When it’s not busy playing host to cryptocurrency scams, Twitter remains a widely adopted platform for the distribution of bite-sized information. For that reason alone, it’s well-suited to sharing real-time data — especially via charts and graphics.
Enter the world of visualization bots: automated tools that hunt down data, parse and visualize it, then post the resulting images to social media. Consider the BBC Election Bot, which visualized the results of the UK’s 2019 general election as it happened (and which inspired this post).
In this piece, RJI Fellow Clayton Aldern lays out the five main steps it takes to assemble a visualization bot — all via open-source tools any newsroom can leverage for free. He won’t be covering the ins and outs of computer-science best practices; the priority here is getting a viable tool as quickly as possible.
