Dipl.-Betriebsw. Timm O. Sprenger

In my research I explore the information content of microblogs and study in how far microblogging platforms such as Twitter can be used as an indicator of events in the offline world. I am fascinated by the use of electronic platforms to leverage collective intelligence. This includes both tools specifically esigned for that purpose (such as prediction markets), but also social media (e.g., microblogging platforms) where the content may also be interpreted as an information market.With a recent focus on the latter of these two areas, we have started a project to explore in how far microblogging platforms such as Twitter can be used as an indicator of events in the real world. We have already shown that Twitter messages can be used to predict election results and reflect the political landscape quite well. Due to my professional background in the financial industry, I currently examine whether Twitter can serve as an indicator of financial market activity. Other research areas that interest me are the use of microblogging as a channel for corporate communication and the reflection of brand sentiment on Twitter. Methodologically, we use dictionary-based and machine learning tools to classify message board content automatically and so extract the sentiment contained in the postings.

Working Papers and Work in Progress

Sprenger, T. & Welpe, I. (2011). Followers and foes: Industry classification based on investor perceptions of strategic peer groups (February 26, 2011). [Link to SSRN working paper version]

Sprenger, T. & Welpe, I. (2011). News or noise? The stock market reaction to different types of company-specific news events (January 4, 2011). [Link to SSRN working paper version]

Sprenger, T. & Welpe, I. (2010). Tweets and trades: The information content of stock microblogs (November 1, 2010). [Link to SSRN working paper version]

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Tumasjan, A., Sprenger, T., Sandner, P., & Welpe, I. M. (forthcoming). "Where there is a sea there are pirates": Response to Jungherr, Jürgens, and Schoen. Social Science Computer Review (forthcoming). VHB-JQ3: - ; ISI-IF:

Tumasjan, A., Sprenger, T. Sandner, P., & Welpe, I. (2010). Election forecasts with Twitter: How 140 characters reflect the political landscape. Social Science Computer Review. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1177/0894439310386557 [Link to SSRN working paper version] VHB-JQ3: - ; ISI-IF:

Sprenger, T., Bolster, P. & Venkateswaran, A. (2007). Conditional Prediction Markets as Corporate Decision Support Systems – an Experimental Comparison with Group Deliberation. Journal of Prediction Markets, 1(3), 189-208. VHB-JQ3: - ; ISI-IF:

Other Publications

Sprenger, T. (2011). TweetTrader.net: Leveraging crowd wisdom in a stock microblogging forum. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference of Weblogs and Social Media, Barcelona, Spain (forthcoming).

Feller, A., Kuhnert M., Sprenger, T. & Welpe, I. (2011). Divided They Tweet: The network structure of political microbloggers and discussion topics. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference of Weblogs and Social Media,Barcelona, Spain (forthcoming).

Tumasjan, A., Sprenger, T. Sandner, P. & Welpe, I. (2010). Predicting elections with Twitter: What 140 characters reveal about political sentiment. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of Weblogs and Social Media, Washington, D.C. [Link to video of the conference presentation]