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Half Way Through Stampede and StampedePhotos.com is Going Strong
In honor of the Calgary Stampede, the staff members here at JOIMedia.com put together a website that demonstrates the power of social media and how evolved the community has become in terms of technology and interaction.
The “social experiment” we came up with is called StampedePhotos, which is a live feed of pictures being posted to Twitter using the #Stampede or #CalgaryStampede hashtags since the start of the Stampede on July 8th, 2011.
We are just past the halfway point of this social experiment and some of the numbers we’ve received are just staggering. Here’s a look at some of the surprising (and not-so-surprising) stats we’ve found:
· There are a total of 3785 photos tweeted w/ the hashtag(s) at the end of day 6, meaning that we've averaged around 630 pictures a day! That’s more than one picture every two and a half minutes!
While one of the most common things to do at big events is to go on a bit of a celebrity watch, there were a lot more… unusual trends that popped up in our live feed:
· The Royal Couple graced our fair city during the Calgary Stampede and making a royal appearance on our website 117 times!
· For every five pictures of the Royal Couple, there was one picture of artery-clogging goodness as the now infamous Doughnut Burger has been tweeted 25 times.
· You can’t talk about celebrities without talking about the local Social Media King himself! Mayor Nenshi was photographed and tweeted 50 times over the past week, usually sporting some sort of cowboy attire. Way to get into the spirit mayor!
· Who can resist a photo with a cutout or mural of Justin Bieber? The former overnight YouTube Celebrity graced our live feed 29 times since the Stampede began.
· Do you know the sport of planking? Well 11 people definitely did, as 11 different photos of 11 different people were able to “lay down” the law of the Plank all around the Stampede grounds.
But this social experiment isn’t just for the local eye. 18 different countries from all over the world have taken time out of their lives to browse through our large assortment of Stampede photos, including The United Kingdom, Netherlands, Australia, Russia, and Jamaica!
Since the best way to tweet a photo from the Calgary Stampede is by mobile device, it only makes sense to take a peek at the different devices looking or contributing to our website. Surprisingly, over 21% of our page views are from mobile devices! Of those mobile users:
· 68.5% of them were using an iPhone
· 17.5% of them were connecting to our site via iPad
· 6.25% of them were firing off their pictures from an Android phone
· 4.25% of them took a break from playing BrickBreaker on their Blackberries to say hello to the rest of the world
· While 3.5% of our mobile users took advantage of the wifi hotspots on the stampede grounds to check out our live feed.
For a project that we thought of doing only 4 days before the start of the Stampede, it is breathtaking how many pictures have been tweeted thus far. But what’s best part about all of this? The Stampede isn’t over yet so make sure you keep taking those photos, tweeting them, and partying like a boss because, believe it or not, we can’t do all the partying ourselves.
Jack Dorsey Tells Tales of Twitter’s Beginning
Several days ago Jack Dorsey, creator and co-founder of Twitter, started tweeting about the very early days of Twitter (or as Jack says, Twttr for short). He spoke about the days when Twitter was being developed under Odeo’s roof and the team working on the product was no more than 4 people.
As Jack shared more about Twitter’s youth, including sharing one the earliest sketches he made in a notebook, you couldn’t help but get the feeling that nobody knew how big the idea they were working on would become. While many of us may see Twitter as a wildly active website with hundreds of millions of users, involved in national uprisings and the sharing of the inital photos of large natural disasters, the sketches and sharing of the development story remind you that everything which exists on the Internet today once came from nothing more than crooked lines on a piece of paper.
Moreover, imagine being told 5 years ago that people would be “Tweeting” in the millions, as many as 6,939 per second at it’s current highest. Re-Tweeting even. You’d probably had laughed at them. You’d definitely had never believed them. With Twitter now being valued at least at $3 billion, there’s no doubt that they’ve become something valuable to many, many people.
There’s nothing I love more than people press forward with an idea, as strange or useless as it may be in the eyes of some other people, only to have it explode into something nobody could have seen coming. Now if only Twitter had it’s own movie (I’m sure as with The Social Network, they could make it dramatic enough to be interesting).
You can follow along with @jack as he shares more about Twitter’s beginnings through what else, his Twitter account.
Open Data... Oh the Possibilities!
In March 2010, The City of Calgary implemented an open data policy, a growing trend in North American cities, which allowed for government data once locked away in old wooden cabinets to be digitally accessed by the public. It marked a much-needed move within our municipal government towards openness, accountability and transparency. What’s interesting about open data in general has been the creative and exciting ways people have been utilizing it … specifically, Calgary’s two new transit apps, Vancouver’s VanTrash and San Fransisco Crimespotting. This new availability of government information provides developers with a unique opportunity to create applications and websites that are beneficial for both the public and the city …
The Calgary Herald published an article today by Richard Cuthbertson that focused on two different iPhone apps for Calgary Transit. The apps currently display scheduled information provided by Calgary Transit, which isn’t any different than calling the nice automated lady on the phone at 974-4000 or looking it up on the Calgary Transit website. However, there is a potential in the future to feature real time schedules once Calgary transit has been outfitted with GPS systems by 2012. This means that users will be able to track their bus in real time, which will allow you to have an extra couple minutes to make coffee should your bus be late, or save you a morning sprint and prepare you to be on time should it be early.
A website utilizing information provided by the City of Vancouver Garbage Collection Zones open data website made it possible for residents to manage their neighborhood garbage schedule more effectively. VanTrash (http://vantrash.ca/) was conceived by David Eaves and created by Luke Closs and Kevin Jones as a solution to the random garbage collection times in Vancouver. Users are able to find and download their garbage schedule as well as send an email reminder the day before.
San Francisco Crimespotting (http://sanfrancisco.crimespotting.org/) is an interactive map that allows the user to view and filter crime in San Francisco. You can pan and zoom, select date ranges from the past and view specific kinds of crime. Users can also sign up to receive email alerts and RSS feeds for crime reports in their neighborhood. It’s a great tool for tourists and residents alike to get informed for crime within specific San Fran locations.
All these were possible due to information made available by open data sharing. Government’s are no longer permitted to operate behind closed doors. We want our information and we want it to be easily accessible! What’s exciting is the possibilities of the information when used creatively by developers … imagine applying the same techniques to every aspect of life! There could be an app to check for traffic congestion or car collisions before you head off to work, an app to check wait times at the hospital, or an app to receive police and fire department reports.
Helpful information was once limited to the confines of a bureaucrat’s office could soon be accessed on your iPhone at the kitchen table with a nice cup of joe. Oh the possibilities!
Drupal: So easy my Mom can use it
On February 4th, 2011, JOI Media launched a website for the Ross Smith Energy Group (www.rseg.com) which was built with an open source content management system called Drupal. In un-technical terms, this means that the website was set up for easy access to users that gives them the ability to update and maintain content. We utilized Drupal for RSEG to make it quick and simple to store and categorize research reports online. The possibilities of Drupal are endless … but it makes perfect sense for companies that work with lots of data and are looking for an easy solution to upload and manage their content. I wanted to test out just how easy this Drupal system was, so I thought who better to try it out on than my mom … the most technology-illiterate person I know. What follows is a brief interview before and after using Drupal…
Pre-Interview:
Name:Betty Tod
Age:29 and holding
Profession:Teacher
What is your experience level with the Internet?
“I use Gmail to talk to your grandma, I use the CBE website for my work and I use Google to look up shoe-shopping websites.”
How often do you use the Internet?
As little as humanly possible. If it were an option to let the Internet live or die, I would not let it live.
Do you know what Drupal is?
Haha … no.
I proceeded to give my mom a crash course on Drupal. I explained that thousands of websites use it (including whitehouse.gov, rollingstones.com, and amnesty.ca) and it’s got loads of benefits. Specifically, I showed her how to use the tool bar and short cut bar that keeps certain commands close on hand, how she could easily update information and I even showed her how to upload any photo/image that she wanted. It took all of about half hour to go through it with her.
Post-Interview:
Ok Mom, on a scale of 1-10, how easy was Drupal for you to use?
“I’d give it a 7” (my Mom is very honest haha).
Favorite feature?
The content bar … it was easy to navigate.
Closing thoughts?
Easy-peezy-lemon-squeezy
So there you have it folks. Even my Mom can use Drupal. It’s great if you’re website requires flexible content that needs to be updated and changed regularly. With the RSEG website, we really pushed the boundaries of it’s usage as employees are updating content on the site multiple times daily. It has proved to be easy, accessible, and a good choice for a world of ever changing information.
CRTC Usage-Based Internet Billing Outrage
Whoa, wait … they’re doing what with our Internet!?
The CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) has come under fire in recent weeks over their controversial decision to implement usage based billing for Canadian Internet users. Social media accounts nation wide have exploded with posts of outrage, from a petition started by OpenMedia.ca that is being passed around via Facebook, to Prime Minister Harper voicing his concern about the decision via Twitter. What’s interesting about the topic is thatit has an affect on virtually everyone. From my cousin who plays online games all day on his laptop to my mom who can barely spell Google, we are all involved. In the midst of all the outrage and petition signing, we here at JOI find ourselves asking, “WHAT’S GOING ON?”
Brief History
The CRTC was created in 1976 to regulate telecommunication carriers in Canada. It is responsible for the creation and enforcement of its own policies regarding Canadian broadcasting and telecommunication activities. Some policies that you might already be aware of include how we listen to a certain amount of Canadian content on the radio each hour, or maybe how we see Canadian commercials instead of the fun and costly American ones during the Super Bowl (I know, kind of lame right?). It is NOT a division of the government, although it does report to the Parliament of Canada through our Minister of Canadian Heritage.
The Decision
On October 28th, 2010, it was announced that the CRTC would allow usage based billing by large network owners that would take effect within 90 days. Well, the 90 days have passed and we’re all starting to take notice. The decision means that Internet Service Providers will charge customers by the gigabyte for Internet access on top of a flat fee. It appears to be designed to cut holes in the consumer’s pocket and funnel it right into the bank account of big ISPs. It would create higher prices for Internet and lower amounts of competition within the ISP market. The days of downloading unlimited amounts of games, movies or music will soon be long gone, should the decision stay firm …
What to do?
The Federal Government of Canada has requested a review of the CRTC’s decision and will release it’s findings on or before March 1st, 2011. Consumer and Internet advocates who are frustrated or angered by the decision can voice their opinion through an online petition hosted by OpenMedia.ca. To date, there are already some 200,000 virtual signatures.
The public has taken a clear stance on the issue … WE DON’T LIKE IT! I look forward to Harper’s decision on whether to intervene or let it be. If the decision does stand and we are placed on a low limit and high priced gigabyte Internet plan, I know that I will use every last one of my gigabytes on the CRTC website complaining about this horrendous move.
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@ProstateCancerC Thank you for the opportunity to introduce @Katipult to your team. Cheers!
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RT @mashable: Anonymous Threatens Facebook Shutdown Jan. 28 - http://t.co/bkuMKgvz
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