Monday, February 28, 2011

What If Foursquare Check-ins Determined Oscar Winners?

Now that Oscar night has come and gone, the tidal wave of movie-related articles from around the blogosphere should start to subside. Of course, that will be after everyone posts their Academy Awards reactions to the online masses.

And while I'm glad that there were no surprise winners (longtime front-runners The King's Speech, Black Swan, and The Social Network deservedly took home a lot of the Oscar gold), I found an interesting infographic on TechCrunch this morning.

The infographic shows the movies with the most check-ins during their opening weekend, as well as the movies with the most check-ins by males, females and couples. This begs the question:

What if Foursquare check-ins determined Oscar winners?

Simply put: it would be different. Very different.

The top three checked-in movies last year for males were:

  • Iron Man 2
  • Kick-Ass
  • Inception
For females, the top three checked-in movies last year were:
  • Twilight: Eclipse
  • Harry Potter
  • Sex and the City 2
And lastly, the top three checked-in movies last year for couples were:
  • The Social Network
  • The King's Speech
  • Gulliver's Travels
Notice anything peculiar about that list? Aside from the surprisingly stereotypical gender skew, only 1/3 of the movies on that list won any Oscars at all. And whether these results are do to the age demographic using Foursquare or statistical anomaly, this list is exactly why the have professionals choose the best movies of the year.