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The growth of the Brooklyn tech scene as measured by mentions in GarysGuide

We did some data journalism.

GarysGuide this Monday morning. (Screenshot)

Over the past few weeks it seemed like more and more of what was in GarysGuide was happening on our turf out here in Brooklyn, so Technical.ly Brooklyn undertook a lightweight research project to see if that was the case. It is, kinda.
If you’re not familiar, GarysGuide is this sort of weird, densely-packed-with-text, frequently italicized or bolded, chock-full-of-banner-ads Monday morning email that, despite looking like it’s from 2003, is basically the tech events book of New York City.
It’s run by a self-styled character named Gary Sharma, who’s been around the New York tech scene for years. Sharma’s schtick, which includes wearing the same thing every day (a suit with a red tie on which you can pay to place ads) situates him as either a hustler or a connector, depending on your outlook. Nonetheless, if it’s happening in New York and it matters, it’s in GarysGuide.
So in the name of new media’s favored content strategy of quantifying very complicated things with one novel metric, we decided to check out how often the word “Brooklyn” has shown up in GarysGuide in the last year or so.
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/17cYKvRlxCnjWzxpJvjOm3KBn4qtOUdyw7m3kAQTgfiY/pubchart” query=”oid=1309126817&format=interactive” /]
For most of the past year before May, the word “Brooklyn” averaged about 10 references in the newsletter each week. Starting in late March or early April, this started edging upwards, hitting 19 mentions on May 9 and then again on June 6.
Could this indicate that more events are happening because it’s spring? That is possible.
But it’s also possible that it’s an indicator that tech is picking up in Brooklyn. There continues to be anecdotal evidence of such, but actual numbers are hard to come by. But there’s always GarysGuide.

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