State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – March 2010

Welcome to the third 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 March 2010:

# of local users: 8095 (an increase of 1624 from February)
# of tweets by local users: 416919
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 27538 (6.6%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 144491 (34.7%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 105599 (25.3%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 20345 (4.9%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 14367 (3.4%)

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 9.3 tweets per minute in March (compared to 8.3 tweets per minute in February).
The day with the most local tweets posted was March 26 at 15986. On average, 13449 local tweets were posted each day (compared to 11933 in February).
Of the 144491 replies posted by local users this month, 47407 or 32.8% were to other local users.
A total of 1573 users posted 50 times or more in March. In comparison, 1296 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:

Final Thoughts

First off, apologies for the late stats this month. I think the increased numbers in March reflect three more days in the month than we had in February, but also some steady growth (and perhaps some modifications I made to my code). More than 10,000 tweets were posted each day in March.

Twitter, Embargoes, and Breaking News

At the end of March, Global Edmonton’s Lynda Steele, one of our city’s most prominent media Twitterers, abruptly said goodbye and deleted her account. She suggested that Global was consolidating accounts, which understandably raised the ire of many local users (for more check out Adam’s post). Last week, a different truth emerged, thanks to a tweet from CBC’s John Archer. He posted this PDF (archive) of a letter sent from the provincial government’s Public Affairs Bureau to Global Edmonton (it has been clicked more than 550 times). In it, PAB Managing Director Lee Funke informs Global Edmonton that for breaking the budget embargo, they would be denied access to any embargoed information until the end of 2010. Lynda was the one who broke the embargo, by posting tweets before the 3:20 PM budget address, so that’s likely why she left Twitter (though there may be other reasons too).

Much has already been written about whether or not the decision is warranted, and even whether or not we need embargoes in this day and age. For more, check out Dave’s post. As someone who continually pushes for open, accessible information, I think you can guess where I stand. And with that in mind, and in addition to the PDF letter above, here are some of the facts.

The four tweets that started all of this, written by @lyndasteele:

BREAKING BUDGET NEWS – Another record deficit, more money for health care and hope for recession recovery. #yeg #ableg [2/9/2010 3:16:44 PM]

The budget deficit for the coming year is projected to be 4.7 billion, almost double what was projected in last year’s budget forecast. [2/9/2010 3:17:08 PM]

Most of the new spending is going to health. 1.7 billion dollars more this year, [2/9/2010 3:17:20 PM]

Edmonton will receive about 100 million dollars less fr province – for Calgary the shortfall could be 150 million. #ableg [2/9/2010 3:17:53 PM]

And then, for whatever reason, she didn’t tweet again until 5:17:01 PM to plug Hugh MacDonald talking about the budget on the Early News.

Her final tweet:

Hey all – Global consolidating twitter…for all your daily news – check out @globaledmonton – take care – it was nice to know ya! [3/31/2010 1:37:41 PM]

It didn’t take long after that was posted for the conversation to get underway. Dozens and dozens of tweets were posted defending Lynda, and asking for more information on the decision. Of course, only a handful of people knew what was really going on, and none of that made it onto Twitter until the letter was posted.

Global Edmonton itself followed up with a tweet a couple of hours later at 3:58 PM:

GM Tim Spelliscy corrects bad scoop. GE is NOT consolidating accounts, not now or ever. Our personalities will continue to Twitter. [3/31/2010 3:58:38 PM]

Shortly afterward, there was a @fakeLyndaSteele account and the conversation continued for a day or two.

Will this affect social media use by the media?

There’s not much to say about the embargo, is there? There were clearly defined rules broken, and as a result Global Edmonton faced consequences. I think you could make a strong case against having embargoes in the first place, but that isn’t going to change what has already happened.

I do think it’s unfortunate that Lynda Steele is no longer on Twitter because of all of this. Not that I thought she was the best or most trustworthy user, but she was a highly visible member of the media experimenting and pushing the boundaries. I hope that this debacle doesn’t turn other members of the media off from exploring further social media use. Instead, I hope this can be used as a case study to learn from.

State of the Ottawa Twittersphere – February 2010

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

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

For February 2010:

# of local users: 9366 (an increase of 804 from January)
# of tweets by local users: 452190
# of tweets by local users containing #ottawa/#yow: 2719 (0.6%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 161654 (35.7%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 109478 (24.2%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 25947 (5.7%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 13205 (2.9%)

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 11.2 tweets per minute in February (compared to 9.6 tweets per minute in January).
The day with the most local tweets posted was February 28 at 23063. On average, 16150 local tweets were posted each day (compared to 13750 in January).
Of the 161654 replies posted by local users this month, 45323 or 28.0% were to other local users.
A total of 1732 users posted 50 times or more in January. In comparison, 1461 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 replied to local users:

Final Thoughts

As with the other Canadian cities, the busiest day in February in Ottawa was the 28th due to the gold medal hockey game. The second busiest was the 12th, the day of the opening ceremonies for the Olympics. The growth in the Ottawa twittersphere this month is similar to that of Calgary. Still a severe lack of tagged tweets though!

State of the Calgary Twittersphere – February 2010

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

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

For February 2010:

# of local users: 8190 (an increase of 819 from January)
# of tweets by local users: 390224
# of tweets by local users containing #yyc: 11486 (2.9%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 116346 (29.8%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 112937 (28.9%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 20679 (5.3%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 13422 (3.4%)

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 48% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
Local users posted roughly 9.7 tweets per minute in February (compared to 7.9 tweets per minute in January).
The day with the most local tweets posted was February 28 at 21292. On average, 13937 local tweets were posted each day (compared to 11334 in January).
Of the 116346 replies posted by local users this month, 31507 or 27.1% were to other local users.
A total of 1434 users posted 50 times or more in January. In comparison, 1319 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 #yyc:

Here are the top ten most replied to local users:

Final Thoughts

As with Edmonton and Victoria, the busiest day of the month was February 28 at 21292 tweets thanks to the gold medal hockey game. Calgary actually broke the 20000 mark twice this month – the other day was February 12, the day the opening ceremonies took place. It was a pretty impressive month for stats, especially given that it was three days shorter than normal!

State of the Victoria Twittersphere – February 2010

Welcome to the second 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 February 2010:

# of local users: 1759 (an increase of 513 over January)
# of tweets by local users: 60185
# of tweets by local users containing #yyj: 6493 (10.8%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 17277 (28.7%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 19753 (32.8%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 5013 (8.3%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 2339 (3.9%)

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 1.5 tweets per minute in February (compared with 1.1 tweets per minute in January).
The day with the most local tweets posted was February 28 at 3408. On average, 2150 local tweets were posted each day (compared with 1575 in January).
Of the 17277 replies posted by local users this month, 5385 or 31.2% were to other local users.
A total of 270 users posted 50 times or more in February. In comparison, 107 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:

Final Thoughts

A nice increase in numbers over January! Like Edmonton, the busiest day of the month was February 28, when Canada won Olympic gold in the mens hockey game. We’ll have to see if the bump carries over into March.

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – February 2010

Welcome to the second 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 February 2010:

# of local users: 6471 (an increase of 630 from January)
# of tweets by local users: 334127
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 20438 (6.1%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 117188 (35.1%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 73834 (22.1%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 16658 (5.0%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 12397 (3.7%)

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 51% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
Local users posted roughly 8.3 tweets per minute in February (compared to 7.4 tweets per minute in January).
The day with the most local tweets posted was February 28 at 19372. On average, 11933 local tweets were posted each day (compared to 10588 in January).
Of the 117188 replies posted by local users this month, 37648 or 32.1% were to other local users.
A total of 1256 users posted 50 times or more in January. In comparison, 970 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:

Final Thoughts

A relatively big increase in the number of active users this month! I’m not 100% sure what the cause was, but I suspect it was the Olympics. The two busiest days this month were February 12 with 17281 tweets posted and February 28 with 19372 tweets posted – the opening ceremonies, and the hockey game & closing ceremonies, respectively. I’m planning to analyze those tweets further (when I have some time).

More stats on the way soon!

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – January 2010

Welcome to the first 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 January 2010:

# of local users: 5841 (an increase of 324 from December)
# of tweets by local users: 328227
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 20865 (6.4%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 114740 (35.0%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 81789 (24.9%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 23633 (7.2%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 18077 (5.5%)

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 51% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
Local users posted roughly 7.4 tweets per minute in January (compared to 6.7 tweets per minute in December).
The day with the most local tweets posted was January 27 at 13518. On average, 10588 local tweets were posted each day (compared to 9568 in December).
Of the 114740 replies posted by local users this month, 41713 or 36.4% were to other local users.
A total of 1236 users posted 50 times or more in January. In comparison, 854 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:

Final Thoughts

Slight increase in the number of active users this month, which basically brings us back to where we were in November. Quite a significant increase in the number of tweets posted this month too – we even broke 13,000 per day!

Edmonton continues to have the most tagged tweets and the most conversations (replies to one another). We’ve had a bunch of tweetups lately too. We really do have an amazing community in Edmonton!

I’m going to do a separate post on Olympics tweets, because I think there is some really interesting data there. Edmontonians posted a lot during the opening cemeronies!

State of the Calgary Twittersphere – January 2010

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

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

For January 2010:

# of local users: 7371 (an increase of 249 from December)
# of tweets by local users: 351342
# of tweets by local users containing #yyc: 13259 (3.8%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 105309 (30.0%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 112342 (32.0%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 24998 (7.1%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 19721 (5.6%)

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 7.9 tweets per minute in January (compared to 7.3 tweets per minute in December).
The day with the most local tweets posted was January 27 at 13935. On average, 11334 local tweets were posted each day (compared to 10472 in December).
Of the 105309 replies posted by local users this month, 28981 or 27.5% were to other local users.
A total of 1274 users posted 50 times or more in January. In comparison, 1182 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 #yyc:

Final Thoughts

Slight increase in the number of active users this month, no doubt thanks to the holidays ending and everyone getting back to work. The number of tweets posted per day increased throughout the month as well, breaking the 13,000 mark twice. There was also a slight increase in the number of tagged tweets.

State of the Ottawa Twittersphere – January 2010

Welcome to the first State of the Ottawa Twittersphere, my look at the intersection of Twitter and Ottawa, ON.

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

For January 2010:

# of local users: 8562
# of tweets by local users: 426258
# of tweets by local users containing #ottawa/#yow: 2828 (0.7%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 150400 (35.3%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 113889 (26.7%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 40243 (9.4%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 18104 (4.2%)

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 under 52% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
Local users posted roughly 9.6 tweets per minute in January.
The day with the most local tweets posted was January 27 at 17041. On average, 13750 local tweets were posted each day.
Of the 150400 replies posted by local users this month, 41710 or 27.7% were to other local users.
A total of 1618 users posted 50 times or more in January. In comparison, 1235 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:

Final Thoughts

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with the Winnipeg stats, so learning that they don’t use a local hashtag was interesting, not surprising. But it’s safe to say that I am surprised local hashtag usage in Ottawa is so low (unless they use one I’m not aware of): I counted just 112 tweets tagged with #yow, and just 2716 with #ottawa. As you can see above, that’s less than 1% of all tweets posted during the month. Maybe some of that is due to the federal/national focus that is natural for Canada’s capital city. Ottawa users do reply to one another more frequently than Winnipeggers do, however.

Another surprise: there are a lot of users in Ottawa and they post a lot! I’m looking forward to seeing if the numbers grow.

State of the Winnipeg Twittersphere – January 2010

Welcome to the first State of the Winnipeg Twittersphere, my look at the intersection of Twitter and Winnipeg, MB.

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

For January 2010:

# of local users: 4107
# of tweets by local users: 211554
# of tweets by local users containing #winnipeg/#ywg: 1958 (0.9%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 73028 (34.5%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 53271 (25.2%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 13894 (6.6%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 7024 (3.3%)

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 48% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
Local users posted roughly 4.8 tweets per minute in January.
The day with the most local tweets posted was January 25 at 8408. On average, 6824 local tweets were posted each day.
Of the 73028 replies posted by local users this month, 13608 or 18.6% were to other local users.
A total of 831 users posted 50 times or more in January. In comparison, 558 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:

Final Thoughts

It turns out users in Winnipeg do not use the airport code hashtag that many other Canadian cities have adopted! I recorded just 7 tweets by local users tagged with #ywg in January (interestingly, Edmontonians mentioned #ywg 20 times in January). Even #winnipeg isn’t that popular, with just 1951 tweets. In addition to the lack of hashtagging, Winnipeg users don’t seem to reply to one another as much as other cities do.

Now that we have the data, it would be interesting to dig deeper to find out why a community like Winnipeg doesn’t get as organized online as some others. I’ll continue tracking (and improving my tracking).

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