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Twitter is being used by Londoners in the battle against hay fever.
Tissue maker Kleenex is using the networking site to create an online hay fever map which locates pollen hotspots. These will be plotted using information posted by Tweeters in their 140-character messages.
Kleenex is encouraging sufferers to make updates about the strength of their symptoms and postcode, adding the tag "atishoo" to their tweet. The company then creates an ever-updating map using Google Maps.
Use the interactive map above to zoom in and find London's hayfever hotspots
With the bulk of British Twitter users based in London, the capital's map is expected to develop rapidly.
Martina Jezdikova, brand manager of Kleenex, said: "The hay fever season is generally a miserable time for many Londoners but this map allows those in high pollen-count areas to prepare themselves adequately."
Londoners tend to suffer more because of high levels of air pollution.
Colour key:
Blue - Low
Green - Low-Medium
Yellow- Medium
Orange - Medium-High
Red - High
Simply send a Tweet with the first half of your postcode, how bad your hayfever is (from 1-5). You'll also need to add a tag, #atishoo so that we can find your tweet.
It should look like this:
#atishoo SE1 3/5
Reader views (3)
How on earth do you check this tweet site out....tried to enter my postal code but can't seem to get anywhere?
- Sarah, London, 04/06/2009 15:35
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'...the capital's map is expected to develop rapidly'. And fade quite rapidly too I imagine as people get board of tweeting their sneezes.
Kleenex have got their free advertising, job done. Perhaps Dulux paints could ask us all to tweet when we're watching paint dry...?
- Stuart, London, 04/06/2009 14:39
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Its funny, but there seems to be a correlation between major population centres and the number of people reporting hay fever. Yet where nobody lives, nobody is reporting the pollen count. Funny that....
- George, London, 04/06/2009 11:28
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