Florida primary: Does Twitter 'joy' for Romney signal victory?

Florida primary: Does Twitter 'joy' for Romney signal victory?: Republicans in Florida went to the polls Tuesday to cast what could be a decisive vote in the GOP race for the White House, a contest marked so far by the fluctuating fortunes of those still vying for their party's nomination. On Twitter, both nationally and in Florida, Mitt Romney's prospects appear bright, according to an analysis of social sentiment by San Francisco-based Kanjoya. Romney -- who suffered a stinging 12-percentage-point loss to Gingrich in South Carolina -- has been the subject of daily and hourly increases in "joyfulness," according to Kanjoya project manager Kumar Garapaty. MOOD METER: Track the nation's mood on the candidates to assess emotional language in social media, Kanjoya uses an algorithm that was derived from work done on the Experience Project, which has collected more than 14 million personal stories since 2007. Unlike in South Carolina, where Kanjoya analysts tracked rising "joy" around Romney to people tweeting happiness about his defeat, the sentiment Tuesday appeared to be tied to his chance of winning. As a self-proclaimed "30ish Republican Lady"  tweeted early Tuesday morning Happy voting day! Are you heading to the polls? Tell us what you're seeing. At his final campaign stop Tuesday, Romney told reporters: "If we're successful here, it'll be pretty clear that when attacked you have to respond and you can't let charges go unanswered." The strategy appears to be working. Over the last eight hours, Kanjoya has found 20% of the Romney tweets assessed as joyful contain the words "presidential, primary, leads, confident, victory." As for Newt Gingrich? Ten days after the former House speaker took South Carolina in a decisive victory, Kanjoya found an increase in "surprise" around Gingrich. The reason? Turns out it was only loosely tied to his performance on the campaign trail. Kanjoya analysts said the trend appears to be tied to the controversy about Gingrich playing the "Eye of the Tiger" song at his rallies. Kanjoya officials caution there are things to keep in mind when analyzing language for emotion. Company founder Armen Berjikly said language can be difficult to interpret correctly, with research finding people agree about the intent of statements about 80% of the time. And not all tweets can be assigned an emotion -- roughly 40% captured by their algorithm qualify.