNTAX__ERROR
          Happy

          @ DAN*tastik

          Fear not, Dan. No longer must you fight alone.

  4. Jeebus

    Twitter users in worthless opinions none shock.

  5. Suricou Raven

    We already knew this.

    So... we learn that a movie can get the very worst of universially terrible reviews, and yet still be a box-office hit? But we've had three Transformers movies already - what more proof do you need? I have never heard a single statement in defence of those movies, yet they rake in the cash. I think by number three people were just watching out of curious desire to see how Bay manged to insult the audience this time.

  6. Keep Refrigerated
    Paris Hilton

    Box Office Success

    Presumably it only needs to be measured by the number of Twits confirming they watched it - positive or negative - they still bought a ticket.

    Of course whether the film is a stinker or not determines things like awards, sequels and what the director will work on next - but plenty of great films earned cult status after failing miserably at the box office.

  7. Jolyon Smith

    Hold the front page!!

    The "me too" attention seeking generation that pumps twitter full of it's inane drivel are NOT a good guide to a movie's success ?

    Well who woulda thunk it ?!

    Lemme guess. The movies that DO get good reviews are Twilight, Red Riding Hood, Smurfs and Harry f***ing Potter, right ?

    Twitter is (in the main) little more than the equivalent of internet graffiti. Maybe the world is finally starting to wake up to that fact.

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