Anzac `tweets' to be mapped on internet -- historian

Academics plan to capture an electronic ``map'' of some New Zealander's experiences of Anzac Day next week in the ``twitter-verse''.
Anyone who tweets within a 800km radius of Wellington and uses words such as Gallipoli, Anzac, Anzac Day or World War 1 will have their tweets collated on a Google map of New Zealand.
In many cases the tweets will be recorded with the GPS location from which they were sent, and they will be archived for future historians interested in exploring Anzac Day and its role in New Zealand society and the 100th anniversaries of World War 1 and the Gallipoli campaign approach.
``I am hoping to generate an interesting data set for future academics, as well as providing a fascinating map for New Zealanders today of how we make sense of this event,'' historian Michael Harcourt said.
The project had been set up by a Californian ``centre for digital humanities'' as a trial run after the centre successfully mapped tweets from the Egypt uprising in February.
Mr Harcourt, chairman of a Wellington area history teachers' association, said the tweets would be collected over a week from April 20.
Afterward, it was hoped that researchers could specify a place, approximate time and specific keywords to map the tweets. One day this might be extended to photographs and videos on the internet.
Mr Harcourt said that, ``understandably'', few people involved in the Egypt uprising had chosen to specify where they were while tweeting.
``I am hoping that this Anzac week many people will enable the GPS on their devices to allow their exact geospatial co-ordinates to be recorded,'' he said.
``From this it may be possible to see patterns in the different ways people in New Zealand are making meaning of Anzac Day according to time and place.''
The site, http://anzacday2011.hypercities.com, was part of a larger project called HyperCities that allowed users to integrate historical maps and Google's Earth website to explore the cultural and social layers of city spaces.
Mr Harcourt said that he was separately building three historical maps of Wellington, with historical references pinned to specific sites.