From the website:
The ICWSM 2011 Data Challenge introduces a brand-new dataset, the 2011 ICWSM Spinn3r dataset. This dataset includes blogs from Spinn3r over a 33 day period, from January 13th, 2011 through February 14th, 2011. See here for details on how to obtain the collection.
Since the new collection spans some rather extraordinary world events, this year introduces a specific task: to locate significant posts in the collection which are relevant to the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. The criterion for “significant relevance” is that the post is worthy of being shared by you, an observer, with a friend. To participate in the task, we will ask that you submit a ranked list of items in the collection, and we will do some form of relevance judgments and scoring in time for the conference.
The data challenge will culminate at ICWSM 2011 with a special workshop. To participate in the workshop, you must submit a 3-page short paper in PDF format and bring a poster to present at the workshop. The short papers will not be reviewed, but the workshop organizers will select a small panel of speakers based on the submissions. The short paper/poster can describe your participation in the shared task, OR ALTERNATIVELY other compelling work you have performed WITH THE 2011 DATASET.
Submissions will be due on April 22, 2011. Details on the submission process will be posted soon.
Oh, just briefly about the collection:
The dataset consists of over 386 million blog posts, news articles, classifieds, forum posts and social media content between January 13th and February 14th. It spans events such as the Tunisian revolution and the Egyptian protests (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2011 for a more detailed list of events spanning the dataset’s time period).
If you are going to be in Barcelona (the conference location), why not submit an entry using topic maps?