Archive for category Port Adelaide Power

Most popular AFL related Twitter accounts (November 18)

Posted by Laura on Thursday, 18 November, 2010

I wasn’t intending to run this again until tomorrow.  Things came up.  I’m going away for the weekend and I want to get everyone’s follower information to see if I can’t begin to map that again.  Also, it’s been a month since I last that information.  (It took about five days.  That was back when Shane Warne had only 198,000 followers.)  I like benchmarking that data to see if there are geographic shifts in where people follow are from.  (Has the location of where Team GWS followers come from?)  So yeah, I figured I would run the script this morning instead of a week from now.

This particular list only includes AFL related accounts. (And everyone on it appears on the list of most popular for all of Australia.)   I’m hoping all the labels are right.  If anything is incorrect, players switched team, I’m missing people… let me know and I’ll fix it.  And yeah, I’ve ranked this one so you can more easily see who is popular and who is not.

Rank Account League Team Description Followers Statuses Listed Friends
1 AFL AFL AFL official 16764 5346 571 1269
2 harry_o AFL Collingwood Magpies player 10909 2211 302 534
3 Collingwood_FC AFL Collingwood Magpies official 9742 2095 291 5537
4 jimstynes AFL Melbourne Demons player 9490 145 226 13
5 karmichaelhunt AFL Gold Coast Football Club Karmichael Hunt (player) 9102 5424 293 193
6 Essendon_Fc AFL Essendon Bombers official team (male) 7440 4162 234 7291
7 GaryAblettJnr AFL Geelong Cats player 7051 138 123 34
8 mickmalthouse AFL Collingwood Magpies Mick Malthouse 6875 88 188 27
9 Adelaide_FC AFL Adelaide Crows official 6711 3154 239 6638
10 DT_13 AFL Collingwood Magpies Dale Thomas 6652 286 142 19
11 JobeWatson AFL Essendon Bombers player 6395 140 190 4
12 swandane AFL Collingwood Magpies player (male) 6243 139 109 10
13 sydneyswans AFL Sydney Swans official 6227 2813 253 2451
14 SP_10 AFL Collingwood Magpies player 6057 348 126 66
15 lehmo23 AFL Hawthorn Hawks player 5598 1871 208 591
16 stkildafc AFL St. Kilda Saints official 5494 2892 211 5549
17 BrendanFevola05 AFL Brisbane Lions player 5339 294 146 28
18 AngusMonfries AFL Essendon Bombers player 5241 268 186 18
19 Carlton_FC AFL Carlton Blues official 5213 2509 238 4055
20 tjrharley AFL Geelong Cats former player (male) 5094 912 162 193
21 Richmond_FC AFL Richmond Tigers official 4334 1206 173 4725
22 heathshaw39 AFL Collingwood Magpies player (male) 4318 61 91 7
23 northkangaroos AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos official 4312 1993 163 4724
24 craighutchy AFL AFL journalist (male)(Nine Network) 4266 223 117 655
25 SharrodW_21 AFL Collingwood Magpies player 4211 77 113 25
26 Geelong_FC AFL Geelong Cats fansite 3749 3746 161 1941
27 HawthornFC AFL Hawthorn Hawks official 3748 1052 170 10
28 nathan2jones AFL Melbourne Demons player 3531 1493 147 311
29 SuperCoachAFL AFL AFL fansite 3389 219 169 2305
30 SpidaEveritt AFL AFL former player 3225 240 76 1409
31 DemonsHQ AFL Melbourne Demons official 2934 2051 158 543
32 GoldCoastFC AFL Gold Coast Football Club official 2818 949 150 608
33 marcmurphy3 AFL Carlton Blues player 2665 130 84 42
34 stevenbaker10 AFL St. Kilda Saints player 2630 773 71 125
35 Fremantle_FC AFL Fremantle Dockers official 2612 651 141 164
36 WCEofficial AFL West Coast Eagles 2555 1367 143 1079
37 CamSchwab AFL Melbourne Demons ceo 2553 2122 106 460
38 PAFC AFL Port Adelaide Power official 2550 1253 162 79
39 FitzySA AFL Sydney Swans player (male) 2440 48 50 23
40 AndrewMackieGFC AFL Geelong Cats player 2292 33 97 3
41 chooka_86 AFL Carlton Blues player 2114 1509 77 198
42 triplemfooty AFL AFL Triple M Footy 2089 2860 79 112
43 Rickypetterd15 AFL Melbourne Demons unofficial 2063 340 93 90
44 JeffWhite34 AFL Melbourne Demons former player (male) 2061 7329 108 329
45 Adam0017 AFL Western Bulldogs player 2035 231 60 89
46 westernbulldogs AFL Western Bulldogs official 2034 324 101 53
47 andrewswallow AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos unofficial 1991 386 85 16
48 Beamdogg AFL Melbourne Demons player 1907 147 65 112
49 BradMilzy AFL Melbourne Demons player 1869 151 60 81
50 howcroft AFL Melbourne Demons player 1773 280 71 79
51 anthonyalsop AFL AFL sport media specialist (male) 1700 12487 122 1437
52 Real_ColSylvia AFL Melbourne Demons player 1689 20 56 32
53 AFLStatsGuys AFL AFL 1678 934 100 101
54 bigdyman AFL Collingwood Magpies player 1663 588 88 23
55 Hawks_AFL AFL Hawthorn Hawks unofficial 1631 1085 30 1951
56 SteveAlessio AFL Essendon Bombers former Essendon AFL player 1574 762 80 222
57 warrentredrea AFL Port Adelaide Power player 1537 506 58 93
58 brett_kirk AFL Sydney Swans player (Brett Kirk) (male) 1498 10 27 3
59 kadesimpson6 AFL Carlton Blues player 1495 47 50 13
59 sgrigg88 AFL Carlton Blues player 1495 87 53 19
61 ALFbrisbane AFL Brisbane Lions fansite 1445 38 58 3
62 GWS_Giants AFL Greater Western Sydney official team (male) 1433 268 79 177
63 PeterDaicos AFL Collingwood Magpies unofficial 1419 59 77 678
64 CaleMorton AFL Melbourne Demons player 1234 229 47 63
65 zacd_6 AFL St. Kilda Saints player 1220 115 35 55
66 DrDreamTeam AFL AFL Dream Team (male) 1210 547 50 27
67 AFLphotos AFL AFL official 1200 784 56 96
68 AFL_Shifter AFL AFL talent scout Kevin Sheehan 1191 108 35 12
69 AFLInsider AFL AFL official 1165 54 58 84
70 IanPrendergast AFL AFL AFL Players’ Association General Manager (male) 1100 821 58 289
71 ThaBigRush AFL Melbourne Demons player (male) 1093 35 43 32
72 samjacobs32 AFL Carlton Blues player 1081 53 36 23
73 AFL_JenWitham AFL AFL 1062 884 56 286
74 cornes18 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 1047 183 36 60
75 Rivshouse AFL Melbourne Demons player 1039 10 49 8
76 collingwoodnews AFL Collingwood Magpies unofficial 1004 6 34 1
77 bater06 AFL Melbourne Demons Matthew Bate 986 110 40 63
78 njbrown17 AFL St. Kilda Saints player 982 43 54 19
79 troychaplin30 AFL Port Adelaide Power player 960 316 39 85
80 JasonJohnson14 AFL Essendon Bombers former Essendon AFL player 928 90 36 31
81 championdata AFL AFL Official Statisticians of the AFL. 899 2226 49 2
82 ssalopek3 AFL Port Adelaide Power player 858 200 36 51
83 ChadCornes AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 819 72 31 29
84 AFLBrisbaneFC AFL Brisbane Lions fansite 798 1212 34 25
85 Robeddy40 AFL St. Kilda Saints player 785 74 29 52
86 APWelsh AFL Essendon Bombers player 765 59 27 56
87 JaredCrouch AFL Sydney Swans former player 734 693 43 129
88 MattBurgan AFL Melbourne Demons melbournefc.com.au editor 727 1143 32 86
89 JackRiewoldt08 AFL Richmond Tigers player (male) 707 11 22 13
90 tboak10 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 704 38 29 21
91 RustyRussell02 AFL Carlton Blues player (male) 683 19 19 9
92 RTTF_AU AFL Sydney Swans fansite 681 1297 38 952
93 Swatta02 AFL Sydney Swans player (male) 661 542 23 245
94 newto29 AFL Melbourne Demons player 653 193 31 94
95 Freo_Dockers AFL Fremantle Dockers fansite 645 2293 43 380
96 wingsofperth AFL West Coast Eagles unofficial 612 849 9 8
97 hughesy_53 AFL Melbourne Demons player 610 83 24 43
98 PencilsCase AFL Melbourne Demons Jake Spencer 588 36 38 40
99 GraceOf41 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 587 184 16 30
100 chipa__8 AFL Melbourne Demons player (male) 575 31 16 44
101 KurtTippett4 AFL Adelaide Crows player (male) 567 136 11 32
102 MitchMorton AFL Richmond Tigers player (male) 553 50 19 30
103 Sam_Blease AFL Melbourne Demons player 547 69 15 69
104 Maverick_weller AFL Gold Coast Football Club player 546 603 31 77
105 DTTALK AFL AFL Dream Team (male) 520 1574 34 124
106 rgray17 AFL Port Adelaide Power player 517 52 21 42
107 TheBigTicket4 AFL Adelaide Crows player (male) 510 34 22 14
108 Carltonfc AFL Carlton Blues fansite 507 602 19 58
109 TalkingCarlton AFL Carlton Blues fansite 491 2243 33 36
110 FremantleFC AFL Fremantle Dockers unofficial 485 2 13 0
111 BrendanWhiteX AFL Hawthorn Hawks player (male) 482 72 10 30
112 surj9 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 461 63 21 37
113 MitchJbrown17 AFL West Coast Eagles unofficial 460 13 42 6
114 essendonfc AFL Essendon Bombers unofficial 456 2 10 0
115 Harts08 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 455 39 20 43
116 AFL_AdamMcNicol AFL AFL Adam McNicol (male) 449 31 14 149
117 AFL_JasonPhelan AFL AFL AFL employee 445 373 17 99
118 PAFCNews AFL Port Adelaide Power fansite (male) 430 1427 17 151
118 ryanmcrowley AFL Fremantle Dockers player 430 31 26 17
120 Israel_Folau AFL Gold Coast Football Club player 423 204 14 10
121 Tomlogan44 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 402 83 18 28
122 _the_kennel_ AFL Western Bulldogs fansite 382 2775 21 37
123 AFL_LHolmesby AFL AFL 379 514 23 125
123 Blueseum AFL Carlton Blues fansite 379 186 18 1466
125 paulstewy14 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 376 289 19 21
126 bmsew AFL Hawthorn Hawks unofficial 367 0 24 66
127 ChrisLKnights AFL Adelaide Crows player (male) 352 29 14 11
128 bNason47 AFL Richmond Tigers player (male) 351 0 19 4
129 MelbourneFC AFL Melbourne Demons fansite 330 1 9 0
130 Cousins9 AFL West Coast Eagles former player (male) 323 148 3 112
131 mitchF15 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 318 47 14 23
132 WestCoastEagles AFL West Coast Eagles unofficial 315 2 2 0
133 okeeferyan AFL Sydney Swans player (male) 311 34 14 6
134 ccaallward AFL Western Bulldogs player 310 1 33 0
135 bigfootynews AFL AFL fansite 309 139 15 141
136 demonland AFL Melbourne Demons fansite 306 566 12 209
137 go_saints AFL St. Kilda Saints fansite 304 68 13 274
138 Dockerland AFL Fremantle Dockers fansite 295 387 13 0
138 WarnieDT AFL AFL Dream Team (male) 295 1151 10 396
140 Brogsy5 AFL Port Adelaide Power player 294 29 17 49
140 Demonblog AFL Melbourne Demons fansite 294 3453 13 53
142 Brodie_Martin41 AFL Adelaide Crows player (male) 285 195 11 52
143 Lobbe23 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 272 32 16 37
144 Andrew_Crowell AFL Adelaide Crows AFL Ladder Project Officer (Adelaide Crows Emcee) (SANFL Radio Commentator) 271 513 18 258
145 JoeyDaye AFL Gold Coast Football Club player 262 300 26 124
146 AFL_BenBroad AFL AFL AFL employee 256 132 17 97
147 BionicSwan AFL Sydney Swans unofficial 242 415 27 20
148 NABCup AFL AFL fansite 225 2384 23 217
148 SydAFLFan AFL Sydney Swans fan account 225 695 8 646
150 groundwork21 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 213 1 13 1
151 briansham AFL Fremantle Dockers unofficial 212 38 18 12
151 dstewy43 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 212 58 13 32
153 GrandstandAFL AFL AFL ABC 211 31 14 10
154 jpittard29 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 206 28 12 17
155 matesOmelbourne AFL Melbourne Demons unofficial 201 25 14 22
156 6prfootball AFL AFL radio station 200 964 15 16
157 CF_Demons AFL Melbourne Demons fansite 197 344 10 106
158 AFLgf2 AFL AFL fansite 196 150 4 849
158 Saints_FC AFL St. Kilda Saints fansite 196 86 14 8
160 Marcus__White AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos player 180 33 21 27
161 wceaglesfc AFL West Coast Eagles fansite 173 110 5 55
162 MayorDT AFL AFL Dream Team (male) 172 688 12 70
163 matt_jaensch AFL Adelaide Crows player (male) 168 79 8 15
164 swansreserves AFL Canberra Sydney Swans Reserves 167 1732 8 176
165 AFL_Aus AFL AFL fansite 148 157 10 0
165 ftscrazy AFL Western Bulldogs fansite 148 329 12 29
167 adelaidefc AFL Adelaide Crows fansite 146 186 5 0
168 RWBFooty AFL St. Kilda Saints unofficial 141 539 8 79
169 StangerDT AFL AFL Dream Team (male) 137 296 9 49
170 CFC_Multimedia AFL Carlton Blues 133 50 9 112
171 melbfcblog AFL Melbourne Demons fansite 132 156 5 84
172 RoyDT AFL AFL Dream Team (male) 125 26 5 17
173 CalvinDT AFL AFL Dream Team (male) 124 41 6 7
174 ChopperDT AFL AFL Dream Team (male) 123 5 5 21
174 yellow_n_black AFL Richmond Tigers unofficial 123 1130 12 12
176 Nicksy2323 AFL Sydney Swans player (male) 119 14 6 9
177 BF_Lions AFL Brisbane Lions fansite 117 416 5 46
178 thecattery AFL Geelong Cats unofficial 112 478 8 28
179 Bradenstokes AFL AFL Player Relations Coordinator with the AFLPA 111 157 6 158
180 ACT4GWS AFL Greater Western Sydney 96 222 3 58
181 hawkaDT AFL Hawthorn Hawks fansite 94 12 4 474
181 jarrad34 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 94 2 7 34
183 demonwiki AFL Melbourne Demons fansite 92 195 3 76
184 lewis_moss AFL Gold Coast Football Club player (male) 89 54 5 32
184 natskii AFL Brisbane Lions player (male) 89 667 4 173
186 AFL_MarkConway AFL AFL AFL employee 76 330 11 100
186 AFL_MikeRogers AFL AFL AFL employee 76 28 11 24
188 CatmanForever AFL Geelong Cats fansite 71 700 7 6
188 nthmelbourne AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos fansite 71 54 2 92
190 Chippa39 AFLNT AFLNT official 67 972 0 122
191 AFL_MicCullen AFL AFL AFL employee 57 234 8 1
191 VictoriaParkHC AFL Collingwood Magpies grounds 57 98 2 23
193 fake_EssendonFC AFL Essendon Bombers fansite 49 66 4 79
194 NicksBB AFL Collingwood Magpies fansite 46 6 2 64
195 MOORE_26 AFL Port Adelaide Power player (male) 45 7 4 30
196 bc8977 AFL Fremantle Dockers unofficial 42 8 9 10
197 AFL_ChrisPike AFL AFL 41 283 8 0
198 bomberblitz AFL Essendon Bombers player 40 117 1 20
199 AFL_MuzzBelkin AFL AFL AFL employee 35 137 7 0
200 AFL_CamNoakes AFL AFL 29 122 7 1
201 AFL_BenOliver AFL AFL AFL employee 28 534 7 1
201 AFL_Nschmook AFL AFL AFL employee 28 238 6 0
201 AFL_ScottBevo AFL AFL 28 126 8 2
204 AFL_Jbartold AFL AFL AFL employee 26 81 8 0
204 AFL_PaulJohnson AFL AFL AFL employee 26 118 6 4
206 AFL_Undercover AFL AFL fansite 23 27 1 116
207 SwansPerthCrew AFL Sydney Swans fan group 22 182 3 131
208 AFL_KatrinaGill AFL AFL AFL employee 21 0 5 0
208 AFL_SteveRice AFL AFL AFL employee 21 53 7 12
209 bobalski AFL Canberra Sydney Swans Reserves 19 115 3 14
210 jreynojreyno AFL Essendon Bombers player 16 11 1 25
211 AFL_StuWarren AFL AFL AFL employee 12 20 4 0
212 AFL_JOConnell AFL AFL AFL employee 10 53 5 0

Related Posts:

Characteristic of AFL diggers

Posted by Laura on Monday, 15 November, 2010

I like random data. You never know when it will turn out to be handy. Last evening and this morning, I bench marked some totals regarding how many digg submissions existed for various keywords. After that, I copy and pasted some of those search results, and labeled them by league/team. In addition to that, I recorded profile information for people who had submitted things to digg. If I looked at their profile and they had other digg listings that they submitted or had dugg, I added those teams to the list. Given the issues with finding out the true total of results for these teams, the data I have is just a sample. These samples are not large. (This data is not easy to manually mine.)

For all teams where I have 5+ people who submitted a link related to a team or dugg a link related to a team, I decided to calculate the mean, median and mode.

League Team Math Followers Following Diggs Daily Diggs Submissions Daily Submissions Comments
AFL West Coast Eagles Mean 4.35 8.35 1841.5 0 1845.21 43.5 0.78
Median 1 0 28.5 0 28.5 0 0
Mode 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
AFL Port Adelaide Power Mean 4.2 7.93 1737.6 0 1740.33 40.6 0.93
Median 2 0 29 0 29 0 0
Mode 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
AFL Collingwood Magpies Mean 7.69 13.92 2158.23 0 1961.92 42.07 11.07
Median 2 0 245 0 88 0 0
Mode 0 0 #N/A 0 #N/A 0 0
AFL St. Kilda Saints Mean 28.30 23.30 2564.15 0 2226.15 48.15 2.46
Median 6 3 959 0 225 0 0
Mode 2 0 #N/A 0 #N/A 0 0
AFL Geelong Cats Mean 3.375 4.25 2805.875 0 2807.25 66.25 0.75
Median 1.5 0 104 0 81 0 0
Mode 0 0 #N/A 0 #N/A 0 0

There appear to be some differences between people who submit links to /digg AFL related links by team.  If this holds true for a larger sample (currently between 9 and 16 diggers) would be an interesting question.  I don’t know how feasible that will be given the time issue.

My digg data is available here.

Related Posts:

A social media/web snapshot of Collingwood, Hawthorn and Port Adelaide

Posted by Laura on Sunday, 14 November, 2010

Last week, I asked my Twitter followers if there was any team that anyone might data about. I said I’d pretty much be happy to dump as much of the data I have regarding those teams (or athletes) into a document that might provide some interesting insights into the teams. Even if not, it would offer benchmarks for further study. A lot of what I have is random and really depends on what sites I’m looking at, how often I update, how motivated I am get additional data, etc. I tend to go hunting when I have a purpose and those periods see an increase in specific teams. What I need rarely turns out to be what I have but that’s a challenge with creative research.

That all said and done, what my followers requested were Collingwood, Hawthorn and Port Adelaide. The links below are to the pdf files containing the data I have about them. (There might be a few small things left out.)

Related Posts:

Growth of @PAFC related accounts on Twitter

Posted by Laura on Saturday, 13 November, 2010

A number of times, I’ve posted most popular lists. This table takes the data found on those charts and looks at the historical growth for Port Adelaide Power related Twitter accounts. (If any of these players are no longer with Port Adelaide, please let me know. Conversely, if you know of any Port Adelaide accounts I’m missing, let me know.) If a cell is empty, it just means that I did not collect data for that account on that date.

PAFC warrentredrea troychaplin30 ssalopek3 rgray17 Brogsy5 PAFCNews
30-Dec-09 946
30-May-10 1,539
16-Jun-10 1,590
19-Jun-10 1,603
24-Jun-10 1,625
29-Jul-10 1,804
26-Aug-10 1,986
13-Sep-10 2,123 1,026 655 522 168 145
15-Sep-10 2,142 1,049 672 539 183 152
2-Oct-10 1,252 799 682 318
4-Oct-10 2,263 1,260 802 687 324 213
11-Oct-10 2,361 1,354 867 747 382 236
13-Oct-10 2,371 1,364 872 758 391 244
7-Nov-10 2,497 1,492 925 827 482 280 419
11-Nov-10 2,507 1,513 944 842 499 286 425

Related Posts:

What #afl related hashtags get the most RT @ ReTweets?

Posted by Laura on Sunday, 15 August, 2010

While on vacation, a friend of mine recommended I read Want to be Retweeted? Add Hashtags to Your Tweets! The article is rather interesting and looks at the #hashtags that led to the most ReTweets.

I have a collection of AFL related tweets that I update semi-regularly. More often than not, I use these for geographic related analysis. My AFL tweet collection has a series of issues though that make me hesitant to always draw definitive conclusions from it. These issues include:

  • Incomplete tweet set for keywords: I only get what is available from Searchtastic.
  • Incomplete tweet set based on keyword limitations: Even supposing I could get all the tweets related to a keyword, I can’t find every reference to the AFL as there are too many possible words that could reference the AFL and its clubs.
  • Incomplete tweet set because of time: Some keywords were searched for earlier and some later. Not all keywords were looked at over the same period.
  • Irrelevant tweets: Keywords like #gosaints may refer to the St. Kilda Saints or the New Orleans Saints. AFL may refer to the AFL-CIO, a union in the United States. Unless every tweet is examined, irrelevant tweets will remain in the data set.

These are major obstacles to doing any sort of content analysis for Twitter when specific subgroups are looked at. Many of these issues are ones that other researchers are likely to have too: You can’t get the complete data set, will include garbage data and may not be entirely timely.

That said, despite these limitations, I still wanted to know what are the most popular #hashtags for AFL related tweets and what type of hashtags are likely to be ReTweeted.

To get my dataset of Tweets, first I went to Searchtastic, ran a series of searches over the course of 6 weeks, and exported those results to Excel. I noted the keyword I searched for and the team that keyword is related to. The keyword searches that were run on Searchtastic during this period included: #afl, #aflbluestigers, #aflcatslions, #afldemonsswans, #afldogscats, #afldogsfreo, #afldogspower, #afleaglesblues, #aflfooty, #aflhawksdemons, #aflkangasbombers, #aflkangasfreo, #AFLPAQUIZ, #aflpiestigers, #aflpowercrows, #aflpowereagles, #aflsaintshawks, #aflswanshawks , #brisbanelions, #dreamteam, #footy, #fremantle, #freo, #freo AFL, #goblues, #gobombers, #Gocats, #gocrows, #gopies, #gosaints, #goswans, #NMFC, #northmelbourne, #sackermanis, #supercoach, #sydneyswans, #teamgws, #thekennel, #wafl, #westcoast afl, ackermanis sacked, ACT4GWS, Adelaide Crows, Adelaide_FC, afl Bombers, AFL GWS, AFL Magpies, afl pies, AFL Tony Lockett, Aker Bulldogs, Akermanis, akermanis dogs, akermanis gillard, Australian rules, blues afl, Brad Johnson, Brad Johnson AFL, Brady Rawlings, brisbane afl, Brisbane Lions, Brownlow Medal, Cameron Mooney cats, Carlton Blues, Chris Judd Carlton, Collingwood, collingwood AFL, Collingwood Magpies, crows afl, Damien Hardwick, DemonsHQ, Dockers AFL, eagles afl, eagles perth, Eric Mackenzie , Essendon afl, Essendon Bombers, etihad kilda, folau afl, folau israel, Fremantle Dockers, fremantle ruckman, GCFC, geelong cats, Gold Coast Suns, harry_o, Hawthorn Hawks, HawthornFC, Jason Akermanis, Jeff Kennett, Judd Blues, kilda, kilda AFL, kilda riewoldt, lions afl, Mark Harvey, mcg kilda, Melbourne Demons, milburn cats, Nathan van Berlo Crows, North Melbourne Kangaroos, PAFC, Peter Szental, Port Adelaide Power, portadelaidefc, Richmond Football, Richmond Tigers, Rodney Eade dogs, roos afl, sackermanis, spoon eagles, spoon lions, spoon tigers, spoon wce, swans afl, swans footy, swans ruckman, Sydney Swans, tigers afl, Travis Johnstone, Trent Cotchin, WCE AFL, West Coast Eagles, and Western Bulldogs. These keywords represent all teams and often include multiple keywords for them.

The next step was to remove all duplicate tweets. As some tweets contain multiple keywords and some searches were run more than once over that 6-week time period, that possibility existed. To do this, three columns were copy and pasted to a new worksheet: Username, Tweet and In Reply To. On Excel, I did this using Filter -> Advanced Filter -> Unique records only. This process took the total tweets from 8,523 to 5,427.

The third step was to identify all the hash tags used in this data set. To do this, I copy and pasted all the tweets to Notepad. I ran a find and replace for [space]# and replaced with [tab]#. I copy and pasted these back, removed all cells that did not start with a #. After this was done, the data set was copy and pasted back to Notepad. Another find and replace was done, this time, [space] was replaced with [tab]. This was pasted back to excel and all cells that did not start with # were deleted. The completed list was 2,833 total hashtags used. Of these, 556 were unique. The following table counts their total usage:

Hashtag Total times used
#afl 724
#gosaints 110
#gocats 84
#DreamTeam 79
#aflswanshawks 53
#aflpiestigers 51
#aflpowereagles 51
#afldogscats 47
#aflfooty 46
#aflsaintshawks 45
#footy 44
#aflhawksdemons 43
#aflbluestigers 41
#aflcatslions 41
#afleaglesblues 41
#AFLPAQUIZ 39
#aflkangasfreo 38
#brisbanelions 38
#aflkangasbombers 36
#GoSwans 35
#Goblues 34
#ausvotes 33
#gopies 31
#ff 28
#afldogsfreo 25
#Essendon 21
#GoBombers 20
#afldemonsswans 18
#Fremantle 17
#SuperCoach 17
#afllionscrows 16
#adelaide 15
#aflpowercrows 14
#news 13
#thekennel 12
#football 10
#Sackermanis 9
#11BOYS 8
#afllionssaints 8
#AUG21STCLUBVENUS 8
#Blues 8
#collingwood 8
#GUAPGANG 8
#Hawks 8
#HNG 8
#Lions 8
#Australia 7
#Dockers 7
#fb 7
#freo 7
#sports 7
#wce 7
#aker 6
#jobs 6
#lost 6
#NMFC 6
#ABC 5
#aflbluesdogs 5
#Chelsea 5
#Eng 5
#NorthMelbourne 5
#pafc 5
#wafl 5
#aflbombersblues 4
#aflfreoswans 4
#akermanis 4
#blog 4
#bombers 4
#Bulldogs 4
#DOPEVIDEOALERT!! 4
#fail 4
#GOPIES! 4
#gopies!! 4
#GOSAINTS! 4
#gws 4
#pies 4
#sport 4
#worldcup 4
#aflcatshawks 3
#aflcrowscats 3
#afleagleslions 3
#argyleman 3
#beer 3
#bj008 3
#Crows 3
#dogs 3
#dss10 3
#footyshow 3
#Freelance 3
#Gillard 3
#goldcoast 3
#Light 3
#Melbourne 3
#plymouth 3
#sagreat 3
#sydneyswans 3
#tcot 3
#travel 3
#wa 3
#WORDPRESS 3
#17Julay 2
#afl: 2
#AFLCIO 2
#aka 2
#akermanis, 2
#alp 2
#Apple 2
#AstonVilla 2
#BERBATOV 2
#brisbane 2
#Carlton 2
#CarltonFC 2
#CATS 2
#CFL 2
#Chargers 2
#Chile 2
#Cousins 2
#DREAMTEAM!!! 2
#DT 2
#Eagles 2
#economist 2
#FERGUSON 2
#FollowFriday 2
#footyfriday 2
#gno 2
#GOBLUES! 2
#goCats! 2
#GOCROWS 2
#gosaints. 2
#Hamburg 2
#Health 2
#Idontthinkso 2
#Illegal 2
#job 2
#kentucky 2
#lastfm 2
#lp’s 2
#magpies 2
#mofo 2
#Monday 2
#monkbeer 2
#NBA 2
#New 2
#Obesity 2
#online 2
#P2 2
#ROONEY 2
#Soccer 2
#Sportal 2
#suns 2
#Sydney 2
#TeamFollowBack 2
#Þ¹ Óù²_ 2
#thefootyshow 2
#throughandthrough 2
#Tigers 2
#TT 2
#WhoDat 2
# 1
#011 1
#1 1
#1, 1
#15 1
#17 1
#2. 1
#2010 1
#3 1
#3DAL 1
#6 1
#6insolidaity 1
#7 1
#ABCnews24 1
#adelaide, 1
#adversity 1
#af… 1
#AFL! 1
#AFL, 1
#afl. 1
#Aflac 1
#aflbulldogscats 1
#aflcatspies 1
#aflcionow 1
#afldemonsbombers 1
#afldemonsswans. 1
#afldogscats101 1
#afldogskangas 1
#afldogspower 1
#afleaglesfreo 1
#AFLfootyshow 1
#aflhawksdogs 1
#aflordapele 1
#AFLPA 1
#AFLPAQUIZ. 1
#aflpiestigers. 1
#aflsaintshawks. 1
#afrodigital 1
#akergate. 1
#Akermanis. 1
#akermankiss 1
#Albania 1
#A-League 1
#alfsaintshawks 1
#AlfStewart 1
#allday 1
#AllieGentry 1
#annoyingquestion 1
#Argyle 1
#ArizonaFallLeague 1
#Art 1
#Astros 1
#AUG28THHIGHLANDPARK 1
#aussiemigration 1
#Autocar 1
#avidfan 1
#BagelTuesday 1
#bankshowdown 1
#Barcelona 1
#Basketball 1
#batman 1
#BBB 1
#BBB, 1
#bcfc 1
#BEATthebotssss 1
#beenthere 1
#Belgium 1
#BELIEVE 1
#BENNY 1
#betchaknowem 1
#beu 1
#BigFooty 1
#blessings 1
#bmb 1
#boomers 1
#Bordeaux 1
#boulen10? 1
#breakuplines 1
#Bremen 1
#Briggswentdownlike 1
#BrisbaneLions! 1
#BrisbaneLions. 1
#broncos 1
#brugerdisken 1
#Brumbies 1
#caa 1
#cannes 1
#Canterbury-Bankstown 1
#carnbombers 1
#Celtic 1
#CERN 1
#CERTIFIED 1
#championship 1
#Cheetahs 1
#chi 1
#cliffhanghaunters 1
#Climate 1
#CNNHeroes. 1
#cocaine 1
#Coffee 1
#Collingwood. 1
#Collingwood: 1
#collingwoodfc 1
#Colombia 1
#Conservation 1
#conservative. 1
#cop15 1
#Corvette 1
#cowboys 1
#coworking 1
#crazyideas 1
#cubs 1
#deals 1
#deetrain!) 1
#defense 1
#Demetriou 1
#dicaduca 1
#diet 1
#doublestandard 1
#draft 1
#draw365 1
#DREAMTEAM- 1
#DREAMTEAM! 1
#DREAMTEAM!!!!! 1
#DREAMTEAM!!!!!!! 1
#DREAMTEAM!!!!!!!!! 1
#DREAMTEAM!GET 1
#dreamteam(u 1
#DreamTeam, 1
#dreamteam..like 1
#dreamteam2010 1
#dreamteam2010(Ur 1
#drmtm 1
#druggies 1
#Duck 1
#duh 1
#duisburg 1
#dumb 1
#Eagles. 1
#ecommerce 1
#ecommretail 1
#EdeActueel 1
#efficiënt 1
#elmundial 1
#elvisfest 1
#ems 1
#emt 1
#England 1
#epic 1
#EquipedelaRêve 1
#ESPN3: 1
#everyday 1
#everyoneshappy 1
#excitedtweet 1
#faic 1
#fanniemae 1
#fascinating 1
#fat 1
#FCTwente 1
#FcukFranklin 1
#fd10p2m 1
#Fev 1
#FFGLBS 1
#FIFA 1
#fireupdons 1
#fitness 1
#flag 1
#flagship 1
#flash 1
#Flight 1
#flotilla 1
#FLYSTLYE 1
#FollowNow 1
#footyclassified 1
#footyOne 1
#footyshow. 1
#footyteammovies 1
#forçafluminense 1
#FoxFooty 1
#Foxtel 1
#free 1
#Freelancer 1
#freeweezy 1
#freo. 1
#freshen 1
#FridayFwit. 1
#fromtheouter 1
#Fuckem
%- %(
1
#fuckyeah 1
#Gabon 1
#gallery: 1
#game 1
#Gaza 1
#GCFC 1
#Geelong 1
#GeelongCats 1
#GER, 1
#GERONIMO 1
#GGMU 1
#GOAT 1
#GoBears 1
#goBears! 1
#GOBLUES. 1
#GOCHELSEA 1
#GOGIANTS 1
#gopies!!! 1
#GoSaints!! 1
#gosaintsFC 1
#gostkilda 1
#GoSwans! 1
#GoSwans!!! 1
#gothepies 1
#green, 1
#GroenWerkt 1
#GUCCI 1
#guitar 1
#Haiku 1
#haiti: 1
#HamOnt 1
#handig 1
#Hanley. 1
#HardMan 1
#harry-o 1
#hawks#Hawthorn#AFL 1
#Hawthorn 1
#hcr, 1
#healthybusiness, 1
#healthyliving 1
#hiring 1
#History 1
#hnw 1
#Hockey 1
#HOLIDAY 1
#hollin 1
#homepark 1
#hotels 1
#HTC 1
#humor 1
#iConfess 1
#i’dliketoseethat! 1
#ihatecollingwood 1
#ihatequotes 1
#ihaveadream 1
#IloveagoodConspiracryTheory 1
#imabitscared 1
#immaturelittleboy 1
#in 1
#inception, 1
#IndianapolisColts 1
#Insiders: 1

The next step was to count the total @ replies and hashtag uses. To do this, all the unique tweets were copied to a new worksheet. A filter was created to list all tweets that did not include an @ sign. These tweets were deleted. This brought the total tweets from 5,427 to 1,844. The next step was to create a filter to show all tweets that did not include a #. These tweets were then deleted. This brought the total Tweets down to 832. The next step was to look remove tweets that did not contain “RT @”, “RT:@”, “retweeting @”, “retweet @”, “via @”, “thx @”, “HT @”, or “r @”. This leaves 458 tweets that are retweets that contain hash tags.

The same process was conducted to count the hash tags that was used for all hash tags and RT @. The following list was created of people who were the most ReTweeted (or mentioned in the ReTweeted tweet) where the tweets contained #hashtags and the #hashtag totals for ReTweets. These were then totaled and counted, resulting in the following table:

Hashtag Count ReTweeted Count
#GOSAINTS 37 @afl 44
#DreamTeam 36 @Carlton_FC 24
#GoCats 26 @stkildafc 23
#AFL 25 @hawthornfc 16
#afleaglesblues 21 @Essendon_FC 15
#pafc 20 @Geelong_FC 12
#aflkangasbombers 19 @sydneyswans 12
#aflpiestigers 18 @iamdiddy 10
#aflsaintshawks 18 @Richmond_FC 9
#aflswanshawks 17 @AFLPA 8
#ausvotes 12 @Adelaide_FC 7
#aflpowereagles 10 @JuliaGillard 7
#AflKANGASfreo 9 @northkangaroos 7
#brisbanelions 9 @_the_kennel_ 6
#NMFC 8 @bigmacvikings 6
#sackermanis 8 @Collingwood_FC 6
#thekennel 8 @dizzyyet 6
#Adelaide 7 @redcafesd 6
#aflcatslions 7 @seanpaull 6
#afllionssaints 7 @aflcio 5
#aflhawksdemons 6 @Gottrocks 5
#AFLPAQUIZ 6 @myfabolouslife 5
#aflpowercrows 6 @PAFC 5
#11BOYS 5 @triplemfooty 5
#GoBombers 5 @AFLStatsGuys 4
#GoPies 5 @AveStarLJ 4
#P2 5 @Bickys 4
#tcot 5 @Bigdroppunt 4
#travel 5 @Blonde_Cheeks 4
#afldemonsswans 4 @CatsInsider 4
#fremantle 4 @crowdiegal 4
#gopies!! 4 @DemonsHQ 4
#goswans 4 @DjPaniic 4
#lions 4 @Fremantle_FC 4
#soccer 4 @jletti 4
#tags: 4 @JOEYCRACKTS 4
#throughandthrough 4 @SENNews 4
#afldogsfreo 3 @tabloidterror 4
#aker 3 @tedwards2 4
#akermanis 3 @THEjennykim 4
#AUG21STCLUBVENUS 3 @themonkbeer 4
#beer 3 @tjrharley 4
#ecfc 3 @aburt 3
#ENG 3 @charlenemay 3
#FF 3 @drwarwick 3
#GUAPGANG 3 @Footyfree 3
#HNG 3 @fromtheouter 3
#monkbeer 3 @garethdn 3
#sewelliscool 3 @mydogateart 3
#SydneySwans 3 @NikkiRoks 3
#WhoDat 3 @pluke17 3
#worldcup 3 @rachii_10 3
#aflbluestigers 2 @rickyrozay 3
#afleagleslions 2 @RTTF_AU 3
#aflfooty 2 @StadiumMustard 3
#aka 2 @TLW3 3
#argyleman 2 @trmash 3
#bj008 2 @afletch5 2
#bulldogs 2 @AFLNewsWire 2
#dogs 2 @AlexBrink10 2
#DOPEVIDEOALERT!! 2 @alexhart7 2
#dreamteam2010 2 @andrewbolt 2
#footy 2 @angiemartinez 2
#footyfriday 2 @annielin 2
#footyshow 2 @BradJohnson6 2
#Fuckem
%- %(
2 @BrigandLehmo 2
#Gillard 2 @brotheramos 2
#GoBears 2 @CalAthletics 2
#Goblues 2 @catsman09 2
#Illegal 2 @ChristophHewett 2
#lp 2 @DaRealRoot 2
#nowplaying 2 @Diamonds_Pearlz 2
#plymouth 2 @DreamTeamatl_TK 2
#putthatinyourpipeandsmokeit 2 @DT_13 2
#ROCGiRLs 2 @EdMorrissey 2
#sagreat 2 @emmat18 2
#supercoach 2 @EssendonBomber 2
#thefootyshow 2 @FakeWoosha 2
#TwoDat 2 @globoesportecom 2
#wce 2 @HaroldKuepers. 2
#1, 1 @hawthornfc15 2
#accommodation 1 @iAmRozayyy 2
#aflak 1 @j_carroll7 2
#aflcrowscats 1 @JAE_MILLZ 2
#afldogscats 1 @jasminewright96 2
#aflfreoswans 1 @jazzpafc 2
#AFLPA 1 @jeeziiroqk 2
#alp 1 @jimmywa11 2
#Argyle 1 @jmf27614 2
#Art 1 @jonboy79 2
#bankshowdown 1 @jonpierk 2
#BELIEVE 1 @jrwilliams22 2
#BENNY 1 @JsMiLeZ10 2
#BERBATOV 1 @kaatieee27 2
#BigFooty 1 @keithpitty 2
#BLOG 1 @Ladder_) 2
#boomers 1 @LEGITBOSS 2
#Briggswentdownlike 1 @letoyaluckett 2
#Celtic 1 @Lizziemcbizzie 2
#CERTIFIED 1 @M3lizza 2
#CFL 1 @milo317 2
#Chile 1 @MMMGUNNA 2
#Collingwood. 1 @MRS_MERCHANT 2
#CRS 1 @mstiffington 2
#cubs 1 @NeL_DTF 2
#deetrain! 1 @nick_wade 2
#draw365 1 @NICKIMINAJ 2
#DT 1 @NiKKi_E13 2
#Essendon 1 @noisyinstrument 2
#FERGUSON 1 @plymouthcc 2
#Flecoat 1 @ranyunfei 2
#Flight 1 @reggie_bush 2
#FLYSTLYE 1 @ruanji 2
#FollowNow 1 @SarahStanley 2
#Football 1 @SharinaBurns 2
#GERONIMO 1 @shelleyjames 2
#GGMU 1 @ShunnyBun 2
#glennbeck 1 @StadiumHero 2
#GOGIANTS 1 @SuadeMusic 2
#gop 1 @TalentedInk 2
#GoPies! 1 @TalkingCarlton 2
#GoSaints!!!! 1 @tech45cast 2
#gosaintsFC 1 @tgrant20 2
#gostkilda 1 @the_tony 2
#green, 1 @TheCONDO 2
#GUCCI 1 @therealsmoir 2
#haiti: 1 @TheRealYungBerg 2
#Hawks 1 @TheVoyuer 2
#healthybusiness 1 @thisgirlrox 2
#healthyliving 1 @thisischile 2
#hiring 1 @thisisScoMan 2
#HOLIDAY 1 @timvl 2
#HTC 1 @tip66 2
#ihaveadream 1 @tkpleslie 2
#in 1 @TrendsMelbourne 2
#Inter 1 @UnitedWayTC 2

Based on this sample, (because the whole of the population of AFL tweets is not available and cannot the total cannot be counted to determine the representative value of the sample) the most RTed #hashtag in a Tweet related to the AFL is #gosaints. #dreamteam comes in second. #gocats comes in third. #afl comes in fourth.

The #gosaints tag is popular and the team’s official account has encouraged its use. More recently, New Orleans Saints fans have used it as the NFL pre-season has started. #dreamteam is one of the two most popular AFL fantasy leagues and those fantasy leagues are big into fostering community. Beyond these top four, the most popular tags tend to involve specific match ups. If all tags related to match ups had been included around the time that the games took place, it is highly possible more would be on that list.

In terms of who gets RTed and mentioned in ReTweets, official accounts dominate: The AFL, Carlton, St. Kilda, Hawthorn, the Bombers, Geelong and the Swans. The first non-team account to appear is P. Diddy and he is followed by a number of influential Australian social media people. The next person / non-official AFL account to appear is Julia Gillard. AFL players do not appear to be ReTweeted en masse when compared to their club sides. This isn’t to say that people don’t actively read and follow them. If looking at ReTweets without #hashtags, @harry_o would appear on top with 50 mentions. It is probable that clubs are using #hashtags and players are not; there could be a digital cultural awareness divide between the two.

A copy of the data and some of my step by step process making it workable can be found at RTAFL.xls. I find the whole thing really interesting. If anyone has any tools to make dataming easier or has a suggestion for additional research in this area, let me know as I’d love to hear it.

Related Posts:

Google, the Melbourne Demons, Port Adelaide Power and that game in Darwin…

Posted by Laura on Friday, 21 May, 2010

This weekend, the Melbourne Demons are playing the Port Adelaide Power in Darwin.  This game is one of two AFL games being held in Darwin this season.  I’m rather keen on geographic patterns in fan communities.  Where are they located?  How many people are there?  What is the size and interest level in a particular place?  Given that there isn’t an AFL team based in Darwin and the nearest team is team is over 3,000 kms (1,800+miles), it would be hard to figure out what team allegiances would be based on.  (The Canberra game with the Swans had a large number of people who barracked for the Sydney based team.  Canberra’s distance from Sydney and the Swans support of AFL Canberra are probably the major reasons for that.)  I wanted to explore what those loyalties would be in the Northern Territory to the exclusion of other states.

There really is no good way about getting numbers for the Northern Territory with out picking up everyone else across the country.  And even when that isn’t the case, people frequently will list themselves as residing or belonging to the next biggest city even if they don’t reside there.  This is highly problematic when you’re looking to see if there are pockets of team support in the suburbs and rural areas where city affiliation is more important when dealing with a wider, more international audience that may not have heard of Freemantle but may have heard of Perth, or who may not have heard of Geelong but do know where Sydney is.  There are ways to tease those patterns out by removing the major cities, like Melbourne, where the core is very tiny.  And I’m digressing because even when you can do that, it is rather hard to still just get data off major networks about a person’s interest by city, while excluding other states.  I can’t do that on Facebook, LiveJournal and its clones, bebo, blogger, orkut, 43things, LinkedIn, Twitter, care2… the list goes on and on.  There is no easy solution other than getting everyone and then, after the data is collected, filtering it down by state.

While I have a lot of data of that sort already, not many people live in the Northern Territory.  (For the Adelaide Crows, across six networks and with 75 fans, only one is from the Northern Territory.)  It is really hard to get regional patterns inside the Northern Territories.  My solution to try to figure this out was go to Google.com.au, put in the team’s name and the city.  (I got the list of cities I used from a list of postal codes for the Northern Territory on Wikipedia. I was logged out of my Google account.  I did not use the API.) My list of cities was 114 long after I removed cities with multiple postal codes.  City names, when they included more than one word, were put in quotes.  Team names were put in quotes.  An example search with that would be “Melbourne Demons” “Alice Springs”.

This is all fine and dandy.  You can easily repeat the results.  You should be able to get regional patterns on a large scale that you can’t get with maps.google.com.au or video.google.com.au or bebo. Everything theoretically should work to get a some one accurate picture of the interest level by city in the Northern Territory for both teams.  Except, well, no.  Midstream, methodology begins to change.  Things I had not necessarily thought of come in to play.  First, there are duplicate city names.  This is an issue for Palmerston, which is a city in New Zealand, a city in the Northern Territory and a suburb in the Australian Capital Territory.  Second, some cities have common names or share names with people.  This is the case for Gray, Northern Territory.  It is the case for another city that shares a name of a player for a different AFL team.  This issue might be correctable by adding a “Northern Territory” or an NT to the search phrase.  I did this for Palmerston.  I just didn’t do it consistently because Google did not always realize NT meant “Northern Territory” and there were three wildly different search results in some cases.  It becomes just easier to ignore and accept that search results are going to be faulty.  The third major issue was Google spelling.  This issue can be less obvious unless you actually look at the results.  Moil is a city in the Northern Territory.  Google helpfully wanted correct my spelling by pulling up results featuring the word Mobile.  Moil and Mobile are not the same thing.  Karama and Karma are also not the same thing.  Google, if you don’t specifically tell it that these are not the same thing, treats them as if they are.  When I found this, I did correct the results number by putting a + in front of it to force Google to only pull up results with that exactly spelling.  Outside those two examples, I did this for Katherine, Elliott, Farrar, Gray, Gunn, Malak, Millner, Mitchell, The Gardens, and The Narrows. This helped insure slightly more relevance and didn’t create the problems of what is the preferential way to indicate that a city is in the Northern Territory.

The methodology problems out of the way, it is time for the results.  I couldn’t get a good visualization tool.  (The ones I tend to use aren’t really good with the Northern Territory.  I’ll find a fix for that in the future.)  Therefor, the easiest way to see the results is to download the xls file or the csv file.  The results, to me with out the aid of a map, are pretty boring when compared to methodology but still interesting.  On the whole, it looks like there is more interest in the Melbourne Demons than there is in the Port Adelaide Power.  If I give each team a point if they are more popular in a particular city, the Demons easily win the day with 93 to the Power’s 15 and with six cities being tied.  If I add up all the search results (each city gets added.  This number has little relationship to the total pages in the Northern Territory because many pages reference both teams or multiple cities in the Northern Territory), the Demons also win with 114,368 total pages compared to the Power’s 64,191.  The ratio to cities and total pages is not particularly close.  The Power are more popular in 13% of cities and represent 35% of total pages.

The top city for Port Adelaide Power is represented by the following search: “Port Adelaide Power” Driver NT.  Driver is a popular common word so it is highly probable that this is not accurate, even with the attempt to correct for the Northern Territory by adding NT to the search.  The next city that “prefers” the Power based on total search results is Parap, with 839 results.  For the Melbourne Demons, “Melbourne Demons” +Mitchell is the top city.  That’s another problematic place as this is a common surname.  The next most popular city based on total search results for the Melbourne Demons is Yuendumu with 12,200 page results.   What is interesting here is that Darwin and Alice Springs do not appear at the top of the list, even when we exclude Driver and Mitchell.  When the Demons and Power lists are combined and sorted descending by pages per city, Darwin doesn’t appear until the 12th spot for the Demons and 18th sport for the Power.  Alice Spring doesn’t appear until 32 for the Demons and 39th position for the Power.  The biggest population bases in the territory are not generating the most references for either teams.

I’m not entirely certain why “big” cities don’t rank higher.  Are all the cities ahead of them problematic with their names where steps were not taken to correct for that?  Or is it possible that more rural fans are reliant on the Internet to express their fannishness for a team?  Are there players from these rural communities playing in the AFL so local news sources give additional attention to players that they would not get in more urban areas?  It is possible.  The real reason is probably rather complex.

So if you’re going to the game in Darwin this weekend, you probably see more people barracking for the Demons.

Notes:

1. I could theoretically get data from Facebook’s advertiser page for the number of people who list an interest and live with in a certain distance of a city.  There are just a few limitations.  First, not every location in the Northern Territory is listed.  Second, since Facebook forced users to like their interests, things have been in a state of flux and I’ve found zeros where there should not be zeros based on the number of people who like a fan page that Facebook uses and its default for a search of that interest.

2.  There are other ways I might have gone about doing this besides Google, including searching local newspapers for references to a team.  There are just limitations there in that not every location has its own newspaper and it excludes a lot of fan created references on sites likes bebo and blogger where the audience may be different than the ones that newspapers market to.  I might also have tried a geolocation based search.  I just haven’t found a good one yet that is based in Australia.  And even the ones I have seen tend to focus on Twitter and Foursquare.  AFL fandom is located more than just there.

3.  The methodology problems are a recurring problem when doing any sort of social media or web based research with the intent to create data sets.  It is why I’m generally deeply skeptical of any numbers I see unless some one clearly states their methodology, explains the problems and provides their data to give benchmarks.  This methodology issue also probably explains why much of the research done in regards to social media involves case studies and qualitative style research: The data is just so problematic to attain.


Edited to add: Visualization of this data. It isn’t perfect. There are a number of erroneous data points. (Anything outside of the Northern Territory is incorrectly placed on the map.) That said, it begins to give an idea of these patterns going on… though looking at the map, I don’t really see what I would consider overwhelming patterns. One of the islands is all Melbourne Demons. I had some data for about 15 cities for the North Melbourne Kangaroos that I overlaid to give this a bit more perspective. At some point, I should do every city in the Northern Territory, corrected as much as possible for the problems discussed above, with every team on the map.

Related Posts: