Social Feed Manager

Capture social media data for research and building collections

About Social Feed Manager

UPDATE: The information on these pages is not being maintained. Social Feed Manager documentation has complete information on this app up through version m5_004 (October 2015 release). A re-architected Social Feed Manager is in the works during the winter of 2015/2016. Monitor developments of the new application on Github or join the sfm-dev Google Group.


Social Feed Manager is a prototype application developed by George Washington University Libraries to collect social media data from Twitter and potentially other social media sources. It connects to Twitter's approved API to collect data in bulk and makes it possible for scholars, students, and librarians to identify, select, collect, and preserve Twitter data for research purposes.

We received an IMLS Sparks! Ignition grant in 2013 to support further development of Social Feed Manager. The grant supports our collaboration with the University of North Texas, Yale University, the Center for Jewish History, and other cultural heritage organizations to enhance the application. The funded work will result in a robust, reliable application, implemented and tested in multiple institutions, that is documented and available for use, study, copying, and modification under a free and open source software license.

Current uses

At GW Libraries, we use Social Feed Manager to:

History and credits

Dan Chudnov (@dchud) created Social Feed Manager in 2012. A team of developers is contributing to further improvement of the application, including Dan Kerchner (@kerchner).