Social Media Data collection via Zeeschuimer, data analysis via NodeXL Pro > Data > Import > Import from file…

The talented team at the Zeeschuimer project from the DMI at the University of Amsterdam has created a powerful tool for social media researchers! This add-in for the Firefox web browser allows users to record the data they see when they scroll past posts and comments on a wide variety of social media platforms. While easy access to social media platforms was previously a common feature on social media platforms which offered public APIs that made software projects easy to integrate, this is no longer the case. Many platforms removed public access to their APIs or never offered a public API. Web scraping is one alternative, but it faces many technical obstacles as well. But the Zeeschuimer approach is not web scraping, it is web recording. Users load Zeeschuimer, then navigate to a supported social media platform and scroll normally through their search results or feeds. Zeeschuimer leverages the “record” feature most web browsers have, which allows all traffic between the browser and the server to be written to a local file.

The result is an “ndjson” format file containing all the data seen exchanged as you browse a social media platform. NodeXL Pro now imports the files generated by the Zeeschuimer system for TikTok, Instagram, X, Threads, and X/Twitter. Support for additional platforms will follow. NodeXL Pro version .546 and later will now recognize the files from Zeeschuimer and the type of platform that is recorded, and automatically configure the NodeXL Pro > Data > Import > Import from file… dialog to properly parse and import the data collected.

This means that a large collection of social media platforms can be added to the list that NodeXL users can easily access for research or analysis.