[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

Twitter is launching its own political index, a daily measurement of Twitter users’ feelings towards the candidates as expressed in nearly two million Tweets each week. The Twitter Political Index is built in partnership with the data analysis team at Topsy and the polling firms Mellman Group and North Star Opinion Research. USA Today will be using the Index to create the USA Today/Twitter election meter throughout the campaign.

Adam Sharp, Head of Government, News and Social Innovation: Each day, the Index evaluates and weighs the sentiment of Tweets mentioning Obama or Romney relative to the more than 400 million Tweets sent on all other topics. For example, a score of 73 for a candidate indicates that Tweets containing their name or account name are on average more positive than 73 percent of all Tweets.