What can Foursquare and geo-location based services tell us about how people live? Below is a recap of a WSJ write-up on Foursquare and geo-location based services behavior with a test they did in New York City. Foursquare, as pointed out lets people “check in” to places using their mobile phones, has about 8 million users and is used more than 1.5 million times a day world-wide.
To learn about where people go and what they do on Foursquare, WSJ Digits collected every check-in on the service for a week earlier this year, via the Foursquare “firehose.” This is what they found.
Broadly: The top individual spots are places like malls, airports and train stations, because so many people filter through those locations. But the top categories are homes, offices, coffee shops and bars, even though each of the individual locations in those categories gets a very small number of check-ins. And, on weekdays, offices and lunch spots in Midtown and the Financial District light up with check-ins, while on Friday and Saturday nights, Foursquare users migrate to the nightlife of the Lower East Side. Except in the dead of night, transit hubs like Grand Central Terminal are consistently popular points. (Times Square also gets quite a few check-ins, but we assume those people are tourists.)
More from their article: a Tuesday in New York looks like so: People are at home from midnight to 5 a.m., then at the gym until 8 a.m., when they head to work. They’re at the office until 6 in the evening, when they go to the gym again before heading back home at 8. A New York Saturday, by contrast, goes this way: bars until 4 a.m., home and some trips to the airport until 10 a.m., gym or coffee shop until 5 p.m., and then back to the bar.
For San Franciscans, the weekday looks fairly similar — except for an astonishing number of trips to the coffee shop. On a Tuesday, San Francisans are at home until they make a 4 a.m. coffee-shop run. They go to the gym until 7 a.m., then back to the coffee shop. At 9 in the morning, they head to work — until 3 p.m. when it’s time for another coffee-shop break. San Franciscans work until 5 p.m. and head to the gym until 8 p.m., when like New Yorkers they go home.
On Saturday, San Franciscans are at the bar, but only until 2 a.m. They too head home or to the airport for early morning travel, but they hit the coffee shop early — starting at 7 a.m. Aside from a brief midafternoon trip to a park, the coffee shop is where they stay. They do their grocery shopping on weekends from 5 to 7, have a nice American-food dinner, and then get to the bar at 9 p.m. For the entire write-up, go to Digits here.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
