Ozzie Sport

• MCG is one checkin away from 1,000 on Foursquare: bit.ly/9lzIzs #
• There seems to be very little published academic work with stats and Twitter. #
• Most of the social media related research appears to be done by businesses, who publish various reports… #
• Advice for Americans applying for a research degree in Australia : bit.ly/9Q0w1m #
• AFL teams appear to have really improved their Facebook pages, making them landing pages. using Facebook code. #
• Two AFL teams appear to not have official Facebook pages: Swans, Lions. #
• AFL fandom growth on Facebook: Which team is the winner? bit.ly/aujKwh #
• Facebook asking likes to be subscribed to has not resulted in AFL fanpage bump. #
• Brightkite location list much harder to create. #
• Um. Did Facebook turn off listings for members? #
• I can no longer see all members. #
• Or not. That list can still be partially retrieved from search: Just not from the fan page. #
• The amount of people who have checked into ANU compared to UC is unbelievable… #
• AFL website do not make buying tickets to a team's match easy or finding out where they play their games. #
• More on AFL fans utilizing Foursquare: bit.ly/9CwvFB #
• Today's plan involves writing a fair bit about the Melbourne Storm. Might see if this is publishable. Otherwise, to the blog… #
• Since the Melbourne Storm controversy broke, average of 14.5 edits per day to the en-wp article about the team. Prior? .68 edits per day. #

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I’m a little obsessed with foursquare data at the moment and I’m doing this a little early.  I’ll probably update this on Tuesday with a new post after the St. Kilda Monday night match.  At the moment though, based on the two completed games so far this week and last week, this post answers what team has the largest community of Foursquare users.  The surprise is how Collingwood hasn’t run away with this.

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About two years ago, I briefly used brightkite.com.  I liked it because I could check in on my cell phone and find people to ask for travel advice on.  I stopped my minimal usage of it about six months ago and haven’t been back since.  To a large degree, brightkite is a precursor to foursquare so I felt it worth looking at to see if there was an Australian sports community located on it.

The first thing I did was update my location to where I actually am: Canberra, Australia.   I then searched for the major sports stadiums in Canberra.  I couldn’t find them.  I changed my location to the Melbourne and then searched for the Melbourne Cricket Ground.  Nothing turned up.  As this is one of the largest and most well known sports facilities in Australia, and as it is the most popular venue on foursquare, it not appearing on brightkite leads me to believe that there hasn’t been wide scale adoption of the service by Australians and it isn’t worth my time to explore the service to try to find other facilities.

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Back on March 25, 2010, I collected data regarding the number of fans of the official AFL team Facebook fan pages.  It has been a while and I was curious as to which team had the most growth since the last time I looked.  Did any team do a really good job picking up fans?  Does that have any connection to how well the team did?  (There are a whole bunch of other potential factors.  I just haven’t looked at them.)  The team at the top of the ladder for Facebook fan growth is the Essendom Bombers.  The team at the bottom of the ladder is the Adelaide Crows.  Teams not included didn’t have official pages on March 25, 2010.

Is there a correlation between a team’s performance so far this season based on their ladder position and the number of new fans?  No, the correlation is -0.04002 where the Sydney Swans and Brisbane Lions get zero new fans as they do not have a fan page.   If those two teams are removed, -0.10666.  That still is completely random.  The cause for the big increase in fans is not dependent on team performance; other factors must explain the increase in fans.

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I arrived in Australia last week after having applied to and gotten accepted to University of Canberra.  This acceptance was mid-term, starting whenever I arrived.  There wasn’t orientation and I sort of had to do it by feel, but the people at the university were super helpful and nice and made things as painless as possible.  (Ditto for the people at the mobile phone place, the bank and the post office.)  This is based on my experiences so far and may not work for you.    For anyone else going to Australia to do a research degree, I figured I’d let you know some things I’ve learned at this waaaay early stage:

• If you have a Masters by coursework, make sure you can give some sort of equivalent to another Australian degree (or British or Canadian or anywhere else where they have degrees by coursework and degrees by research).  Evaluating my existing Masters caused a hold up in my application as they did not know what to make of it.
• Check your baggage limits.  United gave me two 50 pound bags under the plane.  That’s it.  Go over and it costs you $200.  An extra bag costs you $200.  I’d advise to go heavy on the clothes, shampoo and books as clothes here feel more expensive than the US and a paperback book runs between $12 and $20 AUD.  A cheap laptop in the US can run you $400 but the cheapest I’ve found here is about $550.  (Nicer but still a much higher price point if you’re on a budget.)
• Get a hold of the admissions office and research office as soon as you get your acceptance so you can get your CoE, which you need for your student visa.  As US loans applied through via FAFSA don’t pay out until you get there, this can be a major catch 22 as they want payment upfront before you’re accepted.  To get around this, I faxed them my completed FAFSA paperwork, which showed I was eligible for US based aid and to what dollar amount, FAFSA paperwork that had already theoretically been sent to them when I applied.  They then sent me my CoE and after I completed the student visa form, I had it in two days.
• Before you leave, get a hold of your supervisor (mine was awesome at helping move my application along after it got briefly stuck), tell them when you will arrive and set a time to meet.  You’ll need to do this to set a time up to do your plan for your degree.  This plan will need to eventually get on file with the research department not long after you start.
• One of the absolute first things to do when you get on campus is to get your student ID card.  This ID will help you things like getting a cell phone, opening a bank account and getting a post office box.   For UC, it also doubles as your library card and contains the number for your health insurance login.
• After you get an ID card, set up an appointment with an International Student Advisor.  If you’re entering mid-semester, this is the way to get an orientation packet, get a list of things you need to do, information on who you should contact next, where resources are located or ideas on where to get a bike.
• Find the research department.  They will have additional paperwork for you to fill out.  They’ll also want a copy of your passport and possibly some other stuff as part the student visa work on their side.  If there is a mailing list for research students, make sure you get on it.  The one for UC has scholarship notifications, social gathering announcements, training session information, etc.
• Go through your orientation packet and read it to see what it says.  It should say things like setting up e-mail, checking to make sure your research modules are signed up for, etc.  My packet was geared for undergrads so some of this was confusing.  If you don’t understand everything in the packet and you think you should, ask for help.  At UC, everyone has been beyond nice and helpful and accommodating.
• When you first meet with your supervisor, find out about the library and if there is some one in the library that research students in your department work with.  If there is, schedule an appointment with them.  At mine, I learned all the major databases, how to get access to them, how many days I can check out books, how I can get access to resources not provided inside the library already, signed up for a SCOPUS training session and checked out books related to doing a degree by research in Australia.
• Get an Australian bank account.  This will give you a proof of address, which will be necessary for other things like a cell phone.  You don’t need to prove where you live, just tell them your address.  (I went with WestPac as my bank as I can take out money free from Bank of America there and easily transfer funds.  It just seemed easier.  There is a bank on campus here, that is advertised in the International Student Orientation packet.)  Bring your passport with you and proof that you have a student visa.  I printed out my online confirmation and that worked.  There are no overdraft fees here, or at least WestPac doesn’t have them.  (I boggled.)
• Health insurance is a requirement of your student visa: You need it.  US aid won’t pay out right away.  When you get to campus, you’ll need to find the person in charge of this and see about buying at least 3 months worth of health coverage until your US aid kicks in.  I think that is around $130 AUD.  Could be a bit less.  If your US aid kicks in pro-actively for health coverage from when you started, the amount you paid out of pocket will be refunded to you.  You just need to fill out paperwork.
• You can get a pre-paid or post paid plan.  If you’re going with a plan, you need to have a copy of your student visa, your passport, a credit card, and proof of your address.  Cell phone plans are generally two years so they need proof that you’ll be in the country that long.  You don’t pay your cell phone bill until well, you get the first bill.  (This confused me.  I walked out of the store with a phone that worked but I hadn’t paid the shop anything.) You can pay in the store or online.  Data plans feel pretty affordable. I’m getting a fair amount of minutes, 500 MB transfer, free facebook, twitter and YouTube for around $49 AUD a month for an iPhone.  I’m paying the iPhone up front for $280 AUD instead of tacking on cost of it for each month.
• Post office boxes are handy to have for things like cell phone bills, bank statements, for the university keeping in touch with you and getting absentee ballots from the US.  Mine cost around $87 AUD for 11 months.
• Don’t buy a new bike if you’re looking for one.  Ask around to see who has them.  I got a used one from my supervisor for $30 AUD, cheaper than my bike helmet at $37 AUD.  (Bike helmets are required by law here.)

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• Things I want to do tomorrow: Analysis of Melbourne Storm edit history on Wikipedia… #
• Melbourne Storm and Wikipedia : ozziesport.com/2010/04/melbourne-storm-and-wikipedia/ #
• Teams turn to social media to build buzz : bit.ly/cqEXJU #
• Melbourne Storm page views on Wikipedia stats: bit.ly/aPd16V Match the editing patterns. #
• RT @melbournerebels: NRL superstar Israel Folau set to turn his back on rugby league to sign with the Melbourne Rebels: ow.ly/1E2VZ #
• AFL stadiums, fields and ovals on FourSquare : bit.ly/a3DbpK #
• No change for Melbourne Storm fan total on bebo in the past two months. #
• Are Queenslanders less likely to use Foursquare than NSWers and Victorians? #
• Sports teams: Please make all tweets ReTweetable. I'd love to promote but to many characters is a handicap. #
• Sydney Football Stadium is the most popular non-AFL shared use NRL facility on FourSquare based on bit.ly/9jGB1A this list. #
• NRL ovals, fields and stadiums on foursquare bit.ly/98aq3S #
• 31 people checked in to Etihad Stadium for the Western Bulldogs game: bit.ly/cKeFKY Has new mayor. 13 checkins are new visitors. #
• Alexa chart shows big volume increase in traffic to Melbourne Storm's official site: bit.ly/9tBR91 #
• NRL teams could really use some improved SEO. NRL official sites SHOULD have a list of all their teams… #
• More first time checkins to Melbourne Demons game, more visitors to St. Kilda at Etihad Stadium…. #
• Interesting. Canberra Stadium name changed to Bruce Stadium on Foursquare. URL remains the same. #
• And MCG at bit.ly/cOmeDx was merged with bit.ly/9lzIzs on Foursquare. #
• Notes on AFL/NRL foursquare sporting venues in Australia : bit.ly/9plP4J #
• RT @MCG_News: Fans driving to @Carlton_FC v @Collingwood_FC today #MCG avoid Victoria St if possible. Lanes closed. #aflbluespies #

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I’m not going to check foursquare daily to see how many checkins there were but I thought it might be useful historical data to have some benchmarks for how many people checked in over the course of a few days when one or two games might have been played at a venue.

In going back through my list, I’ve found a couple of things sort of worth noting:

• MCG at http://foursquare.com/venue/2141884 was merged with http://foursquare.com/venue/281644 around April 30/May 1.  The first url forwards to the second. http://foursquare.com/venue/480417 , http://foursquare.com/venue/2947320 and http://foursquare.com/venue/2618227 had the same issue.
• Etihad Stadium had a merge of http://foursquare.com/venue/2396681 with http://foursquare.com/venue/306196
• One venue lost a checkin and person.  I believe this was at Suncorp.
• Canberra Stadium name changed to Bruce Stadium on Foursquare. URL remains the same.
• More first time checkins to Melbourne Demons game, more visitors to St. Kilda at Etihad Stadium.  Some of this could be a result of a merge of another foursquare venue with it.

It should be easy enough for some one with some skill to automate this data to check how many daily updates there are.  (Which could be a nifty API…)  If such a tool exists already, please point me at it.  If you’re interested in building one specifically for this sort of thing, I’d love to know about it.

I’m not particularly interested in doing analysis this morning.  Instead, I’ve provided a table of my foursquare data I have so far.  If you use it for your own analysis, I’d appreciate a link back.

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