GrooveSeeker: Spatial Capabilities Unlocked!
Ground Truth, Business Impact, Mapping the Rhythm of a City
Hello everyone,
Since Thursday, I’ve been working on some improvements for GrooveSeeker. You can read about them here:
Basically, what happened was, I was looking at GrooveSeeker data, and I had an idea on how to make it more useful in ways that would open up opportunities downstream. Then I wrote the code and pushed the release. We now have much better data!
Specifically, I wanted GrooveSeeker to have space and time capabilities. I wanted to be able to look more closely where things were happening, and I wanted to better understand when things are happening.
Today, I want to talk about the new spatial capabilities. GrooveSeeker just got a lot better and smarter, and this opens the door for different uses. We are more than just event information, now. We are event intelligence.
Geospatial Exploration
When I was looking through GrooveSeeker data, I noticed two events that had complete addresses. One was a past event, and the other was an upcoming event. The addresses were:
101 Avenue A, New York, NY 10009 (Night Club 101)
31 Webster Street, Hartford, Connecticut 06114 (The Webster)Neat, so I have two addresses in two different states, and probably two very different settings, NYC compared to Connecticut.
I have some experience in Geospatial Analysis. I know that this is more than enough information to be able to quickly identify every business within a certain distance from any location on Earth. So, let’s explore!
New York, New York
For this one, I expected a really densely populated street map, so I limited the distance radius to 50 meters. I’m just experimenting. I wanted to see any business within 50 meters of this event.
Very easy. What if I put these businesses on a map?
Nice. The blue dot shows where the event is happening, and the red dots show businesses that could be impacted! Looks good to me!
Just showing this above image to confirm we were looking at New York.
Hartford, Connecticut
I expected Connecticut to be less densely populated, so I expanded the radius to 200 meters.
They aren’t only ‘businesses’. I used the wrong word in my code.
Looking at the map, blue is where the event is happening, and red are places that could be impacted. The camping grounds one is interesting.
This is actually a really cool event, too:
BOOTS ‘N BEATS | A COUNTRY & EDM CONCERT
Performers:
Not provided in source.
Date & Time:
Saturday, December 06, Doors: 8 pm // Show: 9 pm
Price:
Not provided in source.
Venue:
The Webster
Location:
31 Webster Street, Hartford, Connecticut 06114
Description:
Boots ‘N Beats is taking over Hartford for a night of Country-EDM featuring a live country opener followed by a headlining Country-EDM DJ set. Attendees are encouraged to join with cowboy hats and dancing boots.
Genres:
Country, EDM
Source URL:
https://thewebsterct.com/event/boots-n-beats-a-country-edm-concert/the-webster/They’re throwing a party, somehow combining Country Music and EDM. I would love to go to that. Ok, I need to keep moving. I’m getting stuck here and daydreaming. :D
Important New Capabilities
The importance of capabilities isn’t always obvious. It’s more than just pretty pictures and lists.
With the new insight into when events are taking place, we have temporal awareness of when things are happening.
With the new insight into where events are taking place, we have the ability to do several things. Geospatial analysis can help us identify who may be impacted, and we can learn more about these businesses too.
With these two things, we can support any business or organization who needs to know things like:
I am a business owner. What events are happening around my business, and when?
I am a journalist covering culture and art. What events are happening in my city and when are they happening?
I am an academic who studies artistic movements and writes books. What events have happened in the last four years, where, and when?
Or even, just my favorite:
I am a human being and I work too hard and don’t have nearly enough fun. What events are actually happening right now nearby that I can just walk into without buying a ticket. What is the closest music event happening right now, for free, in my area?
GrooveSeeker is off to a great start. I couldn’t be happier. With these new improvements, we can help anyone who wants to be helped, and we have various options. Some are free, and others are not. Please reach out to me if interested!
What Do We Have?
I like to pause and reflect, to assess what we have, and what we’re going to pursue next. Right now, we have:
Really great event information
Reliable and accurate AI interfaces that can be used to understand this information
Rich event context including geospatial and temporal context.
Source attribution. We amplify sources via direct linking.
To put it simply, we have the data that we need, and our AI interfaces are going to get a lot smarter, now.
We intend to put up a free website as soon as we can, but we aren’t ready for that, yet. We need to have some business decisions before I start spending a lot more time on free. I need this to become sustainable, now.
So, What is Next?
The building is good enough for now. We have good data, and we can support any of the kinds of people I mentioned above.
But there’s a lot more that can be done. We can support any of these use-cases:
Identify any business/homes/places potentially impacted by any event
Understand local ecosystems and the events that they spawn
Understand the impact of events and their communities after the fact
Understand how events affect foot traffic, which also affects business
Give businesses the ability to use upcoming event information for their own competitive advantage, for instance holding food promotions at the same time to feed event-goers.
I could really think up this stuff all day. People need information to flourish, and when they have new kinds of information, they can learn new ways of flourishing.
I built GrooveSeeker because I have a friend in San Francisco and I want to support his business. I also want GrooveSeeker to support me as an individual. I am building this for it to work. It would be useful if the business side also came alive, so that this would be sustainable. That is a work in progress!
That’s All For Today!
I’m really glad this deployment went so well. Data looks great, and my imagination is really coming alive. This is functional now. I don’t need to do a lot more tinkering. Now, I need to start talking to people and getting this used.
If you are interested, we have these things available for purchase:
Reliable AI interfaces (ask about events; global)
Databases that support these AI interfaces
Data that is in these databases
And we are able to provide services, as well. I’m not ready to list those, yet. Selling platform access would be the quickest and easiest way to make this sustainable.
Have a great weekend! Tell your friends about GrooveSeeker! Let’s grow the community! Business will sort itself out, eventually. Let’s just have fun, for now.
I like the nearest business idea. Is there a way to monetize that feature?