Google releasing data to help track coronavirus movement in cities
Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous, Brian Sozzi and Dan Howley discuss how new information from Google about the spread of coronavirus can help shape how people move around in cities.
Video Transcript
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: We're back here at Yahoo Finance. And I want to say good morning to our Tech Editor, Dan Howley. To talk a little bit more about Google, Dan, I know that Google is now sharing its data on how the virus has changed movement in and around cities. What can you tell us about that?
DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, these are called Google Mobility Reports. And basically what they're doing is taking aggregate data from essentially what is Google Maps, and then using that, anonymized, to give locations-- you know, governments, cities, health officials, an idea of where people are taking social distancing seriously, and where they might not be so much. So they're not going to give you exact location. So don't think that if you're in New York, you'll be able to see Central Park, the Museum of Modern History, or anything along those lines.
What you're going to see is different categories. So for instance, there's retail and recreation, grocery and pharmacy, parks. We also have train stations. That encompasses things like subways, bus terminals, and actual train stations, workplaces, and residential.
And I got to tell you, the information on here, though it is a little bit all over the place as far as how wide those categories can be, it is striking in the difference that you would see. So in New York, for instance, you can see that parks visits are down 47%. While in North Dakota, which obviously smaller population, parks visits are up 73%.
But they are still taking retail and recreation seriously, down 44%, whereas in New York, that's down 62%. So it's supposed to give a broader understanding to cities and states about where their people are going still and where they're not. This way, for instance, Google says if they're seeing a lot of traffic to transportation hubs, they may be able to add more buses or subways to ensure social distancing.
And we've seen that in New York City, where the subways are limited now. And as a result, people are kind of crowding onto the trains, kind of eliminating the purpose for social distancing.
BRIAN SOZZI: Dan, big tech is having a moment, if you will. They're building up-- or appear to be building up a lot of goodwill. You had this Google News. They're being helpful.
At Facebook, pumping $100 million into the journalism space. Not too shabby for a space that's been under attack in the past two years.
DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, it's almost like people have forgotten about the fact that just a few months ago, we were talking about how big tech was running potentially monopolistic programs here. And I think that just speaks to the idea that these companies are so big, they recognize that they have to contribute in some way. They do step forward in a variety of situations. This is just another example of that.
They've done so-- for instance, Facebook has its SOS feature. When there are natural disasters, you can let loved ones know that you're safe. Google regularly runs different ads for politicians, specifically for things like where to vote, things along those lines. Not just political ads, but good public service information. And that's what they're doing here.
Amazon, by the way, getting a lot of credit for making essential items more important as far as delivery times go, and limiting non-essential items in their warehouses and delivery times for those.
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right, Dan Howley, thanks for the update there on Google and others. Stay safe. Thanks for being with us.
