Determining popular venues

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving a request for information indicative of venues that are located within a geographic region of interest;

in response to the received request, accessing user data for one or more users of a social networking platform, with the accessed user data being associated with the venues located within the geographic region of interest;

for each particular venue among multiple venues located within the geographic region of interest, identifying, in the accessed user data, data indicative of one or more affirmative actions that are performed for the particular venue by at least one of the one or more users; and

generating, based on the data indicative of the one or more affirmative actions associated with the particular venue, a popularity score for the particular venue, wherein the generated popularity score being indicative of an affinity of the one or more users for the particular venue;

determining, based on the generated popularity scores for the multiple venues located within the geographic region of interest, popular venues, wherein a popular venue of the determined popular venues being associated with an increased popularity score relative to popularity scores of other of the multiple venues located with the geographic region of interest;

applying a crowd type filter to the determined popular venues, wherein the applied crowd type filter defining one or more user attributes selected by a user transmitting the request, wherein each of the one or more user selected attributes being venue independent;

based on the applied crowd type filter, determining at least one popular venue of the determined popular venues, wherein the determined at least one popular venue is associated with at least a threshold amount of activity by at least one user with characteristics satisfying the one or more user selected venue independent attributes; and

for the determined at least one popular venue associated with at least the threshold amount of activity by the at least one user with characteristics satisfying the one or more user selected venue independent attributes and located within the geographic region of interest, generating data indicative of a type of user of the social networking platform who performs the one or more affirmative actions

providing the generated data indicative of the type of user to the user transmitting the request.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:

analyzing data indicative of characteristics of users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions;

wherein generating the data indicative of the type of user comprises:

generating, based on analyzing, the data indicative of the type of user of the social networking platform who performs the one or more affirmative actions for the determined at least one popular venue associated with at least the threshold amount of activity and located within the geographic region of interest.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the data indicative of the type of user comprises one or more of:

anonymous demographic data about the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions for the determined at least one popular venue associated with at least the threshold amount of activity and located within the geographic region of interest; and

anonymous psychographic data about the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions for the determined at least one popular venue associated with at least the threshold amount of activity and located within the geographic region of interest.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3 , wherein the anonymous demographic data comprises one or more of:

data indicative of a gender of the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions;

data indicative of an age of the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions;

data indicative of an ethnicity of the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions;

data indicative of knowledge of languages of the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions;

data indicative of home ownership of the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions;

data indicative of an employment status of the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions; and

data indicative of a relationship status of the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions; and

wherein the anonymous psychographic data comprises one or more of:

data indicative of one or more interests of the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions; and

data indicative of a lifestyle of the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the accessed user data includes:

demographic data and psychographic data for a particular user on the social networking platform; and

demographic data and psychographic data for one or more other users of the social networking platform, with the one or more other users having one or more social connections to the particular user in the social networking platform.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , further comprising:

determining one or more privacy settings that have been set by the particular user; and

determining one or more privacy settings that have been set by respective ones of the one or more other users,

wherein the accessed user data is based on the one or more privacy settings for the particular user and the privacy settings for the respective ones of the one or more other users.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein an affirmative action comprises one or more of:

an action of endorsing content available on the social networking platform;

an action of checking into a location, wherein an entity associated with the location also has content on the social networking platform that corresponds to the location;

an action of posting content on the social networking platform; and

an action of adding a tag to content posted on the social networking platform.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:

receiving a selection of a filtering criteria; and

filtering the popular venues based on the received filtering criteria.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 , wherein the filtering criteria corresponds to a type of location and for a particular venue among the multiple venues located within the geographic region of interest, and wherein the method further comprises:

determining when the particular venue satisfies the filtering criteria;

identifying, in the accessed user data and based on determining when the particular venue satisfies the filtering criteria, data indicative of one or more affirmative actions that are performed for the particular venue by at least one of the one or more users; and

generating, based on the data indicative of the one or more affirmative actions associated with the particular venue, a popularity score for the particular venue, with the popularity score being indicative of an affinity of the one or more users for the particular venue.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 , further comprising:

receiving information indicative of a selection of one or more demographic and psychographic criteria;

generating a custom crowd type from the received information indicative of the selection of the one or more demographic and psychographic criteria; and

using the generated custom crowd type as the received filtering criteria.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:

transmitting, to a client device, information indicative of a geographic area that includes representations of one or more of the popular venues;

receiving information indicative of a selection of at least one of the representations included in the geographic area; and

transmitting, to the client device, anonymous demographic data and anonymous psychographic data about one or more users who performed affirmative actions with a venue represented by the selected at least one of the representations.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:

receiving information indicative of one or more user attributes that define a particular crowd type; and

determining a portion of the accessed user data that is associated with users of the social networking platform who possess attributes corresponding to at least one of the one or more user attributes that define the particular crowd type;

wherein the popularity score is generated based on the determined portion of the accessed user data that is associated with users of the social networking platform who possess attributes corresponding to at least one of the one or user attributes that define the particular crowd type and is indicative of an affinity of the particular venue with the particular crowd type relative to an affinity of the particular venue with users of the social networking platform.

13. A system comprising:

one or more processing devices; and

one or more machine-readable media configured to store instructions that are executable by the one or more processing devices to perform operations comprising:

receiving a request for information indicative of venues that are located within a geographic region of interest;

in response to the received request, accessing user data for one or more users of a social networking platform, with the accessed user data being associated with the venues located within the geographic region of interest;

for each particular venue among multiple venues located within the geographic region of interest,

identifying, in the accessed user data, data indicative of one or more affirmative actions that are performed for the particular venue by at least one of the one or more users; and

generating, based on the data indicative of the one or more affirmative actions associated with the particular venue, a popularity score for the particular venue, wherein the generated popularity score being indicative of an affinity of the one or more users for the particular venue;

determining, based on the generated popularity scores for the multiple venues located within the geographic region of interest, popular venues, wherein a popular venue of the determined popular venues being associated with an increased popularity score relative to popularity scores of other of the multiple venues located with the geographic region of interest;

applying a crowd type filter to the determined popular venues, wherein the applied crowd type filter defining one or more user attributes selected by a user transmitting the request, wherein each of the one or more user selected attributes being venue independent;

based on the applied crowd type filter, determining at least one popular venue of the determined popular venues, wherein the determined at least one popular venue is associated with at least a threshold amount of activity by at least one user with characteristics satisfying the one or more user selected venue independent attributes; and

for the determined at least one popular venue associated with at least the threshold amount of activity by the at least one user with characteristics satisfying the one or more user selected venue independent attributes and located within the geographic region of interest, generating data indicative of a type of user of the social networking platform who performs the one or more affirmative actions

providing the generated data indicative of the type of user to the user transmitting the request.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the data indicative of the type of user comprises one or more of:

anonymous demographic data about the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions for the determined at least one popular venue associated with at least the threshold amount of activity and located within the geographic region of interest; and

anonymous psychographic data about the one or more users of the social networking platform who perform the one or more affirmative actions for the determined at least one popular venue associated with at least the threshold amount of activity and located within the geographic region of interest.

15. The system of claim 13 , wherein the one or more processing devices further perform the operations comprising:

receiving a selection of a filtering criteria; and

filtering the popular venues based on the received filtering criteria.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the filtering criteria corresponds to a type of location and for each particular venue among multiple venues located within the geographic region of interest, and wherein the operations further comprise:

determining when the particular venue satisfies the filtering criteria; and

identifying, in the accessed user data and based on determining when the particular venue satisfies the filtering criteria, data indicative of one or more affirmative actions that are performed for the particular venue by at least one of the one or more users;

generating, based on the data indicative of the one or more affirmative actions associated with the particular venue, a popularity score for the particular venue, with the popularity score being indicative of an affinity of the one or more users for the particular venue.

17. The system of claim 15 wherein the one or more processing devices further perform the operations comprising:

receiving a selection of information indicative of one or more demographic and psychographic criteria;

generating a custom crowd type from the received criteria; and

using the generated custom crowd type as the received filtering criteria.