Well, according to this chart tracing the interests of Canadian Facebook users, yes. Movies, photography and travelling beats hockey too (except in Winnipeg and Calgary. Go Flames!). Interests by Canadian City (Through the Lense of Facebook) at Buzz Canuck
The fascinating part of this for me is how we all seem to have the same top interest (music), then reading, then movies. For the top three items, the chart is quite consistent across the country; as we go down, the interests by city become quite diverse. Even though we’re pretty similar at the top, our regional differences are quite pronounced in the bottom half. I’d be interested to know if this is representative of the Facebook user demographic or if this is consistent across the broader population? Anthropologists?
Note to Sean: I’d like to know either your methodology in creating this chart or the source of this chart.
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November 29th, 2007 at 11:27 am
First glance? Our regional differences are more pronounced after the top three — but only in the sense that the order is mixed up further down on the list. Everyone, everywhere in Canada (as far as I can tell reading the chart quickly) has the exact same 12 interests. You ask about methodology — were more than these twelve choices available? Or, was it a matter of ranking a finite list of activities?
I’ve wondered about these Facebook rankings before (in my own mind, anyway). Surely they must say more about the Facebook users than about the country as a whole. Perhaps we need information about the demographics of Facebook users before this chart can be interpreted as a snapshot of the country.
November 29th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Good point - I meant to point out the priority of interests rather than the diversity. I still find it interesting that everyone’s #1 interest is music.
I’ll dive into some demographics this afternoon.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Dave,
The information is publicly available on facebook tucked inside individual network stats. I believe it’s pulled form the ifnormation provided in people’s activity and interest areas.
As you may have seen from some of my recent posts, it is a Facebook demographic (younger, higher income, web savvy) but with 9 million people on Facebook (more than 1 in 4 total people), it increasingly is representative of the greater whole of Canadians.
Cheers, Sean
November 30th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Dave/Sean … 9 million people is impressive, but is there any sense of how many of those 9 million actually contribute data to this study? How, for example, have I done so? I have not ranked these activities in my profile — or even mentioned them. And while I know that Facebook has been subject to harsh comments about its privacy policies, I can’t imagine how Facebook would know my preferences if I haven’t listened them anywhere. So, is this really a snapshot of the people on Facebook who actually list their top activities? If so, then I ask the demographics question again … what demographic in Facebook is likely to list their top activities?
(By extension, I’m still interested in whether or not this is a ranking of a finite list of activities. It appears that way. (IE Facebook has a list of 12 things and then shows how those 12 things are ranked versus giving us a true survey of the top activities in cities across the country.) Surely, more than 12 activities are popular across Canada and you’d expect some of those to appear in these lists.)