Media Monday Edmonton: Meet the new West Edmonton Local

Last week a new media organization launched here in Edmonton, one that is quite unlike any of the others. West Edmonton Local is a project of Grant MacEwan University’s journalism program focusing on news in the west end of our city. It’s a website, an experiment in hyperlocal news, and a fantastic learning tool for MacEwan students. I talked to the new site’s editor-in-chief Archie McLean and two of its journalists about the project.

“As much as possible, we want to be an authoritative voice for the west end,” Archie told me. I think that statement says a lot about the new project – it might be easy to dismiss it as just thing for students, but to do so would be a mistake. West Edmonton Local is the real deal. “There’s a market for local news,” he declared. Chelsey Smith, one of the site’s contributors, agreed saying “there’s definitely a need for something like West Edmonton Local.”

Archie became the chair of the program back in August, and even then he was thinking about the idea of a local news site. “What’s the best way to channel the output and collective interest of 20 journalism students?” Traditionally, students would have had to write a couple of big articles during the term, giving them limited opportunity to work with editors. For Archie, that would mean 20 big articles all coming in at the same time. “It doesn’t reflect the media reality,” he told me. West Edmonton Local changes the approach – instead of learning to do journalism, students are doing journalism and learning from that experience.

Students are tasked with writing articles every week, and they also need to include a multimedia component. They’ll also do a few feature pieces throughout the term. They’re using Flickr for photos, and might also include Google Maps, video, slideshows, and other rich content. Chelsey told me “it’s a major time commitment, but everyone is so excited about it.” I also talked with Pamela Di Pinto, who highlighted the big head start the project is giving students career-wise. “It’s not often that my work gets published anywhere, so to actually have my name online is pretty cool.” Archie echoed that, saying that the skills students are gaining with West Edmonton Local will be valuable when they move to other organizations.

In addition to Archie wearing the editor-in-chief hat, the site has two student editors that alternate every two weeks. The Managing Editor helps with the articles and content, and the Community Engagement Editor (apparently the title has changed a few times now) focuses on Twitter, Facebook, and other aspects of the project. Chelsey is the Community Engagement Editor until Wednesday, and said she has focused on tweeting links and posting stories to Facebook, so that more than just the feature articles are read. “We want people commenting on our stories on the website, so it’s important to spread the news.”

The site officially went live on February 7. Archie and the team decided to focus on the west end partly because that’s where the MacEwan program exists, but also because the community seemed like it might be receptive to the idea. “It has a distinctive feel, it was Jasper Place until really not that long ago,” Archie told me. The project’s “boundaries” are west of 124 Street, and south of 111 Avenue to the river. There’s lots of potential news stories in the area, such as the Stony Plain revitalization, the LRT extension, etc. The boundaries are just guidelines, however. If there’s news that is relevant to the west end communities, West Edmonton Local will cover it.

While hyperlocal sites are nothing new, there aren’t many of them here in Canada, and certainly not from journalism schools. One of the sites Archie looked at was Mission Local, a hyperlocal site focused on the Mission district in San Francisco. The “trouble” section was borrowed from that site. Crime is one aspect, but there are other things covered in the trouble section, such as noise bylaw complaints, graffiti, etc. Stuff that is relevant to people in the community, but which might not meet the threshold to be covered in something like the Edmonton Journal.

Archie told me that the biggest challenges the project has faced so far are quality control and workflow. “It’s an ongoing challenge to keep a consistent voice.” The journalists are students of course, so they’re learning as they go, and they all have different abilities and experience. Workflow has also been a challenge, partially because the site is running on WordPress. Students pitch their own story ideas, and post the article in draft form. An editor comes in and checks things over, making any necessary adjustments (Chelsey commented that one of things she has learned so far is the importance of editing). Final approval is given from either Archie or Lucas Timmons, the production editor, and then the article goes live. Multimedia follows a slightly different workflow.

One of the most obvious questions about West Edmonton Local is what happens after school is over. “Worst case scenario is that it lives for a few months and then goes away, but ideally we want to keep it going over the summer,” Archie told me. He has applied for some grant money that would allow a student to work over the summer, carrying it through until the next term. Eventually advertising revenue could cover the operational costs, which at this point are quite small. Partnerships is another aspect of the site that Archie and the team are exploring. They’ve focused primarily on getting everything up and running so far, but are eager to speak with organizations in the community about how to work together.

The team sounded happy with the launch and the attention the site has received thus far. Pamela said the experience has been great, and that she’s excited to see the site grow. She also praised the work Archie and Lucas have put into the site. “They really are helping us out, getting our names out there.” Archie, perhaps unsurprisingly, said it is the students that should get the credit. “They’re putting the content up, and content is king.”

For now the site seems to be running fairly smoothly, but discussions about how to improve it are ongoing. “It’s so young, it could go anywhere,” Chesley remarked. Archie stressed that the team is looking for feedback at this stage. “We genuinely want suggestions from people on what we can do better.” If you have a comment or suggestion, tweet @westedlocal, leave a comment on Facebook, or get in touch with Archie.

For Archie, seeing West Edmonton Local come to life has been a great experience. “It was an opportunity to try building a news site from the ground up,” Archie told me. “It’s potentially an infinite amount of work.” His passion for the project definitely showed during our conversation however, so he seems up to challenge. He also knows this is a unique opportunity. “We don’t have any baggage, so we have the freedom to take chances.”

Congratulations to everyone involved in West Edmonton Local on what you have accomplished so far. I look forward to seeing the project grow and evolve!

Love that Menu: Valentine’s Day 2011 in Edmonton

Sharon and I decided to collaborate on this post. Enjoy!

Mack:

Last year, Sharon and I collaborated on a Valentine’s Day post. We decided it would be fun to compare the special and regular menus at a variety of local restaurants in order to find out which one offered the best deal on Valentine’s Day. It was a nice mix of my penchant for stats and Sharon’s knowledge of the local food scene. This year, we wanted to do something different.

Sharon:

Eater nicknames Valentine’s Day “Black Monday” for a reason – restaurants pull out all the stops, hoping to woo diners with their prix fixe menus. Though I’m sure most of them are well intentioned (and Mack and I have certainly indulged in many Hallmark holiday dinners), some seem to be really over the top.

After perusing over a dozen Valentine’s Day menus, we’ve collected some observations. Here are our tongue-in-cheek picks for the best and worst of what the city’s restaurants have to offer this weekend.

  • This Dish Gets Around
    • Aside from fondue, which is a Valentine’s Day staple, Chicken Supreme was the most common dish on the menus we examined. It is featured at Homefire Grill, Vic’s Steakhouse, Sorrentino’s Downtown, and even Hardware Grill. Those chickens really get around, don’t they?
  • Most Appealing Menu
    • Last year we picked Hardware Grill as the tastiest-sounding menu, but this year the honor goes to Madison’s Grill. Five courses with two choices each (plus a dessert course) means there’s a good chance both you and your date will find something to enjoy. Pan seared scallops, pulled pork crepe, and grilled Spring Creek Ranch beef tenderloin are just a few of the delicious sounding options!
  • Best Bang for Your Buck
    • At $45 per person, The Manor might not be the cheapest option, but with three courses (which include a choice of three entrees, with nary a chicken supreme in sight), we’re confident that between the food and their cozy rooms, couples will be well taken care of, and for a price less than a third of the most expensive meal in the city.
  • Big Spender
    • That brings us to the five course prix fixe at Red Ox Inn. If you’re on a budget, this one isn’t for you – it will set you back $160 a person (which includes food, gratuity and tax). Each course is paired with a wine though, and given the meal has been at the same price point at least two years in a row, it has likely continued for a good reason.
  • Best Dish Name
    • With images of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in our heads, Zinc’s “Cheek to Cheek” entrée is hard to beat. Comprised of a Spring Creek Rank beef cheek and a butter-poached halibut cheek, it also probably tastes as good as it sounds. We used Zinc’s photo above.
  • Worst Dish Name
    • Maybe we need to get out of the city more, but there’s nothing particularly romantic to us about two slabs of meat. That’s what you’ll get at Teddy’s with “Lovers’ Steaks” – an 8oz New York and a 6oz Fillet Mignon. The dish comes with prawns, Caesar salad, and three cheese mashed potatoes for $49.
  • Say Cheese
    • We really thought restaurants would be more forthcoming with the extras they would shower on you and your date, but no dice. So almost by default, The Melting Pot wins this category. You have the option of “enhancing” your meal with different feature packages, such as “The Cupid’s Arrow”, which includes one dozen roses in a vase, rose petals on your table, a bottle of sparkling wine, two champagne flutes to keep, and a framed photo of you and your Valentine. The price tag? $225, which also covers a four course dinner for two.
  • What’s the Point Prix Fixe
    • With a Valentine’s Day menu that is so similar to the regular menu, we have to wonder why Chop even bothered! All of the entrees and most of the appetizer platter can be found on the regular menu. Only the dessert, Dark Chocolate Pecan Banana Cake, is new. If you’re superstitious you might like this option, however – the three course meal is priced at $88 per couple.
  • No Date Required
    • Who says you need a table for two on February 14? Take a look at the menu from Bistro La Persaud and tell us you’re not seduced (braised boar bacon? poached lobster?). Best of all, it’s priced per person! Ooh la laa!

Mack:

However you choose to spend Valentine’s Day, we hope it is filled with love!

Fun with Open Data and Excel: Edmonton’s Busiest Streets

Today the City of Edmonton added a new dataset to the open data catalogue – average daily street traffic volumes from 2004-2009. Here’s the description:

Include traffic counts obtained with automatic traffic recorders over the past six years. The volume shown is a total of all vehicles in both directions, over a 24 hour period, for a typical weekday in a year. Volumes shown as a dash "-" indicate no count was undertaken that year. Seasonal adjustments are made to reflect an average weekday during the year. An increase or decrease in volume does not necessarily indicate a trend for a given roadway. Road construction or the introduction of more advanced equipment in 2009 affect the traffic volume numbers.

I’d like to build something interesting with this data, perhaps as part of a future ShareEdmonton release. But to start, I decided to open the data up in Microsoft Excel, something I often do with new datasets. Here’s what I discovered.

First, a few summary points:

  • There are 1496 street locations in the dataset.
  • Of those, 823 were counted in 2009. The year with the most counted locations was 2006, at 1076. Just 32 locations were counted every year (2004-2009). There were 531 locations counted in three years or more.
  • One of the first things I noticed is that every count ends in zero. I know the description outlines that the data is an average, adjusted seasonally, and perhaps for other reasons, but I wonder how close to reality the numbers really are.

Looking at 2009 simply because it is the most recent, there’s a hint of a long tail for the counted locations:

Here are the 200 busiest locations in Edmonton according to the 2009 count:

To create that map, I used a free utility called Excel to KML. There are all kinds of useful free KML tools online!

Here are the top ten busiest locations in Edmonton, according to the 2009 count:

  1. Calgary Trail SW North of Gateway Park Road SW
  2. Capilano Bridge
  3. 178 Street South of 81 Avenue
  4. Highway 216 NE North of Sherwood Park Freeway NE
  5. Anthony Henday Drive North of  87 Avenue
  6. HIghway 216 NE North of Baseline Road NE
  7. Anthony Henday Drive West of Calgary Trail
  8. 170 Street North of  95 Avenue
  9. Groat Road North of Victoria Park Road
  10. Highway 216 NE North of Whitemud Drive NE

Some of those are expected, some perhaps not. I decided to look at locations that were counted in at least three different years. If you look at the average daily volumes for that subset, here are the top ten busiest locations in Edmonton:

  1. Quesnell Bridge
  2. Yellowhead Trail West of 231 Street
  3. Calgary Trail SW North of Gateway Park Road SW
  4. Capilano Bridge
  5. Whitemud Drive West of 149 Street
  6. Yellowhead Trail West of Fort Road
  7. Cloverbar Bridge
  8. Yellowhead Trail West of  97 Street
  9. Yellowhead Trail West of 107 Street
  10. Yellowhead Trail West of 127 Street

Plotting the top 25 on a map gives a better sense of the really busy roads – Yellowhead Trail and Whitemud Drive:

Interesting, isn’t it? Of course, it could get a lot more interesting with some mashups. I’d love to have collision data for the City of Edmonton, to see how closely the number of collisions is correlated with traffic volumes. That’s just one example.

Check out the new dataset in the open data catalogue. If you do something interesting with it, I’d love to hear about it!

Expanding the Shaw Conference Centre (again)

The Shaw Conference Centre is once again in the news. City Council’s Executive Committee will receive a report tomorrow that suggests the facility needs to be expanded. That recommendation should not be a surprise. On July 22, 2009, City Council passed this motion:

That Edmonton Economic Development Corporation prepare for Council’s approval a long-term (30 – 40 year) development plan to address the needs of the convention market in Edmonton.

If you ask EEDC what should happen with the convention market, of course they’re going to focus on the facility that they operate.

Shaw Conference Centre

The Edmonton Journal’s editorial board published a piece on the issue today. Here’s the key paragraph, in my opinion:

But there are plenty of reasons for caution. Taxpayers have just spent $150 million to expand Northlands’ rival convention and trade show facility, the new Expo Centre. Is there really an economic case to be made for two competing super-facilities, each publicly funded, run by two competing civic agencies?

Competition is a generally a good thing, but increasingly I find myself wondering why we have both Northlands and EEDC. Two organizations, both largely funded by taxpayers. If they weren’t competing, would things have turned out differently? Would the above recommendation have been different? Would we still have gone ahead with the Edmonton Expo Centre when we did? The success of that facility, which is still being paid off, has been questioned by many. Though as the City’s Chief Economist told me, that skepticism might be a little unfair. “It was developed and then we ran into a sour economy. You need to give them a full business cycle.”

Here’s what the current breakdown of rentable convention space looks like in Edmonton, according to the report:

There’s no denying that the amount of space at the Shaw Conference Centre (SCC) is significantly less than at the Expo Centre. But that alone is not reason enough to expand the facility. Here are the most up-to-date statistics on SCC usage, provided to me by EEDC:

  • In an average year, SCC receives 330,230 visitors (based on the last five years). A visitor is a person who has attended a function at SCC.
  • The split in visitors is roughly 70% regional versus 30% non-regional.
  • There are 20 to 25 days per year where SCC has no or the least number of bookings.
  • Using 2006 as a typical year and defining 75% occupancy as full, SCC was fully booked 115 days out of the year.

Compared to a few other Canadian conference venues, SCC’s visitor stats stack up quite nicely:

I’m not sure exactly which facilities they were comparing with, but clearly SCC is being used. EEDC says that over the last two and half years, it has turned away approximately 40 conventions and trade shows for future years. And apparently none of those have decided to go with the Expo Centre instead, which should have had the necessary space, presumably because they wanted to be downtown.

If we’re going to add more convention space, I think downtown is the place to do it. But I agree with the Journal’s position, “it’s also important that we not simply assume that if we build it, they will come.” So I guess I am left with a few key questions:

  • Why was the Hall D expansion so limited? If we got the forecasting wrong then, are we going to get it right this time? Are we really looking ahead 30 years?
  • Is expanding SCC really the best way to add more convention space downtown?
  • Despite the lip service paid to cooperation in the report, can Northlands and EEDC really work together to grow Edmonton’s convention market?

The next steps outlined in the report include finalizing the business case for the expansion. According to EEDC’s own backgrounder, the earliest an expansion would be completed is at least seven years from now.

Aside #1: Think back to 2004 and consider all of the technology that didn’t exist. Will large conventions as we think of them today still happen in 2018?

Aside #2: The report contains what might just be my least favorite phrase ever: “Festival City in a Box”.

Aside #3: It turns out I have an Edmonton Journal article on my desk from September 12, 1963 (I’ll explain later). Apparently we held just 42 conventions in 1962, far behind Toronto’s 657, Calgary’s 172, or even Regina’s 57. Even Moncton had more conventions than we did at 48. Our conventions in 1962 attracted 17,932 visitors who spent a total of $1,869,000, or $104 per person.

Media Monday Edmonton: Week in Review #1

Like many others, I’m interested in the continual evolution of journalism and media. And given my passion for Edmonton, I’m particularly interested in that evolution at a local level. Where have we been, and where are we going? What’s next?

I’m not particularly interested in the distinction between “traditional media” and “new media”, though I recognize there are instances in which treating the two separately can help our understanding of the changes that are going on. Taking the long view, however, I see the entities the terms represent merging.

I’d like to start devoting an entry each Monday to this changing landscape (it’s all about experimentation, right?). Some weeks it’ll be a review of relevant news (like what you see below), other weeks it might be an opinion, or a critique, or an interview, or some statistics, or something I haven’t thought of yet. Hopefully I can keep it interesting for both me and you!

Here’s my first week in review:

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer. The big news today is of course the Huffington Post acquisition by AOL.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? And what would you like to see me write about in future Media Monday entries? Let me know!

Edmonton Notes for 2/6/2011

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Yukigassen Edmonton
Look at those awesome snowballs! That was at Illuminations, which contained a preview of Yukigassen.

Snap Dragon
Happy Chinese New Year!

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – 2010 Year in Review

Welcome to the State of the Edmonton Twittersphere: 2010 Year in Review, my look at the intersection of Twitter and Edmonton in 2010! You can see my recap of 2009 here.

I’ve done my best to ensure all of the data in this post is accurate, but I make no guarantees – use it at your own risk. The data comes from the Twitter API, and has been collected over the past year. If a user has his or her location set to Edmonton, St. Albert, Sherwood Park, Leduc, Nisku, Stony Plain, Fort Saskatchewan, Beaumont, Spruce Grove, or matching lat/long coordinates, they are considered an Edmontonian, and thus a “local user”.

If you compare the monthly statistics here to my monthly State of the Edmonton Twittersphere posts, you’ll notice they are slightly different. The monthly posts represent a snapshot – this post reflects the most up-to-date information I have been able to gather as of the end of 2010.

Summary

Here are the highlights for 2010:

  • There were 22,000+ local users.
  • Those users posted more than 4.9 million tweets. That works out to 9.4 per minute.
  • Of those 4,948,409 tweets:
    • 381,752 contained #yeg or one of the #yeg-related hashtags (like #yegfood) (7.7%)
    • 357,206 were retweets (7.2%)
    • 1,715,507 were replies (34.7%)
    • 668,368 were replies to other local users (13.5%)
    • 1,331,306 contained links (26.9%)
    • 191,060 were twooshes (exactly 140 characters) (3.9%)

Let’s look at users. While more than 22,000 local users were on Twitter last year, only 10,200 of them were active during the month of December (active means they posted at least one tweet). But that was up from just 5601 who were active during the month of January.

When 2010 started, local users were posting about 260,000 tweets per month. By the end of the year, that number had grown to more than 525,000 tweets per month.

This chart gives you a sense of the trends over the year. I think it is interesting that the lines for #yeg-related tweets and retweets are almost identical (red and green).

Roughly 50.8% of all tweets in 2010 were posted between the hours of 9 AM and 6 PM. Not surprisingly, the number of tweets posted between midnight and 7 AM is quite a bit lower than the number posted during the day and early evening. There seems to be an early morning (9-10 AM) and late night (9-10 PM) spike.

If we look at days of the week, we see that more tweets are posted on Tuesday and Wednesday than on any other day.

In the chart below I have plotted the number of tweets posted per day for each day of the year. The trend is clearly up, and the spikes and troughs reveal some interesting events. Election day, October 18, saw the most tweets posted at 23,234. On average, 13,558 tweets were posted each day in 2010.

Users

Here are the top 25 most followed users:

  1. revtrev
  2. Pat_Lorna
  3. biofeed
  4. randyfritz
  5. dragonage
  6. masseffect2
  7. NHL_Oilers
  8. wearestereos
  9. DancinginLife
  10. subunit1
  11. MathieuBisson
  12. MilesSTEREOS
  13. LesM
  14. patkstereos
  15. todd_herman
  16. hccedmonton
  17. redneckmommy
  18. worldprofit
  19. DrBarryLycka
  20. mtubes
  21. paradepro
  22. TSNRyanRishaug
  23. garrymullen
  24. mastermaq
  25. DarleneV

The average local user has 120 followers. Just 420 users have more than 1000 followers.

Here are the top 25 most listed users:

  1. biofeed
  2. revtrev
  3. randyfritz
  4. NHL_Oilers
  5. masseffect2
  6. dragonage
  7. paradepro
  8. redneckmommy
  9. Pat_Lorna
  10. DaBaby
  11. DancinginLife
  12. rootnl2k
  13. gsiemens
  14. edmontonjournal
  15. TSNRyanRishaug
  16. wearestereos
  17. brentcetera
  18. NiCoLeKoScH
  19. ctvedmonton
  20. gcouros
  21. cbcedmonton
  22. mastermaq
  23. lealea
  24. CityofEdmonton
  25. britl

The average local user has been listed 5 times.

Here are the top 25 most active users:

  1. EdmontonBizcaf
  2. WCIJobs
  3. rootnl2k
  4. etownmelly
  5. DWsBITCH
  6. Lekordable
  7. ZoomJer
  8. CommonSenseSoc
  9. trinamlee
  10. GuitarKat
  11. EdmontonCP
  12. gcouros
  13. SaySandra
  14. Jaisabella
  15. frostedbetty
  16. angelzilla
  17. PoisonLolita
  18. Edmontonsun
  19. DebraWard
  20. Cokebear17
  21. RECEdmonton
  22. Sirthinks
  23. britl
  24. Leask
  25. fraygulrock

The top 100 most active users accounted for 18.5% of all local tweets.

Here are the top 25 most active users using #yeg (and #yeg-related hashtags):

  1. yegsphere
  2. edmontonjournal
  3. EdmCa
  4. rootnl2k
  5. iNews880
  6. oilersff
  7. DebraWard
  8. Edmontonsun
  9. WeatherEdmonton
  10. ctvedmonton
  11. EdmontonBizcaf
  12. WCIJobs
  13. cbcedmonton
  14. DWsBITCH
  15. Sirthinks
  16. ZoomJer
  17. livingsanctuary
  18. mastermaq
  19. fraygulrock
  20. yegtraffic
  21. Lekordable
  22. gcouros
  23. BrentWelch
  24. frostedbetty
  25. bingofuel

The top 100 most active users using #yeg and its subtags accounted for 51.8% of all #yeg-tagged tweets.

Here are the top 25 most replied to users (by other local users):

  1. ZoomJer
  2. PoisonLolita
  3. britl
  4. CommonSenseSoc
  5. Wildsau
  6. angelzilla
  7. RockstarJodie
  8. SaySandra
  9. bingofuel
  10. frostedbetty
  11. GuitarKat
  12. Sirthinks
  13. confessionality
  14. KikkiPlanet
  15. akomuzikera
  16. Rainyfool
  17. JenBanksYEG
  18. DebraWard
  19. FeliciaDewar
  20. mastermaq
  21. adampatterson
  22. lonesomebilydad
  23. LauraSem
  24. Pokerclack
  25. BrentWelch

The top 100 most replied to users accounted for 32.8% of all local replies (replies from one Edmontonian to another).

And here is what I think is the most significant list, the top 25 most retweeted users (by other local users):

  1. edmontonjournal
  2. ctvedmonton
  3. mastermaq
  4. CityofEdmonton
  5. dantencer
  6. cbcedmonton
  7. bingofuel
  8. iNews880
  9. Paulatics
  10. ZoomJer
  11. NHL_Oilers
  12. britl
  13. TrafficEdmonton
  14. joshclassen
  15. BrentWelch
  16. sonic1029
  17. yegfoodbank
  18. davecournoyer
  19. SimonOstler
  20. Edmontonsun
  21. JasonGregor
  22. EdmontonHumane
  23. chrislabossiere
  24. DebraWard
  25. Sirthinks

A total of 103 users were retweeted by other local users 100 times or more. Just 18 users were retweeted by other local users 1000 times or more.

Hashtags

The most commonly used hashtag was #yeg. Local users used #yeg roughly 6.5 times more than the next most popular hashtag, which was #FF. Here’s a word cloud of the top 1000 hashtags, including #yeg:

And here are the top 1000 without #yeg:

The average length of a hashtag was 13.7 characters (including the #). There were hashtags that were just two characters, and hashtags that were 140 characters. Here are the top 10 hashtags:

  1. #yeg
  2. #FF
  3. #oilers
  4. #edmonton
  5. #alberta
  6. #ableg
  7. #yegfood
  8. #FollowFriday
  9. #yegvote
  10. #fb

Here are the top 10 #yeg-related hashtags:

  1. #yegfood
  2. #yegvote
  3. #yegweather
  4. #yegtraffic
  5. #yegcc
  6. #yegtransit
  7. #yegarena
  8. #yegmusic
  9. #yegarts
  10. #yegfringe

Clients

There were more than 2000 different clients used by local users to post tweets in 2010. Here are the top ten clients:

  1. web
  2. TweetDeck
  3. Twitter for iPhone
  4. ÜberTwitter
  5. Twitter for BlackBerry®
  6. Echofon
  7. twitterfeed
  8. HootSuite
  9. API
  10. Twitterrific

Text messaging was the next most popular client. Here are the top ten in graphic form (percentages are of the total number of tweets, 4.9 million):

The top ten clients accounted for 76.2% of all local tweets in 2010.

Final Thoughts

Twitter continued its impressive growth all around the world in 2010, and Edmonton was no exception. Though the number of people with Twitter accounts in Edmonton pales in comparison to the number of people with Facebook accounts, I don’t think that is necessarily the best comparison to make. You need a Facebook account to access most things on Facebook, you don’t on Twitter. Twitter reaches far beyond the 22,000+ local users with accounts.

There were lots of tweetups in 2010, but fewer and fewer focused just on Twitter. Because so many more people have joined, even non-Twitter events seem like tweetups! I thought that geolocation might play a bigger role in 2010, but it didn’t really. Just 3124 users have enabled geolocation (up from 270 in 2009). Perhaps 2011 will be the year that geotagged tweets take off? You need to enable it in your settings.

I hope you’ve found this look at the Edmonton Twittersphere in 2010 interesting and informative. Thanks for reading!

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – December 2010

Welcome to the twelfth State of the Edmonton Twittersphere for 2010, my look at the intersection of Twitter and Edmonton, AB. You can see the stats for November here.

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

For December 2010:

# of local users: 10198 (an increase of 259 from November)
# of tweets by local users: 529387
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 37063 (7.0%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 191871 (36.2%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 141953 (26.8%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 34255 (6.5%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 22703 (4.3%)

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 under 50% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
  • Local users posted roughly 11.6 tweets per minute in December (compared to 12.2 tweets per minute in November).
  • The day with the most local tweets posted was December 14 at 21297. On average, 17077 local tweets were posted each day (compared to 17527 in November).
  • Of the 191871 replies posted by local users this month, 78509 or 40.9% were to other local users.
  • A total of 1923 users posted 50 times or more in December. In comparison, 1667 users posted just once.

 

Here are the top ten most active local users (not including bots):

  1. PoisonLolita
  2. rootnl2k
  3. heyitsjam
  4. confessionality
  5. RyanPMG
  6. etownmelly
  7. CommonSenseSoc
  8. counterplot
  9. Jedimasterbator
  10. ZoomJer

Here are the top ten most active local users using #yeg (not including bots):

  1. Edmontonsun
  2. edmontonjournal
  3. iNews880
  4. cbcedmonton
  5. DebraWard
  6. kerrzy
  7. ctvedmonton
  8. YEGFoodGuide
  9. k97
  10. mcmanus17

Here are the top ten most replied to local users:

  1. PoisonLolita
  2. heyitsjam
  3. confessionality
  4. CommonSenseSoc
  5. JenBanksYEG
  6. ZoomJer
  7. Wildsau
  8. RockstarJodie
  9. KikkiPlanet
  10. Rainyfool

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

  1. edmontonjournal
  2. JasonGregor
  3. mastermaq
  4. CityofEdmonton
  5. dantencer
  6. cbcedmonton
  7. ctvedmonton
  8. NHL_Oilers
  9. EdmontonHumane
  10. TrafficEdmonton

Final Thoughts

Edmonton finally broke the 10,000 active user mark! Aside from that, however, it was definitely a holiday month. You can see a noticeable drop in the number of tweets posted around Christmas. Also fewer tagged tweets and more replies in December, which suggests to me less news being posted and more conversation taking place.

I should have my 2010 year-in-review up later this week. If you’re interested, stop by Twitter Talks on Thursday evening for even more twittersphere stats!

As always, keep in mind that the stats above rely upon users setting the location field of their profile to something like “Edmonton”. Users who leave that field blank or who put something like “Canada” are not reflected in the above stats.

Daily Deals in Edmonton

I’m amazed at how many “daily deal” or “group coupon” sites there are in Edmonton now, let alone the rest of the world. I’m sure you’ve heard of Groupon, and maybe one or two others such as GoodNews, but did you know there are at least ten such sites in Edmonton? Here’s a list of the ones I have found:

There are also a bunch of sites preparing to launch in our city:

Daniel has created a Twitter list for some of the services here.

I don’t see how that many sites are going to succeed. My guess is that most won’t. Some are so similar in form and function that I wonder if they’re actually the same company. Others have obviously picked up on this trend, as there are dozens of “daily deal aggregators” out there so that you don’t have to sign up for each service individually. Here are some Edmonton-related ones I have found:

I’m sure there are many others that I have missed.

The most popular item on daily deal sites seems to be spa packages, so you may or may not find value in these services. I have used Groupon a couple of times, and I think they are here to stay. LivingSocial seems to be the second biggest of the sites, at least in the US. SwarmJam should be able to leverage its existing relationships with advertisers, so maybe they’ll find success. GoodNews has a bit of a twist in that it supports local charities. As for the rest – who knows.

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – November 2010

Welcome to the eleventh State of the Edmonton Twittersphere for 2010, my look at the intersection of Twitter and Edmonton, AB. You can see the stats for October here.

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

For November 2010:

# of local users: 9939 (an increase of 318 from October)
# of tweets by local users: 525804
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 40905 (7.8%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 184033 (35.0%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 145767 (27.7%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 38958 (7.4%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 22722 (4.3%)

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 50% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
  • Local users posted roughly 12.2 tweets per minute in November (compared to 12.0 tweets per minute in October).
  • The day with the most local tweets posted was November 23 at 20311. On average, 17527 local tweets were posted each day (compared to 17252 in October).
  • Of the 184033 replies posted by local users this month, 73837 or 40.1% were to other local users.
  • A total of 2030 users posted 50 times or more in November. In comparison, 1394 users posted just once.

 

Here are the top ten most active local users (not including bots):

  1. rootnl2k
  2. PoisonLolita
  3. etownmelly
  4. confessionality
  5. CommonSenseSoc
  6. counterplot
  7. ZoomJer
  8. RyanPMG
  9. brooke_bieber_
  10. ZamboniGuy69

Here are the top ten most active local users using #yeg (not including bots):

  1. Edmontonsun
  2. edmontonjournal
  3. iNews880
  4. cbcedmonton
  5. ctvedmonton
  6. mastermaq
  7. k97
  8. TamaraStecyk
  9. DebraWard
  10. Sirthinks

Here are the top ten most replied to local users:

  1. confessionality
  2. PoisonLolita
  3. heyitsjam
  4. Wildsau
  5. ZoomJer
  6. CommonSenseSoc
  7. JenBanksYEG
  8. RockstarJodie
  9. photoswithash
  10. SaySandra

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

  1. edmontonjournal
  2. mastermaq
  3. ctvedmonton
  4. JasonGregor
  5. EdmontonHumane
  6. dantencer
  7. TrafficEdmonton
  8. Paulatics
  9. CityofEdmonton
  10. cbcedmonton

Final Thoughts

We got really close to 10,000 users in November! The number of tweets overall was slightly lower than in October, which is partially explained by the month having one less day and partially by the election that took place in October. The average number of tweets per day was almost exactly the same as in October, however.

I should have December 2010 and my 2010 year-in-review up later this week. Also, stop by Twitter Talks on Thursday evening for even more twittersphere stats!

As always, keep in mind that the stats above rely upon users setting the location field of their profile to something like “Edmonton”. Users who leave that field blank or who put something like “Canada” are not reflected in the above stats. More Information.