

User-mining: Start at the gym, end up at a bar? - rwaliany
http://simplyryan.com/2010/07/27/user-mining/

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drc1912
Can you please tell us a little bit about the data/population that served as
the basis of this analysis (ex: how big is total population of data set, how
big is the subset of users who went to both gym and park, etc). It would help
us better provide feedback and understand the your results.

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rwaliany
The data is from March 15th to May 1st (~45 days). It is a noisy estimation
based on foursquare and twitter location check-ins (estimated samples from a
population of about 100k users in San Francisco, CA with a technology bias). I
haven't analyzed user-specific data, such as who went to both venues. I am
open to suggestions on future analysis.

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randomwalker
The restaurant data is the only one that is at odds with intuition, and
strongly so. Why would Thursday be 3.5x more popular than Wednesday? Without
an explanation, I'm more willing to believe that there was a data anomaly.

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ahoyhere
You're making a critical logical mistake - assuming a data anomaly when you
don't know anything about the field, but you take a 5-second check with your
own intuition, and can't find an explanation.

You've never heard "Thursday's the new Friday"? College kids and young
employeds party hearty on Thursdays now. It started in the early 2000's.

Uncle Google shows that even the NYT knows about it:
[http://www.google.com/search?q=thursdays%20the%20new%20frida...](http://www.google.com/search?q=thursdays%20the%20new%20friday)

Remember: just because you can't figure out the reason intuitively, and
immediately, doesn't mean there isn't one.

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gaius
This started in the City as far back as the 80s - everyone wanted to leave
work early on Friday and go away for the weekend with their
partners/families/whatever. So Thursday was the night for getting drunk with
your cow-orkers. Casual Fridays comes from this time too.

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starkfist
Also in NYC, Friday and Saturday nights are when restaurants are clogged with
tourists, so locals try to avoid going out on those nights.

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Herald_MJ
Am i infer that half-way between wednesday and thursday (midnight) that the
check-in rate for restaurants is half way between the two (~450)?

Silly choice of graph type.

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xiaoma
I'm amazed so few people are at the parks in the mornings. I always thought
that they were crammed with people walking their animals, exercising, etc...
from around 5:30 to 8:00 am.

I guess people there like to sleep in.

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winthrowe
I think this shows the skewed distribution of geolocation users, as compared
to the population. I can't find the link right now, but there was a story
posted recently about a survey finding less then 10% of the population had
ever heard of geolocation services such as foursquare.

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festivusr
Has any study been done about the likelihood of people to check-in with one of
these social apps? If someone checks-in at the gym on Monday, are they going
to be less likely to check in again on Tuesday? People I know seem to check-in
when they are subtly bragging about what they're doing, so is it likely
they'll check-in at a non-trendy restaurant on a Tuesday evening?

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rwaliany
Updated graph on gym usage by hour:
<http://simplyryan.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/gymhour.png>

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digitallogic
Which is why I make it a point to go to the gym in the morning or at lunch if
I sleep in. Absurdly over packed after everyone gets off work.

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spectre
Any idea why there are two peaks for bar attendance at 8am and 10am?

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charliepark
It uses Twitter posts (sentiment) as well as actual Foursquare check-ins
(location). I'm guessing people are waking up and either commenting on how
they shouldn't have partied so hard the night before, or are saying something
to the effect of "why'd I leave the bar?" / "I should move in to the bar" /
etc.

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texasice
Nice work.

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revanthv
This awesome.Having this kind of analysis really helps

