Inspired by a true story
Remember in TDK when Batman built that huge sonar spy tool to find the Joker by hijacking people’s cellphones? Well, replace “hijacking” with “Instagram API”, “Joker” with “Action”, and “Batman” with “redpepper” and maybe you have an English sentence.
We wanted our own huge city sonar to find the places where all the action was happening in town. So, thanks to Instagram’s API we did just that.
Grande Data
In May of 2014 we decided to put phase one into action. We put together a script that would pull all the Nashville Geo-tagged public photos and videos from Instagram into a database on some computer. Well, we forgot about it and wouldn’t you know, that script just kept running and running like The Little Engine That Could day and night for an entire year.
Fast forward to last week and Jeremy Mitchell says, “Hey, remember that Instagram Batman Sonar map thing we were working on? We should bring that back.” I got excited because I had forgotten about the Little Engine script so I went to check on it. Turns out, after a year of perseverance and determination the script had collected well over a million photos and videos! Now we just needed a way to look at them.
Release the hounds
With the imminent deluge of tipsy cowboy boots arriving for the CMA Fest just days away, we sprang into action building an interface that could show us where any Florida-Alaska Line popup concerts might arise.
We slapped together a Google map with our forgotten database and threw a heat map on top for good measure. Then, we turned on the real-time firehose and voila, we had a tool. Not perfect, but compelling. Creepy and disturbing in areas but definitely compelling.
Take a peep
Go ahead and take a little tour around Nashville and see for yourself! Below are some of our favorite places to get you started:
The Pedestrian Bridge, LP Field, Broadway, 3RD and Lindsley, Parthenon, The Ryman, Sounds Stadium, M Street, Pepperfire, Santa’s Pub, and of course redpepper!
Remember, look both ways before crossing the street!
Back to the Future
Oh, you thought this post was over? Nope, Peep Nashville is just getting started. Remember when I said we had collected millions of pics over the past year? We’re building a time machine to let you go back and relive any past event in Nashville though the eyes of Instagram. Hey, here’s a sneak peek of that functionality if you want to see Jack White’s induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
That’s just the beginning, we’ve got a bunch more stuff up our short sleeves that we can’t wait to show you. To be continued…
