Microblogging in Open Source Software Development: The Case of Drupal and Twitter

Microblogging is a popular form of social media that has quickly permeated both enterprise and open source communities. However, exactly how open source communities can leverage microblogging isn't yet well understood. The authors investigate how Drupal's open source community uses Twitter, a household name in microblogging. Their analysis of group and individual accounts of Drupal developers reveals that they take on similar but distinct roles. Both serve as communicators of essential links to a vast and growing community knowledge base, such as work artifacts, issues, documentation, and blog posts, but community members often express positive emotions when tweeting about work, which reinforces a sense of community.