State of the Calgary Twittersphere – December 2009

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

The source of the data this month is the same as last, primarily Twitter Search but also from Twitter directly. If a user has his or her location set to Calgary, Airdrie, Okotoks, Cochrane, Strathmore, or matching lat/long coordinates, they are considered a Calgarian.

For December 2009:

# of local users: 7122 (a decrease of 346 from November)

To clarify, that means there were 7122 users who posted at least one tweet in December 2009 with their location set to something that makes them an Calgarian as described above. This number should be treated as a minimum – there are probably many more Calgary users without their location set or that were not captured for some other reason.

Here are the rest of the stats for December 2009:

# of tweets by local users: 324614
# of tweets by local users containing #yyc: 11949 (3.7%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 102959 (31.7%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 89063 (27.4%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 20040 (6.2%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 12294 (3.8%)

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:

Here are the ten users who posted the most locally tagged tweets (#yyc, #yyctraffic, #Calgary, etc.; most tweets first): FlamesTix, WeatherCalgary, C_DIG, a_picazo, donnamct, nscafe, that_angela, lonnietaylor, paulinate, bettybubble
The ten most active local users (most tweets first): izzynobre, ProtruckR, SalBarguil, nscafe, gengenw, FlamesTix, Kristinnuendo, MrRockNRoll, alex_ruiz, opiatedsherpa
The ten most replied to local users (most replied to first): alex_ruiz, that_angela, gotkube, C_DIG, Eves1, alexflint, ang_J, ReaFaceToFace, wintr
Just over 50% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
Local users posted roughly 7.3 tweets per minute in December, compared with 7.3 per minute in November.
The day with the most local tweets posted was December 4th at 13160. On average, 10472 local tweets were posted each day (compared to 10486 in November).
Of the 102959 replies posted by local users this month, 27586 or 26.8% were to other local users.
A total of 1255 users posted 50 times or more in December. In comparison, 962 users posted just once.

Final Thoughts

As with Edmonton, there was a drop in users this month, no doubt due to the holidays. Christmas Day had the lowest number of tweets posted, at just 7086, but it picked up again by New Year’s Eve. Very interesting this month to see the jump in tagged tweets, from 2.6% too 3.7% or an increase of about 3900 tweets. Calgary finished 2009 with roughly 2 times as many active users than in March (the first month I recorded stats) and roughly 2.2 times as many tweets being posted each month.

Since March, I have identified just over 18,000 local users. The number above, 7122, is how many of them were active in December.

The 2009 year in review stats are coming soon, stay tuned!

Recap: Mispon Winter Light Gala 2010

Winter Light 2010 kicked off this evening with the Mispon Gala, “a whimsical event that launches Edmonton’s winter festival season.” Winter Light started last year and is meant to showcase Edmonton as a beautiful and interesting winter city. The gala took place at City Hall and included light installations, music and dance performances, and free food! The word “mispon” means “it’s snowing” in Cree, and while there were no snowflakes falling tonight, there was an odd sort of ice fog hanging over downtown. At –19 C (and wind chill of about –26 C) the temperature tonight was actually warmer than it was for the start of Winter Light last year.

Unfortunately, the temperature was about the only thing that went up this year! The entire event seemed smaller than in 2009. I arrived at City Hall just before 5pm and found Churchill Square and the skating ring and steps out front completely deserted, save for the three Winter Light people manning the fire stations and a couple others. There was a skate performance right at 4:30pm that I missed, sadly, but I still expected to find some people outside – it is a winter festival after all! I suppose they had trouble with attendance last year too though, so maybe it was wise to focus just on City Hall this year.

Indoor activities included music by Johnny Quazar and the Swingbots, and dance performances by Kristine Nutting’s Warm Up Burlesque. The music was quite good, the dance wasn’t for me 🙂 They did have a neat balloon drop at the end of it though! Food was once again provided by NAIT and included bannock with saskatoon marmalade, baked beans with sourdough crostini, and glazed meatballs. There was also hot chocolate and iced tea. Very tasty! Unfortunately there weren’t very many people in attendance to enjoy it all.

John Mahon, Councillor Tony Caterina, Pamela Anthony, Christy Morin, Shirley Low, and Ritchie Velthuis were all on hand tonight to bring greetings and a heads up on the upcoming Winter Light events. The next one is Deep Freeze (on ShareEdmonton), which takes place Saturday and Sunday on Alberta Avenue.

Pamela, who is the director of Winter Light, also thanked the sponsors. Apparently the $1.5 million spent this year and last wasn’t enough – Citytv, Pattison, and Canadian Tire are among the event’s sponsors. Winter Light might stretch over 10 weeks, but it’s really just 11 events, the biggest 3 of which would happen with or without Winter Light. Given that so much was established last year (like the website, tents, giveaways, etc) I find myself questioning again whether the money is being spent wisely or not.

As with last year’s opening ceremonies, tonight was just marketing for the rest of Winter Light. There were some positive things, such as the very cool snowshoe lanterns by Dylan Toymaker, but I came away mostly unimpressed. I hope that the rest of Winter Light 2010 will blow me away! You can see my photos from this evening at Flickr, and some video at YouTube.

UPDATE: Here are Sharon’s thoughts on the event.

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – December 2009

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

The source of the data this month is the same as last, primarily Twitter Search but also from Twitter directly. 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.

For December 2009:

# of local users: 5517 (a decrease of 333 from November)

To clarify, that means there were 5517 users who posted at least one tweet in December 2009 with their location set to something that makes them an Edmontonian as described above. This number should be treated as a minimum – there are probably many more Edmonton users without their location set.

Here are the rest of the stats for December 2009:

# of tweets by local users: 296590
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 20024 (6.6%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 107402 (36.2%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 65938 (22.2%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 19374 (6.5%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 10434 (3.5%)

Here are the numbers above in graphic form:

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

Here are the number of local users by community (besides Edmonton itself) for December:

Keep in mind that is based entirely on the text inside the location field of the user’s profile, and is definitely a minimum. Still, gives you an idea of the breakdown.

Some other interesting stats for the month:

Here are the ten users who posted the most locally tagged tweets (#yeg, #yegtraffic, etc.; most tweets first): WeatherEdmonton, yegtraffic, edmontonjournal, iNews880, livingsanctuary, DebraWard, cbcedmonton, Tamara_Stecyk, Sirthinks, BrentWelch
The ten most active local users (most tweets first): Gen22, steenyweeny, rootnl2k, SkydivingWizard, CommonSenseSoc, trinamlee, bevurlee, EdmontonCP, FWEE4U, troublegoats
The ten most replied to local users (most replied to first): britl, ZoomJer, akomuzikera, bevurlee, stygldpnyby, Sirthinks, grempel, CommonSenseSoc, angelzilla, bingofuel
Just under 52% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
Local users posted roughly 6.7 tweets per minute in December, compared with 6.7 per minute in November.
The day with the most local tweets posted was December 4 at 11845. On average, 9568 tweets were posted each day (compared with 9685 in November).
Of the 107402 replies posted by local users this month, 39367 or 36.7% were to other local users.
A total of 1159 local users posted 50 times or more this month. In comparison, 761 local users posted just once this month.

Final Thoughts

Big decline in active users this month, which isn’t all that surprising given that many people spent a significant portion of it on holidays! Christmas Day had the lowest number of tweets posted, at just 6496, but it picked up again by New Year’s Eve. We finished 2009 with roughly 6.5 times more active users than we started with, and roughly 6 times as many tweets being posted each month.

Since January, I have identified just over 13,800 local users. The number above, 5517, is how many of them were active in December.

Calgary stats are up next, followed by the 2009 year-in-review stats. Stay tuned!

Restless in Edmonton? Stop complaining, start creating

Yesterday’s front page story in the Edmonton Journal suggests that Edmonton in 2010 is at a tipping point (forget for the moment that this almost certainly is not the first “tipping point” our city has faced). That this is the year in which we decide to be “a big, sprawling town or to move ahead as a city with real urban living.” And that if we don’t make the right choice, our “ambitious, educated and interesting 30-something professionals” will leave for greener pastures. Active Connect2Edmonton member Ian O’Donnell is featured in the story, and he says that the 30-somethings are getting restless.

Why does “getting restless” always have to mean leaving for Vancouver, Toronto, or Calgary? If you want to leave, I say: good luck! I’d rather have NextGen-ers in Edmonton who want to be a part of something great. NextGen-ers who don’t complain when they see something they don’t like, they go and do something about it. NextGen-ers who want to help transform Edmonton into a world class city.

We need people like William Buchkowsky and Nathan McQuay. They felt their options for connecting with other young business professionals in the city were limited, so they created Emerging Business Leaders. At least 50 people now meet regularly each month.

We need people like Raffaella Loro. She wanted a city government that was more open and accessible, so she championed the Transforming Edmonton blog to help make it happen. The blog is a fantastic complement to the City’s other online activities.

We need people like Dave Cournoyer, Justin Archer, and Michael Janz. They, along with many others, wanted to have a conversation about re-imagining government and citizenship in the age of participation. They brought ChangeCamp to Edmonton, an event attended by hundreds of Edmontonians in person and online.

We need people like Ken Bautista, Cary Williams, and Michael Brechtel. They are passionate about the creative economy in Edmonton, and recognized that strong creative and artistic communities are important for prosperous cities. They brought artsScene to Edmonton, an organization that connects young professionals with the arts, culture, and creative organizations of Edmonton.

We need people like Mark Donovan, Cam Linke, and Kevin Swan. All are very involved in the local tech scene with things like DemoCamp, and all have experience with technology startups. They recognized a lack of support for local startups, and have created Startup Edmonton to do something about it. The organization will help to ensure that next gen talent builds successful local companies that make it past the seed stage.

These are just a few of the incredible NextGen-ers making a difference in Edmonton. There are many others too, such as the members of Avenue Edmonton’s Top 40 Under 40, and the members of Edmonton Next Gen (who have brought Pecha Kucha to Edmonton, among other things).

Downtown is an opportunity!

Much of the article focuses on downtown, in a negative way. I’m not going to try to convince you that we have an amazing downtown, because I agree that there’s a lot of room for improvement. But I see that as an opportunity, not as a problem. There are some incredible things on the horizon for downtown Edmonton, and increasingly it is a focus for organizations like EEDC. NextGen-ers need to educate themselves and then work to ensure our city’s decision makers follow through. Small efforts really can have a big impact – I think the City Centre Airport debate is proof of that.

We have the capacity in Edmonton to be world class. All we have to do is stop complaining and start creating.

You can read more reaction to the story in the comments and at Connect2Edmonton.

Notes for 1/3/2010

Here are my weekly notes:

Arrived back in Edmonton today, after spending the week in Yellowknife with Sharon. Thanks Mom and Dad for having us – it was great to see you and we had fun, even though it was cold as expected! I guess that means vacation is officially over.
A couple of really great opinion pieces on the Apple Tablet: John Gruber and John Siracusa.
From Techvibes: an update on Alberta’s Digital Media People to watch in 2009.
Fantastic article on aviation security theatre by Bruce Schneier. Definitely give it a read. See also Nate Silver on the odds of airborne terror.
Here are Telus Mobility’s top 5 trends for 2010.
An unlikely culprit in wi-fi failures: chicken wire.
David Carr on Why Twitter Will Endure.

Edmonton Notes for 1/2/2010

Welcome to 2010! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

The route for the Olympic Torch Relay was announced this week! You can learn more about the event here.
A couple of recaps from me and Sharon, with more on the way: Edmonton Tech in 2009 and Epicureous in Edmonton: 2009 in Review.
Speaking of food, Liane Faulder wrote an interesting piece on educating Edmonton about food.
The Canadian Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) acquired a 50% stake in South Edmonton Common this week, for $39.2 million. The stake includes 60,000 square feet of fully developed leasable area.
Edmonton’s first baby of 2010 arrived at 12:18am, a healthy 9-pound, 8-ounce boy.
Starting Monday, the Dawson Bridge will be completely closed for the rest of the year to make way for a $22 million rehabilitation.
Are the Edmonton Oilers a bunch of cheapskates? A restaurant in Calgary says they are, after fighting with the players over a bar tab on New Year’s Eve.
Two Edmontonians, including Shrawan Kumar and John Stanton, were named to the Order of Canada this week.
Great story about the McCauley Cup: On Christmas Eve several downtown police beat members hosted a shinny hockey game at the McCauley rink which saw several youth from the community participate.
According to Police Chief Mike Boyd, crime dropped in Edmonton in 2009 by 2%. Also, EPS would like to remind you about the importance of intersection safety.
Edmonton Transit has retired the last of its GMC vehicles, which means ETS is starting 2010 with a 100% accessible fleet. Awesome!
The first Winter Light event takes place on Wednesday. Check out the Mispon Gala at City Hall starting at 4:30pm (at ShareEdmonton). See also Vue Weekly’s preview.

Edmonton Tech in 2009

What another fantastic year for tech in Edmonton! I think 2009 had an excellent mix of events, product launches, company successes, and much more. Below I have tried to recap as much of it as possible. I did my first recap post like this last year – you can read it here.

Events

Again we had a great year for DemoCamp, with five events (five, six, seven, eight, nine). The year started off with STIRR, a networking event for tech founders, funders, and others. In early March, the Alberta Entrepreneurs Bootcamp took place at the University of Alberta. Our second BarCamp event was held in June. In July, Edmonton’s first UXCamp took place. The annual Edmonton Code Camp took place in September. Though it wasn’t exactly a tech event, open data played a large role at ChangeCamp which took place in October. That same weekend, Flash in the Can (FITC) brought Flash developers together. November started with the annual ICE Conference, featuring a new startup focused event called Start Me Up. A couple of weeks later, the Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally open house took place – the pilot will get underway in Q1 2010. Also in November the City hosted an Open Data Workshop, another big step on the path toward open data in Edmonton. The month finished off with the iPhone Dev Camp. The year finished off with the first Startup Drinks, put on by Digital Alberta and Startup Edmonton. Watch for much more from them in 2010.

There were many active tech groups in Edmonton this year. The Social Web Meetup continued going strong. The Edmonton Flash User Group held a number of monthly events, in addition to FITC. Agile Edmonton had a great second year, with regularly monthly events. Other active groups included the Edmonton .NET User Group, the Edmonton Microsoft User Group, the Edmonton Web Design Meetup, and TechWing Wednesday.

With 2009 being the breakout year for Twitter, it’s no surprise that the service featured prominently in Edmonton’s tech scene this year. The first Photography Tweetup took place in April, and the group met a few more times later in the year. Also in April was EdmontonTweetup4, and in June we held EdmontonTweetup5. We held two Twestival events this year, in February and September. In November, the community once again got together to wrap gifts for Santas Anonymous. The last major tweetup of the year, the Holiday Tweetup, took place in December. There were many other smaller tweetups throughout the year. I’ll have more on Twitter in Edmonton in 2009 next week.

News

It’s hard to keep track of all of the news that happens in a year, but here are some of 2009’s most interesting Edmonton tech stories:

12/08: Chris Lumb named TEC Edmonton’s new CEO
12/05: Google Maps Street View comes to Edmonton
12/02: Edmonton’s improved online City Council meeting agendas & minutes
12/01: The Story Behind the Transforming Edmonton Blog (the City’s first blog)
11/25: Exciton Technologies named Best Pre-Revenue Company in Investor Choice Awards
11/21: Foursquare launches in Edmonton
11/09: The City of Edmonton’s Social Media Advisory Committee
10/30: Serenic ranks 29th in Canadian Technology Fast 50
10/26: MyStops launches in 20 cities across North America
10/20: Introducing ShareEdmonton
10/19: Nexopia.com appoints former MySpace Canada GM to Board
10/15: Spin Technologies launches iPhone App for Runners
10/10: Google Maps Traffic Layer comes to Edmonton
09/30: MyStops Launches in the Apple App Store
09/17: ENTS Grand Opening
09/10: The Alberta Innovation Voucher program – Pass or Fail
09/08: Yardstick Software Ranks 30th in PROFIT HOT 50
08/28: Developing a Tech Community: The Debate in Edmonton Continues
08/27: Taking Edmonton’s Technology Community to the Next Level
08/18: Introducting Doug van Spronsen – Techvibes Edmonton Community Manager
08/10: Golf Course Tee Times Now Online
08/04: iPhone Developers in Alberta
07/16: Edmonton Police Service (EPS) Crime Mapping tool now online
07/10: Collaboration & Community: Edmonton New Technology Society (ENTS)
07/07: Smibs releases web-based sales tool Doorbell
07/06: City Archives puts 25,000 photos online
07/04: Edmonton Developer Impresses with Crime-Fighting Software (Stephane Contre)
07/02: Nexopia graduates with Facebook App
07/02: Transforming the City of Edmonton IT Branch
06/26: City of Edmonton hosts IT Vendor Open House
06/16: Shaw Conference Centre Goes Wireless
06/03: Foundations for an Open Edmonton
05/30: TransitCamp Edmonton: Data for Developers
05/14: Edmonton Stories launched
04/30: 2009 TEC VenturePrize Grand Prize Winners (CIE: Seek Your Own Proof)
04/23: NAIT launches HATCH
04/15: Digital Alberta names Rene Smid Executive Director
03/25: Intuit, “The World’s Most Admired Software Company” makes mistakes too
03/18: Woman Technopreneurs Showcase Their Ingenuity
03/18: Edmonton Business Incubators Form The Regional Alliance
03/02: Edmonton’s BioWare launches new team in Montreal
02/18: ETS and Google Collaborate on Transit Trip Planning
02/11: Talking Tech with Edmonton Transit (ETS)
02/09: Edmonton’s SafeFreight Technologies selected by Dairy Famers of America
01/16: Exciton Technologies receives $500,000 grant from Alberta Heritage Foundation
01/13: Alberta Venture Fast 50 named

And here’s the collection of Edmonton Startup Index posts at Techvibes:

2010

I’m really excited for 2010. I think we’ll see accelerating growth and change in the tech community, based upon the strong foundation laid during the last two years. Here are a few things to watch for:

Startup Edmonton and many of its events, such as Startup Weekend
BarCampEdmonton3
GameCamp Edmonton
TEDxEdmonton – March 13, 2010
Open Data from the City of Edmonton
Stay up-to-date on local tech events at ShareEdmonton

All the best in the new year!

Have another event, story, or link that should be included above? Let me know in the comments or via email. Thanks!

Edmonton Sun violates the EPS Crime Map Terms of Use

Back in July, the Edmonton Police Service launched its Neighbourhood Crime Mapping site. Like most people I was quite enthusiastic about the site, until I read the terms of use and realized how restrictive they were. Basically you can look at the numbers, but you can’t do anything with them (such as publish them on a blog). The Crime Mapping site is not open data. I emailed back and forth with the EPS, and was told that they wouldn’t be changing the terms of use. And, they haven’t.

That didn’t stop the Edmonton Sun, however. They apparently ignored the terms of use altogether, and published an article on December 20th summarizing a number of statistics from the website:

Some of Edmonton’s roughest neighbourhoods faced markedly fewer crimes in 2009, according to police statistics.

The statistics came through a new crime mapping system launched by Edmonton police last summer.

I had asked for permission to do something similar and was turned down. After reading the Sun article, I emailed the EPS to find out if the terms of use had been changed (despite the text on the website staying the same). Here’s what Acting S/Sgt. John Warden wrote back:

The Edmonton Sun did not have the EPS’ permission to use the information from the Crime Mapping website and the EPS is dealing directly with the Edmonton Sun in relation to this.

I emailed back a couple of follow-up questions, but have not yet received a response. The Edmonton Sun article is still active on the website, so I’m not exactly sure what “dealing directly with the Edmonton Sun” means.

I’m annoyed by this, obviously. Was it an honest mistake? Maybe. Is it a case of a large media organization getting off the hook? Maybe. Will it happen again? Probably. No one reads the fine print, we all know that.

I don’t think the current terms of use is appropriate, and I strongly urge the Edmonton Police Service to change it.

Dog sledding in Yellowknife

Today I went dog sledding with Sharon, Kim, and Shane in Yellowknife! My parents thought it would be a fun northern experience for us, and they were right, it was awesome! Both Kim and I had been dog sledding when we were younger and still living in Inuvik, but I don’t really remember it too well.

Beck’s Kennels, run by Grant Beck, currently has over 130 sled dogs and offers a variety of tours. Grant himself is an accomplished dog musher who has won a number of races and other competitions over the years, in North America, the French, Swiss, and Italian Alps, and the Pyrenees in Spain. The dogs are Alaskan Huskies, which look a bit different than the Siberian Huskies you’re probably thinking of. We learned that Siberian Huskies, due to breeding patterns over the years, don’t make the best racing dogs though they are good for hauling things!

We went on the Northern Outdoor tour, which lasted roughly two hours:

Head out to our traditional Trapper’s tent next to a secluded lake where you will enjoy hot drinks and cookies around a crackling woodstove. Drive your own sled team there or just sit back and relax. Experience the thrill of driving a snow machine, and zip around the lake before heading back.

The first step was to dress appropriately! We wore our warmest clothes to the kennels, but ended up changing or putting on more clothes inside. They had parkas, boots, mittens, and all sorts of winter gear for guests to wear. All of us put on a pair of ski pants, and somehow, Shane and I ended up with pink mittens. We were warm though!

On the way out to the Trapper’s tent, Shane and I drove while Sharon and Kim sat. We swapped positions on the way back, so each of us got to drive the sled. Though “drive” isn’t really accurate – the dogs knew exactly where to go and didn’t really need any direction from us! Our only job was to step on the brake when instructed to do so by the tour guides who drove snowmobiles.

When we got to the Trapper’s tent, we were pretty cold, and were glad to find a wood-burning stove inside. We also had cookies, hot chocolate, and signed the guest book! The cabin had a couple of bunk beds, for overnight guests. After getting warmed up, we headed back outside to drive back to the kennels. Our route back seemed a little less sheltered, and thus much windier and colder!