Final Project Proposal

 

 

 

The subject of the map will be based on  Facebook users.  The reason I chose this topic is because I would like to find out how many people are actually using it.   Is it being used in rural areas as it is used in the suburbs?  It will be interesting to see the areas where people most use facebook.   What do you think?

I was having a hard time choosing a subject for this project.  After browsing so many websites I found the data provided for facebook users.  I did a little research on it and there are not a lot of maps for this subject so I decided to take on the challenge of mapping it.  The following is the link where the data resides: http://www.internetworldstats.com/unitedstates.htm#AL

This is a map for computer users who have time to check out the map and would like to know more details on what people are doing when using the internet.  If you are a seller and would like to target facebook users, this map can help you figure out specific States to choose. 

For this data I would like to create a Dot Density map.  I could also use choropleth map for this data, but I feel that dot density map gives you a different perspective of the data.  It gives you a better understanding for locating the users by looking at the point features; unlike choropleth maps where you are just looking at a shaded polygon with some values.

The scope of the map will be nationwide with data per State.  I plan on plotting points around each state where one point will represent a specific number of facebook users.  Points will be placed randomly around each polygon. 

The basemap used for this map will be the United States basemap.  It will be the same one that was provided for lab 6.

The data comes from the Internet World Stats: usage and Population Statistics: http://www.internetworldstats.com/unitedstates.htm.   It will be facebook users for March 31/11 and it is based on the 2011 population.  The data seems accurate based on population comparison.  We know that not everyone uses facebook and this is depicted through the numbers on the data provided.

Expected production steps:  if Dot density map is chosen I would need to spend time daily working on it to get done by the due date.

 One challenge for this project was obtaining the data, but I have found it.  I wanted to obtain data per county, but have not been lucky to find it.  The data I have found is for one day period only.  Doing a Dot Density map will take a lot of time because I would have to plot a lot of points for each state.  With the data I can easily make a choropleth map.  The challenge for this would be to standardize the data and classify it into equal intervals.