Mapping the Social Inequality Gap

The Social Capital Gap is an interactive map which shows where in the United States people with low and high incomes are friends with each other and where in the country people with different incomes don't mix. The map is based on an analysis of 21 billion friendship relationships of American Facebook users.

To create the map the socioeconomic status of individual Facebook users was determined using factors such as educational achievement, language and location. The economic status of each individual was then compared to the economic status of their Facebook friends. 

As with many maps which visualize economic factors in the United States the black belt is particularly prominent on the Social Capital Gap map. In this case as an area where there are very few connections between people of low and high incomes. At the other end of the scale there appears to be far more social interaction between different income levels in the Midwest. 

One reason why social connections between different income levels is so important is that there is a lot of evidence that poor people are more likely to move up the economic ladder in areas where there are more friendships between high and low incomes than in areas where there is little social interaction between people of different income levels. Beneath the Social Capital Gap interactive map you can view a graph which shows this connection between economic connectedness and upward income mobility.

If you enter your zipcode or county into the map then you can view both the average level of social connectedness in your county and the local levels of upward income mobility. 

The Geography of Facebook Friends

The Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung has been busy mapping out where people's Facebook's friends live. The interactive maps in How friendships on Facebook are redrawing the Swiss borders allow you to see the geographical connections made on Facebook in each of Switzerland's 26 cantons. 

Enter the name of a canton into NZZ's map and you can view a choropleth visualization of where people in that canton have the most Facebook friends. For example the people in Zurich mostly have friends in the neighboring cantons, but also a lot of Zurich residents have Facebook friends in Portugal and southern Italy.

Where people have connections on Facebook is often related to where they grew up. They often have lots of connections to family members and childhood friends. Therefore NZZ's map can be read partly as an analogue of a migration map. The third biggest immigrant community in Switzerland is Portuguese. Therefore Portugal appears on a lot of the individual canton maps of Facebook friends.A lot of Swiss immigrants also come from the neighboring countries of Germany and Italy, so these two countries also feature on many of the individual canton maps. Internal migration in Switzerland is made most often to neighboring or nearby cantons. Therefore most of the canton maps show that the most Facebook connections are to neighboring cantons.

 

Three years ago the New York Times made a very similar interactive map, showing where people in the USA have connections on Facebook. The How Connected Is Your Community to Everywhere Else in America? interactive map visualizes the connections people have on Facebook and comes to the conclusion that we are much more likely to know people who live near us than those who live a long way away.

Hover over a county on the NYT map and you can immediately see a choropleth view showing the likelihood of people in other US counties being connected on Facebook to any of the selected county's residents. The speed of the map is impressive. If you move your mouse around the map you can instantly see how this close zone of friendship on Facebook plays out across the whole of the United States.

The Facebook Covid-19 Symptoms Map

Facebook and Carnegie Mellon University have released an interactive map of where people in the United States are self-reporting having Covid-19 symptoms. The map is based on a Carnegie Mellon University survey of Facebook users in the United States.

The Facebook Covid-19 Symptom Map shows the percentage of people in each county who report having symptoms of Covid-19. If you hover over a county on the map you can view the actual percentage of people reporting having symptoms. It is also possible to switch the map to view the percentage of people reporting symptoms in each hospital referral region.

One problem with this map could be the accuracy of the data. Facebook argues that it is "uniquely suited" to carry out health surveys because it has billions of users and it can therefore carry out statistically accurate sampling. The survey, carried out by Carnegie Mellon University Delphi Research Center, had over a million responses within the first two weeks. This is a very large sample size. However I do wonder if Facebook users (or Facebook users who trust Facebook enough to give them data about their health) is in itself a non-representative demographic.



The image above shows the Facebook Covid-19 Symptom Map (top) compared to the fatality rate from Covid-19 on the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Dashboard (bottom). Where people are dying from Covid-19 is probably the most accurate way we have measuring the prevalence of coronavirus. I think there is a weak correlation between the two maps, which makes me doubt the accuracy of Facebook's map. However it is possible that the Facebook map is ahead of the curve and could be highlighting  areas (not yet showing up on the Johns Hopkins map) which may be about to see a sharp rise in fatality rates.

How to Make a Viral Map

The most popular interactive map of this week has to be the New York Times' How Connected Is Your Community to Everywhere Else in America?. The NYT interactive map visualizes the connections people have on Facebook and comes to the conclusion that we are much more likely to know people who live near us than those who live a long way away.

I know! You're shocked, right?

The conclusion that we are more likely to be connected to people on Facebook who live closer to us than all the people we don't know who live on the other side of the country is not exactly Earth shattering. The popularity of the NYT map may have something to do with the fact that it shows that even in these days of the internet and virtual online communities distance still matters in our social relationships. However the success of this visualization may also be partly due to its simplicity and speed. In other words it is a very effective visualization of the underlying data.

Hover over a county on the NYT map and you can immediately see a choropleth view showing the likelihood of people in other US counties being connected on Facebook to any of the selected county's residents. The speed of the map is especially impressive. If you move your mouse around the map you can instantly see how this close zone of friendship on Facebook plays out across the United States.

I believe that the viral popularity of the NYT map is partly down to its speed. This speed of interaction means that the map is both a great interactive data visualization and also fun to play with.

So how can you make a similar map?

Benjamin Td asked himself the same question and set out to create the same map using Mapbox GL. You can view Benjamin's resulting Friendship Map here. The Friendship Map shows exactly the same Facebook friendship likelihood data as the NYT map. It also allows you to hover over a county and instantly view the friendship likelihood in every other US county. Benjamin's map like the NYT map is also lightning quick.

If you want to know how Benjamin's map works then you can look at the map's source code. This shows you that the data for the map is loaded via a GeoJSON file. The map uses Mapbox's Feature State API to dynamically style every county based on this data every time the user hovers over a county on the map. The map is able to style the counties so quickly because Feature State updates the state of each feature at run-time without having to re-parse the underlying geometry and data.

This probably sounds a lot more complicated than it is. Luckily Mapbox has just published an easy to follow tutorial Live Electoral Maps: A Guide to Feature State. Follow Mapbox's tutorial and you will quickly be up to speed with creating lightning fast maps just like the NYT's Facebook friendship map.

However - I can't guarantee that your map will go viral.

Live Talks for International Women's Day

For International Women's Day Facebook is hosting live broadcasts from across the globe. The event features live videos from "influential leaders, public figures and NGOs".

The best way to find out which events are being broadcast right now is on Facebook's #SheMeansBusiness website. The site features an interactive map showing the locations of the live broadcasts happening today. Any broadcasts that are happening at this moment are shown on the map with an animated flashing map marker. If you click on a flashing marker you can watch the live broadcast directly from the interactive map.

If you've missed a scheduled broadcast or it isn't yet live the map marker provides a link to visit the selected organization's Facebook page.

Global Facebook Friends

Mapping the World's Friendships is an interesting map visualizing cross border connections on Facebook. The map allows you to explore the number of Facebook friends which exist between different countries and which countries have the strongest connections on Facebook.

Click on a country on the map and the circular country markers adjust in size to show where Facebook users in that country have the most friends in other countries. For example, if you click on France on the map, you will see that French Facebook users have a lot of friends in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.

All three countries were former colonies / protectorates of France and France has large numbers of citizens with family in these three countries. This reflects a pattern that you can see over and over on the Mapping the World's Friendships map, where the biggest friendship connections between countries usually reflect the amount of migration between those countries.

Where Bears Fans Live

In the last year there have been a lot of maps about fans of various sports teams based on Facebook likes. You have probably already seen the New York Times' maps of the Basketball Nation, the College Football Fan Map and the Baseball Nation. These maps show the support of sports teams based on their number of Facebook fans.

Where Bears Fans Live is a new map of where Chicago Bears fans reside. The heat-map shows where Chicago Bears live based on the percentage of Facebook users who 'like' the team. I don't wish to imply this is a bad or unnecessary map but I couldn't help noticing a slight resemblance to the How Far Away is Ohio? map.


The How Far Away is Ohio? map featured yesterday in a post on Vox, entitled, 27 Hilariously Bad Maps that Explain Nothing. Vox frequently publishes long lists of maps that promise to (but hardly ever) explain the world. This is in fact the first list from Vox that I've seen which actually contains some useful maps - if only as examples of bad maps. To be fair to Vox they have included one of their own maps in the list.

The Facebook Midterm Elections

The Wall Street Journal and Facebook have analysed posts about the US midterm elections from more than 20 million Facebook users. The data from the Facebook posts has been categorized into different voter issues and concerns and mapped by the Wall Street Journal.

Facebook, Politics and the Midterms includes a series of interactive maps each dedicated to a different topic. There are six choropleth maps in total showing the geographical concerns of Facebook users, these include maps of Employment and Economic Security, Economic Equality and Mobility, Immigration Interest, Energy, Women and Health Care.

The Wall Street Journal's analysis of the maps spots a number of geographical trends. For example citizens in the southern border states are more concerned with immigration than their neighbors in the northern states. Economic Equality and Mobility seems to a particular concern for voters in the Rust Belt and Northeastern districts.

The World Cup of Player Fandom

You've probably seen the New York Times' maps of the Basketball Nation and the Baseball Nation. These maps show the support of US baseball and basketball teams based on their number of Facebook fans.

Now Facebook has got in on the act itself by releasing the 2014 World Cup Fan Map. This map shows the number of fans around the world for ten of the best players appearing in this year's World Cup.

Ronaldo leads the way with an incredible 84 million fans on Facebook across the world. Poor old Messi's star really seems to have dimmed over the last season. He comes in second with approaching 60 million fans.

The map reveals some interesting nuggets of information. For example English football fans aren't very fond of players who play outside the English Premier League. Even in Manchester, where he once played, Ronaldo seems to have far less fans than in the rest of the world.

Özil's fanbase is a strange one. He seems to have registered hardly at all in the Americas but appears very popular in North Africa (and in a very small part of north London).

The United States of Basketball

The New York Times has created a Google Map of the United States divided into brand new areas, based on the the most popular basketball teams in each region.

Mapping Basketball Nation colors the map of the United States according to the most 'likes' shown to different basketball teams on Facebook. You can explore the map down to county level and view data on the percentages of 'likes' shown in the county to the three most popular teams.


The basketball map is a follow-up to the New York Times' popular Map of the Baseball Nation. This map of the United States replaced the 50 states with a colorful montage of baseball regions.

Zoom in on the Baseball Nation map and you can select counties on the map to view the top three teams (and the percentage of fans for each) supported in the clicked county. You can also search the map by zip-code or address to find out who are the most supported baseball teams in your county.

Map Your Facebook Likes

Like Map is a cool way to map all the pages you have liked on Facebook. Many pages you 'like' on Facebook have a physical address and using Like Map you can view them on a Google Map.

To create your own map of your Facebook likes you simply need to sign-in to Like Map with your Facebook account. Your map is then created automatically. The map is an interesting way to visualize your Facebook likes.

For me the map was quite revealing about how Facebook seems to be able to elicit 'likes' out of you without you even realizing. I had no idea I had liked so many pages on Facebook. In fact the only location that appears on my map that I can actually remember 'liking' is the shop in the screenshot above.

Map Your Facebook Friends' Photos

Log-in to Roam7 with your Facebook account and you can instantly view all of your friends' travel photos on a handy Google Map.

If you click on a photo pinned to the map you can then see your selected friend's photos turned into a travel story. You can browse through all the photos posted from their trip and see where each photo was taken on its own Google Map.

Once you have logged into Roam7 you can also start adding your own trips to the map. Users can upload photos from a trip and caption the photos to tell a story about the trip. It is possible to include details about your trip, including where you stayed, how you got around and what you did on your journey.

Find Facebook Events on Google Maps

HUGE city can help you find nearby Facebook events and makes it easier for you to find out what is going on around you.

Using the HUGE city Google Map you can search for Facebook events for any location in the world. If you center the map on any location you can view all nearby Facebook events and filter the results by date, by the top rated, the most viewed and even the most attended.

If you connect to HUGE city with your Facebook account you can get personal recommendations, view events that your friends are attending and view all the events for your Facebook 'likes'. If you log-in with your Facebook account you can also like events directly from HUGE city and add your own events to the map.

How Well Do you Know Google Maps?

Uncharted.fm is a great way to learn about and explore the countries of the world with Google Maps.

The Uncharted.fm country quiz is very well done. The quiz takes you through progressive stages exploring different continents and parts of the world. In each stage of the quiz users are shown a number of countries on Google Maps and told the name of each country. The user is then tested on the countries they have been shown.

If the user answers wrong then Uncharted.fm uses audio and text to reveal the correct answer so that learning is reinforced as the quiz progresses.

Uncharted.fm isn't just a quiz. It also contains great content about each country. After completing each task the learner gains access to content about the countries featured, including images, Wikipedia information and basic facts about the country.

If Uncharted.fm is connected to a Facebook account users can also post their scores and compete with their friends.

Facebook Checkins with Googla Maps

Places from Facebook uses Google Maps to show all the Facebook Places around your current location.

Each Facebook Place listed with the map includes a number of options. The 'map' option centres the map on the selected venue so you can find out exactly where it is. The 'mobile' option presents the user with a QR code link for the venue so you can access it from a smartphone.

Each venue also includes options to post a review or just check-in using your Facebook account. If you choose to check-in you can post a message to Facebook and select to include a map image and a time stamp of how long you will be at the venue.

Search for Properties Near Your Friends

A new website allows you to search for real-estate properties in the areas where your friends are most socially active.

UK classified search engine Adzuna's interesting new approach to real-estate search mapping, Friend Map, allows users to connect a real-estate listings Google Map with their Facebook account.

The map shows the location of properties for sale and rent and also allows users to see where their friends live and check-in. The map shows the check-in data for the past year of a user's Facebook friends and also provides links to search for properties in different locations.

Using the map you can determine the areas where you friends live and play and, if you want, search for properties in those areas.

Via: The Next Web

Nearby Facebook Events on Google Maps

Eventivore uses Google Maps to let you search and find nearby events and can also help you find if any of your Facebook friends are attending the event.

To find nearby events to your location you just need to enter your zip code. If you wish to find events for a specific date (for example New Year's Eve) you can also add a date range to filter the results.

If you mouse-over an event's map marker you can view details of the event in a small information window. If you click on an events map marker you will be taken to the event's Facebook page where you can view further details and discover which of your Facebook friends (if any) are attending.

Finding and Sharing Events on Google Maps

Juntos! is a neat events finder and organiser application for Facebook.

Using the application it is possible to find all sorts of events that are happening around your location. Alternatively if you planning a vacation or visiting another town or city you can use Juntos! to search for events at your destination and refine the results shown by date.

Juntos! can also be used to share and promote your own events. If you share an event with Juntos! the event will appear on your Facebook events page and on the Juntos! application.

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A Check-in Button for Your Facebook Page

Localley is a tool that broadens the functionality of Facebook Places by letting you check-in to places using a date and time in the future. It also allows you to view your check-in history on a Google Map, visualise your friends' latest check-ins and view the people who are checked in around you.

Localley has now released checkintab for Facebook pages. If your business or venue has a Facebook account you can use checkintab to allow users to check-in directly from your Facebook page.

Once you add checkintab to your Facebook account a 'check-in now!' button is added to the right hand menu of your page. When visitors click on the button they can check-in to your business and venue without having to leave your Facebook page.

Your visitors can even create a future check-in and inform their friends that they will be at your venue at a specific time. This is a great way to get users to share and promote your business with their Facebook friends.

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Drive a Mini on Google Maps

Mini Maps on Facebook

Mini Maps is a great driving game for Facebook that lets you race anywhere in the world on Google Maps.

You can race on tracks created by other players, competing against the best track times or even race against others by inviting your Facebook friends to play. Alternatively you can create your own tracks, set the best time and challenge others to try and beat you.

The game has some great features. Visibility is affected by the local time, so, for example, if you log into San Francisco at night, you are going to be driving with the assistance of your headlamps.

Unlike most Google Maps based driving games this one actually features collision detection. There's no off road driving here - you will have to stick to those roads. The game also lets you select from a number of Mini models and even lets you customise the look of your car.

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