Thinking Big Data in Geography by Jim Thatcher Josef Eckert

Author:Jim Thatcher, Josef Eckert [Jim Thatcher, Josef Eckert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC015000 Social Science / Human Geography
ISBN: 9781496205353
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 2018-02-04T21:00:00+00:00

Fig. 7-1. From left to right: Foursquare homepage showing locations of friends; Foursquare profile page; Foursquare check-in screen showing nearby locations. Courtesy of Emily Fekete.

While Foursquare is an excellent resource for observing consumption trends in urban locations, the data source is not perfect. Because users generate the venues, the information and the exact locations may not be completely accurate or they may reflect the values of the users themselves. There may also be places that do not have a corresponding Foursquare venue. However, because Foursquare users are an active community and shape the data themselves, Foursquare has the potential to be a rich and detailed database. Similar to other forms of crowdsourced data, the Foursquare database is constantly being updated and policed by users who want an accurate and useful space to share with their friends.

It is important to note that the data are also limited to people who use Foursquare and have a smartphone. While it may provide a good sample of the population on which to draw impressions of consumer patterns, it is inevitably biased. According to a Pew study on cell phone usage in the United States, about 77 percent of adults own a smartphone and about 90 percent of smartphone users have used their smartphone to obtain information related to their location, such as mapping applications or location-based services including Foursquare.19 This number is heavily skewed by age, education, and income. While smartphone ownership is increasing, it is still most prevalent among younger generations, those with higher household income, and those with higher education levels.20 Although Foursquare places are the focus of this chapter, it is important to understand the user base that is creating Foursquare venues and checking in to these locations, thus determining the popularity of each place. Places are dynamic and dependent upon their relationships with people, things, and other places. The users who are generating Foursquare places and checking in to these locations are shaping the nature of the online venue and therefore having an effect on offline action. Foursquare places are a reflection of the Foursquare user base in that the existence and popularity of these places is driven by the network of users. Therefore, while Foursquare does have the potential to provide extensive information about offline retail spaces, it is, as all places are, a product of its relationship with those who actively use the service.

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