[WayneS]

I have the same quick question I had the first time this article was posted today, and which no one answered:

If the project "began in 2011 at Indiana University following the awarding of $919,917 grant", then how could it have "tracked up to 8 million tweets per day in the run up to the 2010 midterms?

[piasa]

Maybe rather than payment proceeding the project, it was a retroactive grant rewarding someone for work already done. Creative financing. A prof could have had a pet project and after a while discovered it could be flipped to a profitable one.