Reflections on a year at Uberlink

2016 was a year full of activity. Here is what happened at Uberlink:

In 2016, we were very pleased to celebrate VOSON's 10th birthday and over 2,500 users worldwide. 2016 was about focusing on VOSON users: we listened to their valuable feedback and we found areas to enhance the software.

We upgraded Free tier users to interface 2.0, updating User Guide and Quick Start Tutorial documentation. We also developed new and flexible subscription plans to suit our users' needs, including substantial discounts for students and classroom use. VOSON classroom use continued strongly, being taught at graduate and undergraduate levels as well as at various training workshops. Finally, during 2016, VOSON was widely used in the academia, being positively rated as hyperlink analytics tool in a study conducted at the University of Canberra.

After running the service continually for 6 years, in 2016 the NodeXL plug in functionality was phased out, so that we could devote resources to new product offerings.

In 2016, we launched the Twitter Analytics Service (TAS), which provides the ability to access real-time streaming data, and creates a variety of social networks based upon connections between Twitter users.

In the context of the Web Science Trust 10th Birthday Conference, three research examples involving the usage of network datasets derived from Twitter activity were presented. The datasets were collected in 2016 via Uberlink Twitter Analytics Service: The Australian Federal election project, with analytic datasets of 9M Tweets exploring the political conversation surrounding Australian politicians; the U.S. presidential debates, providing networks formed by 6.5M activities in Twitter, to researchers from Michigan State University to study democratic expectations and experiences of voters; and finally an analytic dataset containing 1.4M Tweets from the U.S. Presidential elections provided to Northwestern University, to be used by Masters students in their Predictive Analytics course.

We also designed and developed a brand new website in order to increase user experience and navigability. We included there more detailed information on services and a case studies section to give the user a better idea of how VOSON and other Uberlink products have been used in diverse contexts, including research, brand analysis, audience formation, and web presence studies, among others.

And for 2017, we are working on improving current features and implementing new and exciting functionalities within the hyperlink and social media network analysis spheres. Keep checking back with us at Uberlink to see what's new!