State of the Victoria Twittersphere – April 2010

Welcome to the fourth State of the Victoria Twittersphere, my look at the intersection of Twitter and Victoria, BC. You can see last month’s stats here.

For information on the data, definitions, and other background, click here.

For April 2010:

# of local users: 2755 (an increase of 289 over March)
# of tweets by local users: 112561
# of tweets by local users containing #yyj: 8561 (7.6%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 35218 (31.3%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 36733 (32.6%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 8783 (7.8%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 3645 (3.2%)

Here are the numbers above in graphic form:

Here are the top clients used by local users for posting updates:

Some other interesting stats for the month:

Just over 52% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
Local users posted roughly 2.6 tweets per minute in April (compared with 1.8 tweets per minute in March).
The day with the most local tweets posted was April 19 at 5740. On average, 3752 local tweets were posted each day (compared with 2634 in March).
Of the 35218 replies posted by local users this month, 11865 or 33.7% were to other local users.
A total of 526 users posted 50 times or more in March. In comparison, 241 users posted just once.

Here are the top ten most followed local users:

Here are the top ten most listed local users:

Here are the top ten most active local users:

Here are the top ten most active local users using #yyj:

Here are the top ten most replied to local users:

Here are the top ten most retweeted local users (by other local users):

Final Thoughts

I did some additional work on my algorithm for identifying local users, which accounts for the smaller increase in the number of users from last month. I think the “most retweeted” list is useful for measuring influence, though it alone doesn’t tell the whole story.

Just to clarify, the most retweeted list only accounts for standard-style retweets (those using Twitter’s retweet feature or those starting with RT @) made by other local users. I hope to improve this over time.

Celebrate Your Neighbourhood Spirit: Edmonton Community Challenge

Last July I attended an event called the Community Challenge, co-hosted by Edmonton Next Gen and the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues. Its purpose was to bring next-geners together to discuss how to improve and work with community leagues. That event was the first collaboration between the two organizations, and it was pretty successful!

Now NextGen and EFCL have teamed up again, this time for the Edmonton Community Challenge:

The Edmonton Community Challenge is a volunteer-driven event that aims to promote community spirit through friendly competition. By registering to join teams that represent community leagues throughout the city, individuals can support local charities, get to know others in their community, and win some great prizes! The event challenges will take place throughout the month of June, and teams will be rewarded based on a pre-determined point system for their energy, creativity, and commitment to sustainability.

I think it’s a neat idea. The big prize is a $15,000 fund for the winning community league which will be spent on a capital project in the neighbourhood. There are also smaller individual prizes to be won along the way.

Here’s how it works:

Register, by June 1.
Get a passport from your team captain.
Bring your passport when you participate in the events and get it stamped! The key events are the Pancake Breakfast (on ShareEdmonton), the Neighbourhood Cleanup (on ShareEdmonton), the 24 Hour Bike Repair-a-Thon (on ShareEdmonton), and the “Can It” Challenge (on ShareEdmonton).
Check the rankings. The team with the most points at the end of June wins.

If you need a little nudge to register, how about this: one of the prizes will be an Apple iPad! Remember, you have less than a week to register!

Stay tuned to the ECC website for news & updates, as well as Edmonton Next Gen on Twitter.

Mapping where Edmonton’s kids live and learn

On Friday evening, an interactive map I worked on with Edmonton Journal education reporter Sarah O’Donnell went live. Sarah’s first story based on the data was published in the paper today. Here’s our introduction to the project:

With five schools closing in Edmonton’s core and nine new suburban schools opening in September, education reporter Sarah O’Donnell wondered, “Just where do children live?” Local programmer Mack Male worked with The Journal to create an interactive map showing at a glance where children live and where they learn.

Here’s the map we created:

You can also see the map on ShareEdmonton here.

We showed a little of this at MediaCamp a few weeks ago, citing it as an example of traditional media and new media working together to tell a story. Newspapers like the New York Times often publish interactive story elements of course, but this is fairly new for the Journal. And I think it’s just the beginning!

I wanted to share a few notes on how the map was built:

I used the Google Maps Javascript API v2 to power the map.
Some of the JavaScript libraries I used (in addition to Google Maps) include: jQuery, RequireJS, and MapIconMaker.
Some of the data behind the map is available in the City of Edmonton’s data catalogue. The specific data sets include: Edmonton Public Schools, Edmonton Catholic Schools. You’ll also need the neighbourhood census data, which is available here (should be in the catalogue soon).
Data we used that isn’t in the catalogue (but should be): neighbourhood boundaries, EPSB & ECSD school attendance figures current as of September 2009.
I tried to minify, gzip, and cache as much as possible, so that the map loads quickly. It is noticeably slower on Internet Explorer than other browsers, and surprisingly fast on Chrome. This is because of the difference in performance of the various JavaScript engines.

It was an interesting experience for me! We had to double-check the data many times, and had to make decisions about how much/little to show. In that way, it was more like writing words than building a map. Thanks to Sarah for working with me on this!

Here’s what Sarah wrote in her story:

Nine new suburban schools will open next September; like Sister Annata Brockman, some will be close to capacity from the moment they open their doors. One look at a map of where children live shows why.

Most neighbourhoods with the highest number of children are on the city’s fringes. Those are the communities where the new schools are opening.

I was hoping the map would result in some discussion, and it has. Beth Sanders blogged about it this afternoon. She tackles the issue, highlighting as others have that city planning doesn’t “just happen”, rather its the result of many decisions made over time. We need to align our decisions – City Council and EPSB need to be on the same page! Beth finishes with some thoughts on open data:

The City of Edmonton, in creating and providing open source data, is providing a critical feedback loop for Edmontonians to understand how the city we are creating works. There are exciting conversations ahead in Edmonton’s future.

I agree completely. Kudos to the City of Edmonton, Edmonton Public Schools, and Edmonton Catholic Schools for making the data available for this mapping project. I’m positive it is just the first of many tools to come that will help Edmontonians better understand the data and contribute to the future of the city.

If you have any feedback on the map, let me know!

Notes for 5/24/2010

Hope you had a nice long weekend! Here are my weekly notes:

Did you play Pac-Man on Google on Friday? Software-usage-tracking-tool RescueTime crunched the numbers and guesstimates that the first-ever interactive “doodle” consumed 4,819,352 hours of time.
This is a pretty interesting design idea: using LED lights to create fake sunlight reflections on interior walls.
Here’s a good write-up on Mediagazer, one of my favorite new websites. If you’re interested in news about the media industry, bookmark it now.
I found this one via Mediagazer, for example: The Rise of Bloomberg News.
Got this article via @mattdance: The Data-Driven Life. What if you could record everything?
Here’s the ‘Lost’ finale, in Twitter Traffic.

Facebook has been in the news a lot lately for privacy issues, and for the fact that it is expected to announce its 500 millionth user sometime in the next few weeks. A recent Time article basically says that Mark Zuckerberg will continue to ask for forgiveness, rather than permission. His quote: “We’re building a Web where the default is social.” The article says that Facebook is redefining privacy and that Zuck thinks people want to share more about themselves online.

If you believe the media (both new & traditional) you’d think there was a huge backlash going on against Facebook right now. Apparently there are lots of startups looking to capitalize on Facebook-related privacy fears. There are protest groups, and even a “Quit Facebook Day” initiative.

Here’s a quote from Matthew Milan, co-creator of QuitFacebookDay.com:

“I’m not interested in having my data somewhere I can’t trust what is going to happen to it.”

Really? I don’t buy it. Our data is in so many places already, and more sensitive data probably. Do we trust all of those places? Do we even know all of them? I think Zuck is right. My gut tells me that the vast majority of Facebook users don’t give a hoot and that they’ll happily share more information. There’s a tiny percentage that have found media eager to help them make a mountain our of a molehill, but that’s it.

I won’t be quitting Facebook anytime soon.

Edmonton Notes for 5/22/2010

Hope you’re enjoying the long weekend so far, despite the cooler, wet weather we’re having! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

A project I have been working on with the Edmonton Journal is now live! You can see an interactive map of where Edmonton’s kids live and learn here. Check out Tuesday’s paper for Sarah O’Donnell’s story based on the data.
The Northwest LRT Route Recommendation is now available – information sessions are being held in June.
Also in LRT news – service is disrupted between Clareview and Churchill through Monday for repairs. Bus replacement service is operating.
An app created by Edmontonian Timothy Dalby is a finalist in the Make Web Not War FTW! Competition. You can vote here!
Edmonton Airports recently held its AGM at the Art Gallery of Alberta. The multimedia package for the meeting is now available, with speeches, videos, and more.
On Tuesday the CommuniTEA Infusion van was launched at Churchill Square.
Councillor Don Iveson helped launch the City’s next planning exercise, known as The Way We Green. He wrote about it here.
Mill Creek Pool opened today! Other City pools are opening soon, details here.
A controversial new marketing campaign launched this week – Recycling Blue Bins are singing the blues.
Scott McKeen has a new conspiracy theory: City Hall secretly opposes even minor commercial development in the river valley.
Planet Organic, which recently received bankruptcy protection, is set to be acquired by Catalyst Capital Group Inc.
Great post by Dave on downtown.
One of Edmonton’s busiest downtown street corners is about to get a splashy, $150 million makeover.
The City launched a two-stage competition for the redevelopment of the City Centre Airport lands this week. From Alex: A Vision for the Edmonton City Centre Airport Lands.
Most of the elm trees between 96 and 99 Street on Whyte Avenue were set to be chopped down, but now it looks like 50 more will be saved.
In election news: here’s a great rundown of the Council races from Alex, and here’s a list of the EPSB Trustee Candidates. Daryl Bonnar became the first candidate to challenge Mandel for Mayor.
The deadline to register for the Edmonton Community Challenge is June 1!
The Municipal Development Plan, known as The Way We Grow, will be considered by City Council for third reading (and final approval) on Wednesday (on ShareEdmonton).
Edmonton’s first meetup for BlackBerry developers is happening on Wednesday.
Next Saturday is the Over the Top Fashion Swap at the Winspear Centre (on ShareEdmonton).

With a little sunshine after all this rain, flowers are going to grow like crazy! Here’s one I got from the launch of The Way We Green:

Recap: Public Meeting on Proposed Arena & Entertainment District in Downtown Edmonton

Last night at MacEwan’s City Centre Campus the City of Edmonton held a Public Meeting on the proposed Arena & Entertainment District (on ShareEdmonton). I don’t know what the final attendance numbers were, but my rough guess is that about 100 people were in the room. There were a number of City representatives on hand, led by Scott Mackie from the Planning & Development department. Councillors Batty and Henderson also attended. From the Katz Group, Jim Low, Bob Black, and Steve Hogle were all there, along with Simon O’Byrne from Stantec, and Ray Davis from Bunt & Associates.

The purpose of the meeting was to provide information on and to gather feedback about a proposed rezoning from DC2.500 to a new AED zoning. Such a change would require an amendment to either the existing Capital City Downtown Plan or the new one that Council is expected to approve this summer.

The night started with a brief presentation from Scott Mackie, as well as introductions of all the representatives:

Next Jim Low gave an overview:

The final (and very long) presentation was from Simon O’Byrne (only about the last two minutes are missing):

That was followed up by questions and comments from the audience, which I unfortunately had to miss (but it was live-tweeted, see below). I’m not sure why the Katz Group and its representatives got to talk for 45 minutes; I thought that’s why they held their own open house a couple weeks ago? Maybe that’s just how these things go.

Here’s a map of the area that the Katz Group would like rezoned:

[googlemaps https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=113048912750859464152.000486ffb8424108906c3&ll=53.546479,-113.496494&spn=0.004462,0.00912&z=16&output=embed” frameborder=”0″ width=”425″ marginwidth=”0″ scrolling=”no”>
View Proposed Arena & Entertainment District in a larger map

Here are the tweets tagged #yegarena that were posted two hours before, during, and two hours after the public meeting (in reverse chronological order):

You can get the full version here. Here’s a quick Wordle I made with that data (removing usernames and the hashtag):

Both @journalistjeff and @bingofuel did an awesome job live-tweeting the meeting!

If you’d like to learn more about the rezoning process, you can do so here. I was pleased to see the City actively promoting its Planning Academy at the meeting. The proposed rezoning is tentatively scheduled to go to a public hearing on June 28, but that date could change – stay tuned to #yegarena for updates.

You can see the rest of my photos from the event here.

UPDATE: Check out Jeff’s excellent recap here.

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – April 2010

Welcome to the fourth State of the Edmonton Twittersphere of 2010, my look at the intersection of Twitter and Edmonton, AB. You can see last month’s stats here.

For information on the data, definitions, and other background, click here.

For April 2010:

# of local users: 7673 (a decrease of 422 from March)
# of tweets by local users: 404756
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 27352 (6.8%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 143618 (35.5%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 97891 (24.2%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 20058 (5.0%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 14270 (3.5%)

Here are the numbers above in graphic form:

Here are the top clients used by local users for posting updates – looks like Twitter for BlackBerry is rising quickly:

Some other interesting stats for the month:

Just under 51% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
Local users posted roughly 9.4 tweets per minute in April (compared to 9.3 tweets per minute in March).
The day with the most local tweets posted was April 13 at 16015. On average, 13492 local tweets were posted each day (compared to 13449 in March).
Of the 143618 replies posted by local users this month, 49910 or 34.8% were to other local users.
A total of 1572 users posted 50 times or more in March. In comparison, 1075 users posted just once.

Here are the top ten most followed local users:

Here are the top ten most listed local users:

Here are the top ten most active local users:

Here are the top ten most active local users using #yeg:

Here are the top ten most replied to local users:

Here are the top ten most retweeted local users (by other local users):

Final Thoughts

I did some additional work on my algorithm for identifying local users, which accounts for the drop in users from last month. I think it’s more accurate now. I think the “most retweeted” list is useful for measuring influence, though it alone doesn’t tell the whole story.

UPDATE: Just to clarify, the most retweeted list only accounts for standard-style retweets (those using Twitter’s retweet feature or those starting with RT @) made by other local users. I hope to improve this over time.

Civic Smart Card coming to Edmonton?

At today’s Executive Committee meeting Councillors will discuss a report on Smart Card Solutions, the result of an inquiry Mayor Mandel made back in February. You might remember that the Transportation & Public Works Committee had approved a recommendation that ETS implement a smart card solution. But why should ETS be the only ones to benefit? That’s the thought that prompted the mayor to ask for more information.

A civic smart card would be something like the cards pictured above, presumably more like a modern credit card with a little chip embedded inside. It could serve two primary purposes: payment, like a gift card you’d get at Starbucks, but also identity, like a digital driver’s license.

The new report sidesteps the question about what it would take to implement a civic smart card that would work for all City services, including the Edmonton Public Library, essentially saying that a business case would need to be made, and that more research needs to be done to find similar solutions implemented elsewhere. I suppose that’s prudent, but I would think based on the TPW report that they’d have some idea (the estimate for an ETS solution was close to $23 million, which would pay for itself within 15 years).

Some highlights from the report:

Administration would contact the provincial and federal governments “to investigate possible synergies in respect to pilot projects around identity management.” Apparently both have already started exploring similar ideas.
ETS, Community Services, EPL, EFCL, and the University of Alberta are just a few of the potential partner organizations mentioned.
In response to the mayor’s question about engaging the public: “For a civic smart card to be successful and fully adopted by Edmontonians, Edmontonians must be engaged in the design and implementation planning process as well as the actual implementation of a solution.” Administration would leverage “every channel from town hall meetings to social media.”
For the IT folks reading this: “Administration should also engage the IT community by creating a project advisory group made up of Edmonton’s best and brightest technology minds…”

By improving Edmonton’s livability, the civic smart card supports the City’s strategic plan. What are the next steps?

The Information Technology Branch will take the lead, working with city departments and external stakeholders to develop the value assessment to determine if this initiative should be considered in the 2012-2014 capital budget. This project will provide a test case for the new IT governance framework which is being designed to allow the city to make the right technology investment decisions.

I really love the idea of a civic smart card for Edmonton. A quick Google search reveals lots of examples of transit cards, and even some parking cards, but not much for city-wide cards. As Councillor Iveson pointed out back in October, when writing about a smart card for ETS, “this isn’t leading edge stuff anymore. This is now an established practice.” I agree – ETS absolutely needs this. Something city-wide is quite intriguing, however, and I think Edmonton would be one of the innovators there.

Let’s get it done!

If you want to follow along with today’s meeting, you can do so here.

Putting incidents at the Stanley Milner library into perspective

The Stanley Milner Library was in the news a lot last week thanks to a few violent incidents that happened outside the main entrance. Mayor Mandel suggested moving the entrance to the back, away from Churchill Square, an idea that EPL CEO Linda Cook doesn’t agree with (more on this from Colby). I don’t either. I’d much rather see the sidewalk widened, and perhaps the bus stop moved.

Then I got to thinking – maybe we’re making a big deal out of nothing.

This is based on data from the Edmonton Sun (and I used IBM’s Many Eyes to get the proportions right). There were 1.4 million visits and just 728 incidents in 2009. Incidents here include everything from “noisy patrons to public intoxication”. How many violent crimes are there? I’m guessing a lot less.

I’m not trying to downplay the violent crimes that have occurred, but if so many people use the library without incident maybe the entrance isn’t the issue.

OpenID Connect

I’ve been doing some work with OpenID and OAuth lately, making use of the excellent DotNetOpenAuth library. I am pretty much a beginner when it comes to these technologies, but I have been able to get up-to-speed fairly quickly. I was a big fan of Facebook Connect, and I quite like the new Graph API too (which uses OAuth 2.0). Though it was easy to develop against, I think the biggest benefit of Facebook Connect was the excellent end user experience. It was consistent and simple.

In contrast, OpenID is a little more cumbersome, and a lot less consistent. The discussion on how to make it easier and sexier has been going on for a while now. It seems like some significant progress will be made this week when OpenID Connect is discussed at the Internet Identity Workshop. What is OpenID Connect?

We’ve heard loud and clear that sites looking to adopt OpenID want more than just a unique URL; social sites need basic things like your name, photo, and email address.

We have also heard that people want OpenID to be simple. I’ve heard story after story from developers implementing OpenID 2.0 who don’t understand why it is so complex and inevitably forgot to do something. Because it’s built on top of OAuth 2.0, the whole spec is fairly short and technology easy to understand. Building on OAuth provides amazing side benefits such as potentially being the first version of OpenID to work natively with desktop applications and even on mobile phones.

Chris Messina has some additional thoughts on the proposal here:

After OpenID 2.0, OpenID Connect is the next significant reconceptualization of the technology that aims to meet the needs of a changing environment — one that is defined by the flow of data rather than by its suppression. It is in this context that I believe OpenID Connect can help usher forth the next evolution in digital identity technologies, building on the simplicity of OAuth 2.0 and the decentralized architecture of OpenID.

It sounds very exciting – I hope OpenID Connect becomes a reality!

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