A city is truly the sum of its people, and Moritz Stefaner decided to show that with his 'Stadtbilder' maps. Instead of mapping physical infrastructure, Stefaner's map draws out a city's citizen's digital activity. The map uses "digital traces" of people in cities to map out where people have been. Using location data from services like Foursquare, Stefaner mapped out where the cultural hotspots are.
The map filters activity based on four categories. Music, shopping, nightlife and food are used to sort out the geo-location data. Stefaner chose these because they represent a city's culture and activity. Stadtbilder maps out three major German cities with these categories. Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich were chosen by Stefaner for the initial prints. These large cities have an abundance of data which made the maps look like an explosion of fireworks.
What's Driving This Trend
- Digital Activity Mapping
- Opportunity for businesses to track and analyze digital traces of people to understand cultural hotspots and consumer behavior.
- Location-based Filtering
- Potential for utilizing location data to filter and categorize activities such as music, shopping, nightlife, and food in order to identify popular cultural trends.
- City Culture Visualization
- Emerging trend of creating visual representations of a city's culture and activity using digital traces and location data.
Who This Affects Most
- Data Analytics
- Disruptive innovation opportunity for data analytics companies to develop tools and algorithms to analyze digital traces and location data for cultural mapping purposes.
- Digital Marketing
- Opportunity for marketers to leverage location-based filtering to target specific consumer segments based on their interests and activities in cultural hotspots.
- Urban Planning
- Potential for urban planners to utilize digital activity maps to inform city development and infrastructure decisions based on popular cultural trends.
