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Does Social Media Reflect Metropolitan Attractiveness? Behavioral Information from Twitter Activity in Urban Areas

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Analytics and Data Science

Part of the book series: Annals of Information Systems ((AOIS))

Abstract

The rapid and ongoing evolution of mobile devices allows for increasing ubiquity of online handhelds, yet boosting the recent growth of social platforms. This development facilitates participation in social media for an enormous amount of individuals independently from time and location. When navigating through a city and especially when following activities worthy to be shared with others, people uncover their traces in both geographical and temporal dimension. Using these traces to spot popular areas in a metropolitan region is valuable to a broad variety of applications, reaching from city planning to venue recommendation and investment. We propose a density-based method to determine the attractiveness of areas based solely on spatial and content characteristics of Twitter activity. Furthermore, we show the relation of attached images, videos, or linked places to the activity users are engaged in and assess the explanatory power of Twitter messages in a geographical context.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geospin GmbH, c/o University of Freiburg, Platz der Alten Synagoge, 79098, Freiburg, Germany

    Johannes Bendler & Tobias Brandt

  2. University of Freiburg, Platz der Alten Synagoge, 79098, Freiburg, Germany

    Johannes Bendler, Tobias Brandt & Dirk Neumann

Authors
  1. Johannes Bendler
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  2. Tobias Brandt
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  3. Dirk Neumann
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tobias Brandt .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Robert J. Manning School of Business, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA

    Amit V. Deokar

  2. Raymond J. Harbert College of Business, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA

    Ashish Gupta

  3. Walker College of Business, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, USA

    Lakshmi S. Iyer

  4. College of Business, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, USA

    Mary C. Jones

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Bendler, J., Brandt, T., Neumann, D. (2018). Does Social Media Reflect Metropolitan Attractiveness? Behavioral Information from Twitter Activity in Urban Areas. In: Deokar, A., Gupta, A., Iyer, L., Jones, M. (eds) Analytics and Data Science. Annals of Information Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58097-5_10

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