Conceptualizing a data project
... Part one of two!
How do you start? Data first? Idea first? Do all ideas lead to readily available robust datasets and do all datasets yield engaging story ideas? How?
Hi there!
Disclaimer: I don’t have all the answers, but, this past week went diving into these questions and finally starting my first completely independent data-project. Here’s almost all about it.
For one of my classes this semester, I’ll be working on a bunch of independent projects to help build up my portfolio. Independent projects mean figuring out what to do, how to do and then well, doing it.
The prompt we were given was: “Something you miss from home”. I immediately thought of street food. Except, there’s not really a database out there (that I know of) of street food in India. It’s a largely unorganized industry made up of extremely small-scale businesses.
What now?
When there’s no dataset available, you create one! Is that easy? Heck no!
For my dataset, I started with scraping Google Maps using an API key. The first function ran smoothly and it felt like I was on top of the world and then I realized the limitations of using Google Maps’ API. Each search query only returns 60 results for every combination of user-given latitude and longitude. This meant, there was no way to scrape all the entries from a mid to large city without either dividing it up into quadrants or really closely-defined neighborhoods. Even so, it’s easy to miss out on entries.
It was discouraging to see, so early on, that my dataset will have loopholes. After a bunch of Googling, asking other people and brainstorming, I turned to a different way of creating the dataset. More on which, in the next issue next week! 🌻
Before signing off, here’s a roundup of interesting things that caught my attention this week!
Future food? Trying to revive a lost tradition in Ecuador
An interesting dive into Ecuador’s indigenous food traditions and rediscovering an old delicacy!
Can You Own a Color? A New NFT Marketplace Is Trying To Find Out
When I first heard of people trading memes, I figured it was just another 2020-pandemic-era distraction for our bored, sad selves. Little did I forsee the madness growing to color markets 🤯
Before signing off, here’s a fun thing I saw today: A copy of The New York Times from April 1861. It cost $2 cents, had ridiculously small font-size and was designed with six very narrow columns! No headlines and no bylines, just sub-heads of sorts describing the stories. For example, one read: “News of the day”. Another one was: “News from the world”. Pretty straightforward.
Have a wonderful week ahead! 👋🏼
What a cliffhanger! Excited and looking forward to the next issue :)