Dave Troy: Social maps that reveal a city's intersections, and separations
15/12/2014.
[VIDEO] TED
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Every city has its neighborhoods, cliques and clubs, the hidden lines that join and divide people in the same town. What can we learn about cities by looking at what people share online? Starting with his own home town of Baltimore, Dave Troy has been visualizing what the tweets of city dwellers reveal about who lives there, who they talk to — and who they don’t.
Baltimore map by Dave Troy. Image @ Peopolemaps. Click above to see larger image.
Barcelona map by Dave Troy. Image @ Peopolemaps.
Rio de Janeiro map by Dave Troy. Image @ Peopolemaps. Click above to see larger image
Istanbul map by Dave Troy. Image @ Peopolemaps.
Saudi Arabia map by Dave Troy. Image @ Peopolemaps.
San Francisco map by Dave Troy. Image © Peopolemaps.
Munich map by Dave Troy. Image @ Peopolemaps.
This work can give impression of a "big brother", but the data is there and they are accessible, namely, they can also be interpreted as parameters that facilitates knowledge.
What is Peoplemaps?
Peoplemaps is a project designed to reveal the underlying social connections, groups, and communities within a specific geographical region. The maps we produce, however, are not geographical — rather, they describe the relative orientation of communities in a city or region. Each dot represents a person (or user account), each line represents a relationship, and each color group represents a community of interest.
Communities at opposite ends of a map have the least in common. The layout of the map is determined by relationships — they act like springs, bringing people closer together. By arranging the maps in this way, they can determine how people choose to sort themselves, and study the patterns in human arrangement that arise between different cities — and we can also see patterns like segregation and other unhealthy patterns of arrangement. For specifics about the methodology and theoretical foundation, please see The Math Behind Peoplemaps.
They are using data from social networks, like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and AngelList (and are looking for more).
More information
DAVE TROY
Dave Troy, EO and co-founder at 410Labs, and creator of Mailstrom. He is a serial technology entrepreneur. He started his first business at age 14 in 1986, and has been working in the information technology industry since then. In 1995 he founded ToadNet, a major regional Internet service provider near Baltimore, which he sold to Landmark Communications in 2004. He has been an active contributor to projects such as Asterisk and developed a large-scale distributed call-center technology and VoIP telephony systems for global technology companies.
In 2007, Troy launched two side projects, Twittervision and Flickrvision, which were featured in the 2008 exhibition "Design and the Elastic Mind" at the Museum of Modern Art. Since then, he has been exploring projects in data visualization with his current company Roundhouse Technologies, which he founded in 2008 with partner Stephen Muirhead.
Troy is also very active in the local technology scene in Baltimore and is a co-founder of Beehive Baltimore, the first coworking space in Baltimore. He is also cofounder of Baltimore Angels, an angel investing group specializing in early-stage information technology startups. In 2009, he founded TEDxMidAtlantic, a conference dedicated to the power of ideas to change the world.
