Wednesday, February 6, 2008

A map of beer prices in Prague

So, after more work than I expected, we've finished our map of beer prices in Prague. We either personally visited, or spoke by telephone with, over 250 bars and restaurants in Prague to collect the price data. We did not rely on the prices published on websites, as these are often either inaccurate or out of date.

Click on the map below to find out more.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

How did you get the shapes of the different areas? They look sort of arbitrary?

Jack DeNeut said...

The shapes are calculated the same way they on a weather map - average prices are extrapolated from the data points. That's why the boundaries very rarely run right through a data point - very few bars have beer priced at 20, 30, or 40 CZK.

Chargeorge said...

This is amazing! Prices have gone up since I lived in Devijska 4 years ago, but my favorite place (Pod Loubin) is still open, so that's awesome.

Anonymous said...

Excellent map! Are we thursty :)
You do miss a important way-point:
U Zavesenyho Kafe

Jack DeNeut said...

Thanks for the tip on U Zavěšenýho Kafe. I added it to the database.

Anonymous said...

hi, another tip for missing pub - popocafepetl

Jack DeNeut said...

There are actually two bars in our system by that name: search for "Popocafepetl" on Nelso.com.

When we update the map we'll try to collect prices from both these places.

Unknown said...

This is really a wonderfull tool :) However, I think it lacks precision - ie. Restaurace Magicka zahrada in Michle makes the whole area expensive , which is not true.

Do you plan to update your database with more pubs to get a more realistic image of the situation?

Thanks for answer,
Martin

Jack DeNeut said...

Martin: You're right about some of the data being a bit misleading. We're in the process of gathering more data, especially for areas outside the center of Prague.

The map colors were calculated the way that a weather map is displayed - the problem being of course that temperature data is much more uniform than beer price data (if it's 15C/59F at my house, my neighbor probably has similar weather, so having only a few temperature readings for an area will usually work).

Any suggestions on alternate display methods? The easiest would be to just use colored pins (red for expensive, blue for cheap, etc.) for the pubs and restaurants, and take out the color shading entirely.

Lelik said...

Very cool ;)))
Alternative way can be same as TAG CLOUDS , small and big icons! without any background color.

P.S. Jack do you checking your old blog?

tarmaq said...

Is it possible to add some pubs to your db?

Jack DeNeut said...

Lelik: I thought of doing the 'tag cloud' type presentation, and I might try that in a future version.

Oh, and about my old blog - I never check it and have almost completely forgotten about it. Might start posting there again, to write about things that aren't related to Nelso.

Unknown said...

I have one suggestion about the alternative display method: there are publicly available lists (databases) of restaurants and pubs in Prague (Zlate stranky - Yellow pages, catalogues in www.centrum.cz or www.seznam.cz). It would be possible to add all the pubs to your database (without beer prices) and then to give them an average beer price. This would make the beer map much more accurate and and would allow further improvement of precision.

Jack DeNeut said...

Martin: I guess my promotion for Nelso local search didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped.

We put together the beer map mostly to promote the local search part of the site. We already have a huge database of pubs and bars (and other kinds of businesses) in Prague. Currently, the bars and pubs section lists over 550 places: Bars and Pubs in Prague on Nelso.com. As far as I can tell, it's more comprehensive than any other directory in English or Czech.

We'll be opening up the site for users to add new businesses to the database later this week. Watch the Nelso Blog for details.