Ozzie Sport

Yay! It is over. This is the final total. Rankings changed through out the tournament. For the two sites, there were audiences I’d like to call distinct. The data when examined in total suggests that different fan communities inside a wider community of football fans use geolocation services differently. As previously mentioned, this may be useful for people involved with the Rugby World Cup in 2011. I should also see about getting some of my AFL and NRL data out… but that’s not as on point.

The winner of the World Cup was not the winner for average checkins per game they played. English speaking countries didn’t dominate at the top of the ladder. You didn’t need to be a team who made it through more than the first round to crack the leaderboard’s top 10, though it certainly helped. The home team didn’t necessarily hold a major advantage.

Foursquare

Gowalla

Related Posts:

• World Cup, through quarter finals: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, end of the second round: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, end of the first round: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals

The World Cup is done.  Based on averages, there do appear to be trends for usage around different teams.  I don’t have any other large international competition which to compare this two but it might be of interest to others who are organizing such events like the women’s World Cup for soccer and the Rugby World Cup.  Some national contingents will be the same and if we assume that these patterns hold across nationalities… it might give national sides, companies and organizers using geolocation services an idea which one is better for their audience and which games to target.  This is especially true if we assume that Foursquare and Gowalla users are representative of active social media users period who will use other services to discuss the event.

Related to the results: For the Germany vs. Spain game,between getting data before the event and after the event, Foursquare merged two locations.  If I had just used the one, it would have possibly included an additional 43 checks for the game that were from previous games.  Thus, I subtracted the previous venue’s totals from the venue that they were merged into.

Onwards with the results…

Foursquare

Gowalla

Related Posts:

• World Cup, end of the second round: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, end of the first round: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Gowalla checkin totals

That Ghana versus Uruguay: Wow. Wow.  Also, wow!  It was a major win for Foursquare as the game smashed the record for total checkins set by South Africa for the first game with 676 checkins compared to 335.  The game booted South Africa and Mexico from the top of the Foursquare table.  Sadly, it didn’t do this so much for Brazil and the Netherlands.   Gowalla sadly didn’t see the same Foursquare response.  There just doesn’t seem to be the same audience and there isn’t the same level of deviation of for national sides and between rounds.3.8 average checkin for the top team on Gowalla and 0 for the team on the bottom.  Foursquare has 179 on top and 17.3 on bottom.

There appears to be something going on with Foursquare.  I’ve included at the bottom a table which demonstrates what I’m talking about.  It looks like for four venues Foursquare removed a number of checkins or a large number of people deleted their own checkins.  I’m not certain what exactly happened as I can’t see who checked in and what games were effected.  It is annoying.  (And I don’t know who else is covering Foursquare and the World Cup to see if they’ve noticed these issues.)

Foursquare

Gowalla

Foursquare Checkin Losses

Related Posts:

• World Cup, end of the second round: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, end of the first round: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Gowalla checkin totals

The second round came to an end and the third round is about to start.  My initial thinking was that as the tournament went on, you’d see more checkins at games.  My assumptions were that ticket prices would go up for later rounds, leading to a more affluent, social media connected audience attending these game.  I also assumed that the stadiums would be at capacity, where early first round games would not be. My assumption was South Africa would have the highest average checkins for all team, because of the home country advantage.  I also figured most of the teams left in would be big name team, which would have a wider audience than their own national base. I also thought that Foursquare would always beat Gowalla by a lot. I don’t quite know what I based these assumption on; it just felt like what I thought obvious patterns should be.

Some of these assumptions appeared to be a bit true.  Some of them not.  Appearing in the second round did not mean that a team climbed the ladder of total checkins.  Witness Japan, Paraguay, South Korea, Slovakia, Brazil and Germany who are averaging less than 50 checkins a game on Foursquare at the end of round 2.  Some of these are popular teams and they are all team who played in the second round.  Chile, Brazil, South Korea all appeared in the bottom 16 teams on Gowalla at the end of the second round.  South Africa wasn’t anywhere close to the top on Gowalla.  It should probably hold on to the top spot on Foursquare.  (Mexico has passed it though for total checkins.)  Patterns that I thought would emerge haven’t.

Anyway, on with the data…

Foursquare

Gowalla

Related Posts:

• World Cup, end of the first round: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Foursquare checkin totals

One of the challenges of social media metrics is identifying what numbers matter, how to get those numbers ,  how to organize that data in a way that facilitates quickly getting the data and making it useful, and making sure your data set is complete.  The latter can be problematic as people can always create new communities, groups, hashtags, accounts, etc. If you don’t organize your data in a useful way and regularly update it, you can create such a huge mess as to make your data almost unusable.

This is a problem I’ve run into with my AFL and NRL Foursquare data.  When I first started gathering this data in late April, I spent a day or two looking for all the venues.  Slightly problematic issue arose in that not all venues had been created.  I never went back to regularly check to see if these venues had been created.  What this means is that my NRL data has several huge holes in it, because venues don’t exist or the venue that does exist was not the more popular of the ones created.

Another problem was the data was not collected in a way that I found entirely logical when I revisited it to try to create a table to show the average number of checkins at home and away matches for the NRL.  (I wanted to do the NRL first, before I tackled the AFL because I’m focusing on the AFL and trial and erroring on the NRL seemed wiser.)  I gathered the total checkins and unique visitors every Thursday through Monday night for all venues that played NRL and AFL games that I had identified.  In hindsight, this wasn’t the best way to go about this.  I should have identified everything by games being played as it would have made processing the data much, much easier and I wouldn’t have as much “garbage” data that I have to wade through.  I’ve spent most of the morning correcting this mistake by identifying games and venue locations so I can more easily and efficiently track total checkins for AFL games and some NRL games.  (Later, I can try to do this when the A-League, W-League and NBL start up.)

Looking through existing Foursquare data though, I really don’t know if I will want to process it.  I’d almost rather go through the last quarter of the season, where I know I have a complete data set than try to piece together the data dating back to late April.  I probably won’t do that but I’ll likely have to figure out what to do.  It isn’t pretty and I’m really kicking myself for what could have been a lot of time wasted each data gathering data that I can’t use.

My gowalla data faces similar issues.  The big difference there is I’ve always known I haven’t had a complete data set and it was through processing World Cup data on Gowalla that I realized my collection issues with Foursquare data collection.  I’d love to use Gowalla for AFL/NRL analysis but it isn’t going to happen.  I mean, it really isn’t going to happen, especially as Foursquare is the bigger priority as it has greater penetration in Australia and I never had a complete venue list for Gowalla.

Related Posts:

• An interview with Ben Pollack from the Canberra Raiders
• Notes on AFL/NRL foursquare sporting venues in Australia
• Richmond Tigers followers on Twitter
• Most popular Australian clubs and teams on Twitter

The first round has ended and we’ve now a fair amount of data for Foursquare and Gowalla. This can be used to try to figure out which fans were most likely to checkin. The top of the table surprised me a bit with who was there and who wasn’t there. The bottom of the table was also a bit surprising. I rather thought that there would be fewer English speaking countries near the bottom and that the Asian and African sides would be over represented. That doesn’t appear to be the case.

Foursquare

Gowalla

Related Posts:

• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 6: Foursquare checkin totals

On Foursquare, there were changes near the top and near the bottom of the ladder.  Yesterday featured one swarm badge, which was the same as the day before and the day before that. It will be interesting to see how teams progress into the second and third games. After the first round, will totals probably matter more than averages? What audience is seeing second round games?

Foursquare

Gowalla
Gowalla doesn’t have the checkin strength of Foursquare. A big game on it doesn’t even get to the low count for foursquare and a lot of games have 0s. The ladder is also pretty much completely different.

How different are these two tables? Teams were ranked based on total average checkins. The difference was then calculated and 12 teams had positions that differed by 10 or more places with only two teams sharing the same position.

Related Posts:

• World Cup, day 7: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 6: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 5: Foursquare checkin totals

The second round seems to have a lot fewer checkins than the first.  Examples?  South Africa and Mexico’s first game had 335 checkins.  South Afraica’s second game had 36.  Mexico’s second game had 14 checkins. Nigeria’s first game had 203 checkins.  The second game had 19.  What exactly is going on?  Can anyone explain why there are no second round swarm badges?  Is there a different audience attending these games that is less likely to use Foursquare?

Table is sorted by average checkins as that seems to better reflect what is going on. There are a number of changes from yesterday in ranking.

Related Posts:

• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 6: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 5: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 4: Foursquare checkin totals

We’ve got two games for two teams and the rankings have begun to change. As this World Cup goes on, it looks like fewer people are checking in…

Related Posts:

• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 5: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 4: Foursquare checkin totals

This is an update for matches played on June 15.  No new games with 100+ checkins.

Related Posts:

• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 6: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 4: Foursquare checkin totals

As the raw data set is getting quite big, I’m not going to include it in future posts. If you’re interested in seeing it, drop me an e-mail and I’ll happily send it along. Of the three games played on June 14, none of them cracked the top four positions in the leaderboard.

Related Posts:

• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 6: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 3: Foursquare checkin totals

It is day three and the trend appears to be fewer Foursquare checkins. It is interesting to speculate why. The six teams at the bottom of the checkin ladder all played in games with one European side. Two of those matches were against African sides and one was against Asian side. Those six teams failed to earn their supporters a swarm badge. Is Foursquare less popular in Europe than it is in English speaking countries? Do football fans from those countries use other geolocation sites? Let me know.

Ladder Table

Data Table

Related Posts:

• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 6: Foursquare checkin totals
• World Cup, day 2: Foursquare checkin totals

With a few more teams having played, checkin patterns may be emerging. Only one game hasn’t gotten a swarm badge. The game involved an Asian team and a less popular European team. English language speaking countries doesn’t seem to be a factor for checkins at this point as the Nigeria vs. Argentina game was second.  I’ve also tacked on Gowalla data to the end of this post as there isn’t much there to really supply another post: People are just not using it at any volume similar to that of Foursquare.

Onwards with the data set…

Rankings Table

Raw Data

Gowalla

Related Posts:

• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Foursquare checkin totals
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To anyone who reads this regularly, I apologize in advance.  I may update this information with new posts on a fairly regular basis during the World Cup.   A question I’ve had prior to the World Cup was: Will certain teams have more foursquare checkins than other teams?  This has some interesting side questions that are not available from the data but are interesting to speculate about: Who is checking in to these games?  Are checkins by game reflective of the composition of a nation’s supporters who made the trip? (Or because certain national contingents are more likely to have smart phones that are compatible with South Africa’s mobile network?) Are tech savvy South Africans more likely to show up for certain games involving certain nations?

Only two games have been played so far.  There isn’t much data.  Both groups of fans should have earned swarm badges.  Below are two charts.  The first is the totals by team. The second is my raw data.

Totals and Averages by Team

Raw data

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• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• World Cup, day 7: Foursquare checkin totals
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If you don’t know, I’m doing research on online Australian sport fandom.  My focus is on demographic, geographic and social patterns.  In doing that, I’ve been gathering a lot of random data.  Get it now, analyze it later because you don’t know what matters until after the fact. Foursquare is one of those sites I’ve been getting data for, so I can see if say the AFL has more checkins than the NRL or if Sydney folks are more likely to check in than Brisbane fans.

The Socceroos have been big news in Australian sport for a while.  Around May 19, I searched Foursquare to create a list of all the World Cup venues so I could monitor checkins.  (I got the venue list from Wikipedia and then verified addresses elsewhere.) I wanted data before the Cup and during the Cup to see if some venues and teams had more checkins than others.  (My existing data can be found at http://ozziesport.com/WorldCup.xls .)  Back when I first got this data, I was a bit surprised that despite a lot of searching, not all the venues had been created.  I was certain there would have to be some sort of badges going to be in play as this is the biggest sporting event in the world.

This morning, I found a Mashable article which said, YAY! BADGES!  CNN was doing.  There are some issues as a researcher that bug me.  First, in one case, CNN created their own venue, while an existing venue had 17 checkins.  (Maybe they’ll merge later. ) In another case, CNN appears to have merged http://foursquare.com/venue/964020 with http://foursquare.com/venue/4410404 and in the process stripped -1173277 of their mayorship.  http://foursquare.com/venue/278284 , http://foursquare.com/venue/593221 were not impacted. http://foursquare.com/venue/2070295 was passed over for http://foursquare.com/venue/4410678 . Did they include Mbombela Stadium?  I can’t find a CNN logo in a description. http://foursquare.com/venue/1816219 passed over for  http://foursquare.com/venue/4408569 , with http://foursquare.com/venue/4570899 and http://foursquare.com/venue/4454189 also existing. http://foursquare.com/venue/655677 with 6 checkins passed over for http://foursquare.com/venue/4410289 with 1 checkin.  Not merged. Peter Mokaba Stadium and Royal Bafokeng Stadium appear to be missing from CNN’s list?  Soccer City has http://foursquare.com/venue/593339 with 18 checkins, http://foursquare.com/venue/4410569 with 12, http://foursquare.com/venue/4650733 with 1.  None of those three appear to be tagged by CNN.

I’m just having a moment of boggling and puzzlement here.  I’ll probably get over it shortly.  I just think that if Foursquare and CNN were going to do this, they should have planned it out earlier by creating the venues prior to the start of friendlies, should have merged all venues into one venue before the announcement and kept mayorships intact as they did multiple locations for the same venue mergers.

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I have only been keeping track of foursquare checkins since late April. I get the data between 9pm the day of and 9am the day after. One of the venues I’ve been getting data for has been ANZ Stadium in Homebush. I was curious as to how the State of Origin would rank compared to two of the home games played by the Bulldogs. The following chart shows that:

It looks like the State of Origin game attracted a different audience than Bulldogs and the Rabbitohs. Also worth noting,

there is a valid negative number in that set. It suggests that people are do delete their checkins. I can’t speculate why as I don’t know who deleted their checkin. I can just tell some one did. That suggests that the reliability of this data is similar to anything on the Internet: People delete and add content. The number you get may not be a total addition but rather the total after deletion and additions.

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• Most popular Australian clubs and teams on Twitter
• Alexa rank for Australian leagues and clubs
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This isn’t related to sports or academics at all.  It mostly has to do with my Foursquare obsession and adding buildings and places at the University of Canberra to Foursquare.  If you are on campus, there are a number of locations that have already been created that you can check in to.  They include:

• University of Canberra
• University of Canberra Library
• University of Canberra, Coffee Lounge
• University of Canberra, Building 12
• University of Canberra, Post Office
• Cafe Mizuna

There seems like there should be a way for universities to use Foursquare but I’m not certain what at the moment.  I’m more me centric of yay! Lots of university buildings for me to become the mayor of as I go from place to place around campus.

Related Posts:

• World Cup, through quarter finals: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals
• Canberra Raiders data
• An interview with Ben Pollack from the Canberra Raiders
• World Cup, day 8: Foursquare and gowalla checkin totals

Unlike my AFL dataset for foursquare, this one is a bit incomplete. I was missing at least two stadiums and for the first week I looked at, there might have been checkins not related to the game as there were four days between the time I recorded the data. I just wasn’t completely trusting of that for a venue that I didn’t think was single use.

That said, these are the games that I have recorded:

When that is broken down by team, it looks like:

NRL fans are appear to be less likely to check in to events. In one case, the venue where games are played is not even listed on Foursquare. The venue issue here appears differently than the AFL where at least two venues are actively promoting foursquare on social media sites like Twitter and encouraging people who attend games to checkin in order to get a swarm badge.

Non-mixed use facilities and facilities that are not shared with the AFL are also likely to have fewer seats with lower average attendance than the AFL. This could be a secondary factor for why there are fewer checkins. Another reason could be that adoption rates for foursquare are higher in Victoria than they are for New South Wales.

Related Posts:

• Alexa rank for Australian leagues and clubs
• Most popular Australian athlete and team related Twitter accounts by total followers
• Based on data to date: Biggest Australian sports fandom
• Version 3: Most popular Australian athlete and team related Twitter accounts by total followers.

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.

Related Posts:

• Most popular AFL and NRL teams on Facebook
• Most popular Australian clubs and teams on Twitter
• Alexa rank for Australian leagues and clubs
• Version 3: Most popular Australian athlete and team related Twitter accounts by total followers.

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.