This is nonsense - I know people in quant funds who have tried to do things like this. All the boring stuff that Google doesn't care about, like SEC filings and Quarterly Reports, matter far more than aggregate attention. I'm sorry but if you're making decisions for a multi-million dollar fund, and you tell investors that your investments are based on the twitterings of the unwashed masses, you'll be sent home before you've had your lunch.

Even if there is value in their data (and I do imagine enough PhD's could find some reasonable strategies) - there would be such a public outcry that it wouldn't be worth it from a PR perspective.