On the importance of spatial analysis in social media
I was talking to my friend Ducky Sherwood the other day about how fixated the social media community seems to be on FourSquare and Gowalla (the location-based mobile applications that tell us where you are and what you’re doing).
What I told Ducky and what I have been telling people is that the actual node (the location) is irrelevant. It is the spatial distribution of where things are that really matters. That is the subject of economic geography (the study of the location of economic activity). And since my PhD major was in Environmental Economic Geography, I figured it was important for me to explain the difference. I am using two layouts of the Greater Vancouver transit system.
From the layout above, you would think that the City of Vancouver (and in particularly downtown Vancouver) is an area very well served by transit. But if you use the ‘node-focused’ approach (e.g. if you only look at where the bus/skytrain stations are without having a sense of the spatial context) you lose perspective. In reality, as both the layout above and below show, neither Burnaby nor Vancouver are really that well served. In fact, Burnaby has a substantial amount of area that is not served by fast bus/skytrain service.
But you wouldn’t know any of this with FourSquare nor with Gowalla. You need to expand the view and focus from the node to the spatial distribution of economic activity. I hope app developers can get the hint fast.
Related posts:
- My recent Social Media Club Victoria talk: “Towards an Action-Focused Agenda for Social Change Using Social Media” (#smcvictoria) @smcvictoria
- Canadian social media and social computing data/statistics
- Women in Film Festival ’09 – Bridging Media Day – Social Media How To Panel
- On the relationship between mainsteam media, social media and academia 1: Mainstream media and social media’s complex relationship
- Social media for charity and social change roundup (Vancouver)
I get it…mostly. I hate to ask as i don’t use any location based apps at the moment but where does frequency fit into the above equation. It would seem that, using the transit maps above as a common reference point, any conclusion about the quality of transit service would be lacking unless one had at least SOME indication of frequency and volume of trains etc. If they can only carry 4 people and come twice a day…you could have transit service on every last street and it would still be insufficient. Do these apps account for frequency or volume in any way? I suspect that data could be better contextualized if so.
I don’t get it. Both the pictures appear to be identical – so that’s not helping me understand.
Also, isn’t the point of FourSquare and Gowalla to (a) know where your friends are (i.e., their location at a given point in time) so you can join them and (b) for businesses to try to get you to go to their establishment (i.e., their location) more often (e.g., by offering things like a free drink for the mayor of their coffee shop)? So why would it be that actual location is not important and the “spatial distribution of where things are that really matters” for things like FourSquare and Gowalla? It seems to me like the location is what matters for both users of these games and the businesses they go to. Am I missing something?