State of the Calgary Twittersphere – August 2009

Welcome to the sixth 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. If a tweet is “about Calgary” it contains either the word Calgary, the #yyc hashtag, or both.

For August 2009:

# of local users: 6852 (an increase of 226 from July)

To clarify, that means there were 6852 users who posted at least one tweet in August 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 August 2009:

# of tweets by local users: 244330
# of tweets by local users containing #yyc: 5463 (2.2%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 75678 (31.0%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 67295 (27.5%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 9466 (3.9%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 6945 (2.8%)

Here are the numbers above in graphic form:

Here are the top clients used by local users for posting updates. UberTwitter doesn’t seem to be as popular in Calgary as it is in Edmonton:

Some other interesting stats for the month:

Final Thoughts

Like the Edmonton numbers, growth in August for Calgary was minimal. It’s the summer, after all! I suspect that growth in September will be higher.

Since March, I have identified just over 13,500 local users. The number above, 6852, is how many of them were active in August.

ChangeCamp Edmonton – October 17th

As you may have heard, we recently picked a date, time, and place for ChangeCamp Edmonton! We’ve been talking about it for months now, and for a while it really felt like we’d never make any progress. We had a really hard time defining the event, though it sounds simple in concept:

Let’s get as many citizens, politicians, policy-makers, technologists, design-thinkers, change agents, and media creators as possible together in the same room to explore one central question: “How do we re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation?”

Was it a single day or many? Physical or virtual? A spark or a process? How much should we define up front? How do we get people interested? Should we borrow from cities that have already held ChangeCamps or try something completely different?

We still don’t have all the answers, but we’ve decided to move forward anyway. In the spirit of ChangeCamp and other unconferences, we’re going to have a conversation, and you’re invited! Here are the details:

WHO: You, everyone!
WHAT: ChangeCamp Edmonton
WHEN: Saturday, October 17th, 2009 from 8am to 4pm
WHERE: Lister Conference Centre, University of Alberta (map)
WHY: To start a conversation about re-imagining government and citizenship in Edmonton, Alberta

We are still working on defining how the day will unfold, but it’ll be similar to ChangeCamps in other cities. Stay tuned to the official website as well as our Google Group for updates.

If you’d like to help out, just let us know! Right now we need help spreading the word, more than anything else. Tell your friends, tell your colleagues, tell your elected representatives. Let’s make October 17th a day to remember in Edmonton!

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – August 2009

Welcome to the eighth 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 August 2009:

# of local users: 5365 (an increase of 232 from July)

To clarify, that means there were 5365 users who posted at least one tweet in August 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 August 2009:

# of tweets by local users: 206318
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 12808 (6.2%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 72060 (34.9%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 41015 (19.9%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 9947 (4.8%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 6828 (3.3%)

Here are the numbers above in graphic form:

Here are the top clients used by local users for posting updates. I’m pretty impressed by the rise of UberTwitter:

And by popular demand, a new stat this month! Here are the number of local users by community (besides Edmonton itself) for August:

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:

 

Final Thoughts

A little bit of growth this month, but not much. It’s the summer, after all! Hopefully that means everyone was outside enjoying everything Edmonton has to offer. Growth in September should be higher.

Since January, I have identified just over 10,400 local users. The number above, 5365, is how many of them were active in August.

I’ll have the Calgary stats posted in the next couple of days!

Notes for 9/13/2009

Here are my weekly notes:

September Picnic & Walk

Edmonton Notes for 9/12/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Recap: Twestival Local 2009 in Edmonton

Tonight we held Twestival Local in Edmonton, a tweetup to raise money for the Youth Emergency Shelter Society. It was great to see a mix of new and familiar faces come out! In all I think we had about 30 people attend, a little less than our last Twestival but still pretty good!

As you probably know, the local community decided in an online vote that YESS would be our cause for this Twestival (each city got to pick a local cause to support). While we didn’t decide specifically what the money raised would go toward, YESS is about to launch a new facility called the Armoury Youth Centre, and that kind of thing doesn’t happen for free! I’m happy to report that we raised $565 tonight for YESS – well done everyone!

Twestival Local 2009Twestival Local 2009

You can see the rest of my photos from the evening here. Shout out to @GregWalker, @thalegion, and @JonProject for taking most of them!

Twestival Local 2009Twestival Local 2009

We’re thinking our next tweetup might be in October, so stay tuned! Thanks to everyone who came out tonight to support YESS.

Recap: DemoCampEdmonton8

I almost can’t believe our last DemoCamp was so long ago! I think it’s safe to say that DemoCampEdmonton8 was worth the wait, however. We had probably our largest crowd ever – the entire room at ETLC was packed. I’m not sure the pictures do it justice! We also had a great set of demos – well done to all the presenters this evening, everyone really brought their ‘A’ game.

Here are the six demos we had tonight:

  • First up was Dub5, demoing an application they built for the Student Health Initiative for the Needs of Edmonton (SHINE). Essentially it is a scheduling application that solves the common problem of assigning volunteer shifts and dealing with cancellations and other issues. Very slick interface, which was a trend for the evening.
  • Next up was Skeptographers, a project of the Edmonton Skeptics. The application is best described as a collaborative podcast. Anyone can submit a segment for inclusion in the next podcast, and the community can comment and vote on each segment. Really cool stuff.
  • Third was an iPhone app called MyStops. While Google Maps is great at giving you transit directions from one point to another, it sucks at repeat routes. MyStops lets you save your usual routes, so that you have easy access to bus and LRT schedules. The cool thing about it is that it uses the ETS Google Transit data that was released back in May. The app will work with both iPhones and iPods.
  • Fourth was Yardstick Software. The product they demoed is called Yardstick Measure and is an online tool that enables anyone to quickly generate a professional testing site. Very slick UI and focused feature set, whereas its sister products (ProTraining & ProExams) are much more complex and feature-rich.
  • Fifth was Digital Media Jobs, a job board for individuals and organizations in the digital media space. Unlike other job boards, the goal with DMJ is to help the local community get connected with one another. Again, DMJ featured a very clean UI.
  • Last but not least was one of the most interesting demos we’ve ever had at DemoCamp in Edmonton: ReJoyCE from Rehabtronics. It’s a combination software-hardware solution to help rehabilitate people suffering from neurological impairments. They’ve successfully gone through a number of clinical trials and are looking to commercialize. Patients play a number of “games” that were designed with the help of therapists. Truly amazing stuff.

All of the demos were so great, it’s hard to pick a favorite. I think ReJoyCE is fascinating because of the impact it will have on the lives of so many people (and the fact that it is backed up by real medical research). I’m really happy we got to see some homegrown technology from the health sector. My favorite was probably MyStops, however. It’s something I’d use every day, and for 99 cents, I think plenty of other Edmontonians will as well. It’s also a great example of what can be done with open data. The team behind it plan to add support for the other cities that publish Google Transit data as well.

DemoCampEdmonton8DemoCampEdmonton8

Fortunately, no one showed us their registration page tonight. I think that contributed to the overall quality of tonight’s demos.

A couple of announcements about upcoming events:

  • Twestival is happening Thursday, September 10th! Come help us support the Youth Emergency Shelter Society!
  • Next Thursday, September 17th, ENTS is holding their grand opening!
  • Edmonton Code Camp is taking place on Saturday, September 19th.
  • FITC Edmonton is taking place on October 17th and 18th.

Thanks to everyone who came out tonight. See you at DemoCampEdmonton9!

dEdmonton – Something for everyone this Halloween!

It’s hard to believe that I haven’t really written about dEdmonton since February! Six months might seem like an eternity on the Internet, but it’s not very much time to put together Canada’s Halloween Festival. But that’s just what the dEdmonton team (or Council of E-ville) have done. In case you’re new to the concept:

dEdmonton is dEdicated to the celebration of all things Halloween. Our vision is to unleash a new Halloween festival upon our city – stitched, bolted and brought together from existing events across the Edmonton region. “The More…the Scarier” sums up the spirit of dEdmonton – a spirit personified by our fiendishly fun family activities; our devilishly diverse nightlife; and our horror happenings. Halloween in Edmonton offers something for everyone and so will dEdmonton.

Last week, organizers held a “stakeholders meeting”  to get everyone up-to-speed on recent progress. It was really inspiring to hear how well everything is coming together! Though this year was supposed to be an opportunity to get established, there’s no doubt in my mind that dEdmonton is going to be a major success.

Already there are more than 20 events on the dEdmonton calendar for October 31st. There are dozens of other events taking place in the weeks leading up to Halloween too. One of those is the Miss dEdmonton contest:

As Miss dEdmonton you will be needed over the next year to let the world know all about dEdmonton and your duties will include parade appearances, general appearances, photo shoots and other promotional opportunities – some will be in bars, but some of them will have young ‘uns around. That’s right, this isn’t just a weekend gig, you get to be in costume several times over the next year!

Anyone interested can submit an original 90 second video to YouTube (deadline is September 30th – the winner will be announced on October 13th). I think this is a great idea, and I hope to see some amazing submissions! Full details and rules can be found here.

With less than two months until Halloween, dEdmonton-related news is starting to appear more frequently. Check out the website (and subscribe) for updates. You can also follow dEdmonton on Twitter and Facebook.

I love Opera 10

As long-time readers will know, my web browser of choice is Opera. I’ve been using it as my primary browser since at least version 9.0, which came out over three years ago. On September 1st, the latest version was released:

In a world of ordinary Web browsers, Opera 10 stands out from the crowd with innovative new features wrapped in an elegant, fresh interface. Opera 10 is absolutely free, comes in 43 languages, and works on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms.

Opera 10 really does look fantastic, and has a decent list of new features. Interestingly enough, I haven’t found the most touted feature, Turbo, all that useful. I suppose I haven’t really used it on a slow connection however, and that’s what it is designed for.

Here are my favorite things about the new release:

  • Speed. Opera now loads Facebook and Google Reader as fast as, if not faster than, Chrome. I used to leave Chrome open for those apps, but not since Opera 10.
  • The big, beautiful new icon, as seen above.
  • The updated interface. It’s slick, and I love the little circle notification when a tab has been updated. Visual tabs are also pretty neat. I also enjoy that I can get rid of the File menu.
  • Spell checking built-in. Yes I know other browsers have this.
  • Customizable speed dial! You can now increase the number of buttons on your speed dial.
  • Built-in auto-updates. This is long overdue for Opera, and works quite well (I was using the betas and release candidates which got auto-updated).

Favorites I mentioned about versions 9.5 and 9.1 are still relevant too!

If you haven’t tried Opera, I encourage you to do so. It’s a fantastic browser! Others seem to think so too – Opera 10 was downloaded 10 million times during the first week of release. Pretty impressive.

Notes for 9/7/2009

Hope everyone had a great long weekend! Here are my weekly notes: