Release Notes - Places Flat File
May 2024
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,216,440
- US: 22,545,781
- Rest of world: 103,670,659
- POIs added in last 30 days: 70,834
- US: 37,575
- Rest of world: 33,259
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 23,981
- US: 9,170
- Rest of world: 14,811
- Validated in last 30 days: 3,040,883
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,032,503
- US: 1,480,781
- Rest of world: 1,551,722
- POIs added in last 30 days: 10,915
- US: 8,773
- Rest of world: 2,142
- Validated in last 30 days: 563,089
- US: 416,596
- Rest of world: 146,493
April 2024
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,168,076
- US: 22,517,548
- Rest of world: 103,650,528
- POIs added in last 30 days: 64,695
- US: 7,312
- Rest of world: 57,383
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 22,015
- US: 13,138
- Rest of world: 15,604
- Validated in last 30 days: 1,365,369
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,027,439
- US: 1,479,326
- Rest of world: 1,548,113
- POIs added in last 30 days: 5,708
- US: 4,417
- Rest of world: 1,291
- Validated in last 30 days: 223,872
- US: 107,209
- Rest of world: 116,663
March 2024
What's New
- Improved Open/Closed Scores for 6 countries (APAC - India, Indonesia, Vietnam; EMEA - Finland, Norway; Mexico)
- We improve Open/Closed scores using a Machine Learning algorithm that takes into account 100+ features like the trends in check ins, edits, photos in FSQ Consumer apps.
- With this update, we have improved and standardized the confidence across the 6 countries.
- When we say a place is VeryLikelyOpen/VeryLikelyClosed, we have 95% confidence that the POI is Open/Closed respectively. That is more than 10% improvement in precision for the VeryLikelyOpen bucket.
- When POIs fall under LikelyOpen+VeryLikelyOpen or LikelyClosed+VeryLikelyClosed, we have 80% confidence that the place is Open/Closed respectively.
- When we look at the POI distribution across the buckets, we have reduced the number of POIs by 25% in the “Unsure” bucket, when averaged across the 6 countries.
- Improved Lat-long Accuracy for Finland and Indonesia
- We improve lat-long accuracy by using a Geocode Summarization technique that chooses the most accurate lat-long from 200+ input sources.
- We measure the improvements by measuring distance to ground truth at the median (50th percentile), and also long tail at 75th and 90th percentiles. With this update, the median distance is 7% (~1.75m) closer to Ground Truth, and 75th and 90th percentile is ~10% closer to ground truth.
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,123,773
- US: 22,515,911
- Rest of world: 103,607,862
- POIs added in last 30 days: 40,200
- US: 24,471
- Rest of world: 15,729
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 57,596
- US: 13,138
- Rest of world: 44,458
- Validated in last 30 days: 990,350
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,027,574
- US: 1,479,363
- Rest of world: 1,548,211
- POIs added in last 30 days: 2,657
- US: 2,002
- Rest of world: 655
- Validated in last 30 days: 195,586
- US: 116,746
- Rest of world: 78,840
February 2024
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,247,706
- US: 22,540,129
- Rest of world: 103,707,577
- POIs added in last 30 days: 98,433
- US: 18,561
- Rest of world: 79,872
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 41,029
- US: 19,843
- Rest of world: 21,186
- Validated in last 30 days: 1,124,288
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,042,034
- US: 1,489,866
- Rest of world: 1,552,168
- POIs added in last 30 days: 3,918
- US: 1,417
- Rest of world: 2,501
- Validated in last 30 days: 94,539
- US: 3,151
- Rest of world: 91,388
January 2024
What’s New
- Improved Open/Closed Scores for 3 countries (AU, CH, PT)
- We improved Open/Closed scores using a Machine Learning algorithm that takes into account 100+ features like the trends in check ins, edits, photos in FSQ Consumer apps.
- With this update, we have improved and standardized the confidence across the 3 countries.
- When we say a place is VeryLikelyOpen/VeryLikelyClosed, we have 95% confidence that the POI is Open/Closed respectively. That is more than 10% improvement in precision for the VeryLikelyOpen bucket.
- When POIs fall under LikelyOpen+VeryLikelyOpen or LikelyClosed+VeryLikelyClosed, we have 80% confidence that the place is Open/Closed respectively.
- When we look at the POI distribution across the buckets, we have reduced the number of POIs by 22% in the “Unsure” bucket, when averaged across the 3 countries.
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,193,443
- US: 22,543,763
- Rest of world: 103,649,680
- POIs added in last 30 days: 49,919
- US: 19,764
- Rest of world: 30,155
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 35,074
- US: 8,085
- Rest of world: 26,989
- Validated in last 30 days: 1,314,295
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,035,955
- US: 1,486,725
- Rest of world: 1,549,230
- POIs added in last 30 days: 6,511
- US: 5,772
- Rest of world: 739
- Validated in last 30 days: 316,305
- US: 211,122
- Rest of world: 105,183
December 2023
What’s New
- EV Charger coverage increases in MY, VN, AE, and SG. Increases are up to the following counts depending on the cut of the data received.
- MY: 664
- VN: 34
- AE: 589
- SG: 593
- Improved freshness of Drinking and Dining data in the US. 46% of Drinking and Dining POIs in the US have been refreshed in the past 6 months. This is up from 38% that had been refreshed in the past 6 months in September.
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,176,661
- US: 22,531,927
- Rest of world: 103,644,734
- POIs added in last 30 days: 29,493
- US: 137
- Rest of world: 29,356
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 34,556
- US: 1,909
- Rest of world: 32,647
- Validated in last 30 days: 4,148,824
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,034,318
- US: 1,482,979
- Rest of world:
- POIs added in last 30 days: 828
- US: 8
- Rest of world: 820
- Validated in last 30 days: 178,680
- US: 17
- Rest of world: 178,663
November 2023
What's New
- Added 23 new chains in the US. Including: Coffee Beanery, DGX, Duchess Shoppe, Egg Harbor Café, Erik''s DeliCafe, Fannie May Fine Chocolates, Farm Stores, Fastlane, Gertrude Hawk Chocolates, Gourmet Latté, Han-Dee Hugo's, Ike's Love & Sandwiches, IT'SUGAR, Kohr Bros, Lee's Discount Liquor, Lolli and Pops, Marylou's Coffee, Payless Liquors, Rhodes 101, Seasons Corner Market, Smallcakes Cupcakery, Sugar Factory, The Coffee Tree Roasters. For a full list, please see Chains table.
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,181,144
- US: 22,533,628
- Rest of World: 103,647,516
- POIs added in last 30 days: 305,477
- US: 17,310
- Rest of World: 288,167
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 57,129
- US: 12,913
- Rest of World: 44,216
- Validated in last 30 days: 3,902,086
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,031,875
- US: 1,483,009
- Rest of World: 1,548,866
- POIs added in last 30 days: 14,131
- US: 7,012
- Rest of World: 7,119
- Validated in last 30 days: 433,034
- US: 286,190
- Rest of World: 146,844
October 2023
What's New
- Improved Open/Closed Scores for 5 Countries (AT, BR, CA, ES, JP)
- We improve Open/Closed scores using a Machine Learning algorithm that takes into account 100+ features like the trends in check ins, edits, photos in FSQ Consumer apps.
- With this update, we have improved and standardized the confidence across the 5 countries.
- When we say a place is VeryLikelyOpen/VeryLikelyClosed, we have 95% confidence that the POI is Open/Closed respectively. That is more than 6% improvement for the VeryLikelyOpen bucket.
- When POIs fall under LikelyOpen+VeryLikelyOpen or LikelyClosed+VeryLikelyClosed, we have 80% confidence that the place is Open/Closed respectively.
- Depending on the precision requirements, customers can use a combination that works best for them.
- When we look at the POI distribution across the buckets, we have reduced the number of POIs by 15% in the “Unsure” bucket, when averaged across the 5 countries.
- Improved Lat-Long Accuracy for 4 Countries (AT, AU, BR, PL)
- We improved lat-longs by a process called Geocode Summarization, where the final latitude and longitude for a POI is selected based on analysis of the geocodes from 200+ data sources.
- To test the improvement in accuracy of predicted lat-longs, we sampled data with manually inspected lat-longs from multiple trusted sources. We found that,
- The median distance between the actual (ground truth) vs predicted (by geo summarizer model) lat-longs has reduced by 13% on average, when compared to previous lat-long. That is ~2.5m closer to ground truth on absolute terms.
- The 75th percentile has improved by 15% (~10m closer to ground truth) and the 90th percentile by 9% (24m closer), when averaged across the 4 countries.
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 125,293,417
- US: 22,531,774
- Rest of World: 102,761,643
- POIs added in last 30 days: 184,941
- US: 55,320
- Rest of World: 129,621
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 172,694
- US: 78,082
- Rest of World: 94,612
- Validated in last 30 days: 2,364,983
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,018,609
- US: 1,479,476
- Rest of World: 1,539,133
- POIs added in last 30 days: 2,892
- US: 953
- Rest of World: 1,939
- Validated in last 30 days: 302,457
- US: 202,873
- Rest of World: 99,584
September 2023
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 125,923,469
- US: 22,554,333
- Rest of World: 103,369,136
- POIs added in last 30 days: 338,328
- US: 66,018
- Rest of World: 272,310
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 163,443
- US: 37,144
- Rest of World: 126,299
- Validated in last 30 days: 6,736,373
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,080,224
- US: 1,533,177
- Rest of World: 1,547,047
- POIs added in last 30 days: 20,952
- US: 14,802
- Rest of World: 6,150
- Validated in last 30 days: 521,223
- US: 246,371
- Rest of World: 274,852
August 2023
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 125,744,805
- US: 22,525,569
- Rest of World: 103,219,236
- POIs added in last 30 days: 187,925
- US: 33,563
- Rest of World: 154,362
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 98,832
- US: 25,089
- Rest of World: 73,743
- Validated in last 30 days: 4,051,708
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,083,377
- US: 1,541,966
- Rest of World: 1,541,411
- POIs added in last 30 days: 36,337
- US: 31,834
- Rest of World: 4,503
- Validated in last 30 days: 387,310
- US: 155,148
- Rest of World: 232,162
July 2023
What's New
Added ~90 categories to the taxonomy: On June 1, the team added ~90 new categories to the taxonomy. As part of the update, we changed the labels to +150 categories in order to provide more granular information in the hierarchy to enhance search and analysis opportunities. As a whole, this initiative reinforces our goal to provide the most granular and accurate information to our customers, providing the most flexibility available to build the best products.
Improved Open/Closed status for Western Europe: We refreshed Closed Bucket labels for 5 countries in Western Europe (FR, IT, DE, GB, IE) by recalibrating and retraining the Open/Closed Machine Learning models with larger quantity and better quality data.
With this update, when we say a POI is VeryLikelyOpen or VeryLikelyClosed, we are 95% confident that it is Open or Closed respectively. This is a nearly 5% improvement compared to before. Also, we are 80% confident that a POI identified as LikelyOpen or VeryLikelyOpen is Open; and similarly, 80% confident that a POI identified as LikelyClosed or VeryLikelyClosed is Closed.
- In terms of distribution of POIs, there is a 40% reduction (on average across the 5 countries) in the number of POIs in the Unsure bucket. And, ~15% increase in the number of POIs in the Open buckets.
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 125,654,272
- US: 22,516,510
- Rest of World: 103,137,762
- POIs added in last 30 days: 276,222
- US: 31,890
- Rest of World: 244,332
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 51,061
- US: 7,639
- Rest of World: 43,422
- Validated in last 30 days: 3,638,824
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,065,093
- US: 1,526,111
- Rest of World: 1,538,982
- POIs added in last 30 days: 5,392
- US: 2,401
- Rest of World: 2,991
- Validated in last 30 days: 823,177
- US: 666,930
- Rest of World: 156,247
June 2023
What's New
- Released ~90 new categories to API V3 and flat file on June 1. Over 150 category labels were updated as part of this release to include more granular information to help with filtering. New categories will begin appearing over time.
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 125,448,839
- US: 22,512,531
- Rest of World: 102,936,308
- POIs added in last 30 days: 723,415
- US: 125,073
- Rest of World: 598,342
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 1,225,573
- US: 82,873
- Rest of World: 1,142,700
- Validated in last 30 days: 4,056,048
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,081,883
- US: 1,544,098
- Rest of World: 1,537,785
- POIs added in last 30 days: 12,017
- US: 5,856
- Rest of World: 6,161
- Validated in last 30 days: 655,683
- US: 482,699
- Rest of World: 172,984
May 2023
What's New
Closed Bucket Attribute: Last month saw an increase to its precision as it has improved across the board. As part of May’s release Closed Bucket will now be delivered as a Core attribute for all Places clients.
For customers who do not receive Closed_Bucket today:
- Closed_Bucket will be delivered as a new core attribute. FSQ will not automatically filter any permanently closed places. Users can filter the closed_bucket depending on a use case that demands high reality and open POIs (high precision) vs. wide coverage and open POIs (high recall).
- For customers who receive Closed_Bucket today:
- Users can continue to easily filter the closed_bucket depending on a use case that demands highly real and open POIs (high precision) vs. wide coverage and open POIs (high recall).
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 125,950,331
- US: 22,470,164
- Rest of World: 103,480,167
- POIs added in last 30 days: 243,663
- US: 11,532
- Rest of World: 232,131
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 1,010,684
- US: 332,705
- Rest of World: 677,979
- Validated in last 30 days: 4,003,469
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,094,780
- US: 1,547,441
- Rest of World: 1,547,339
- POIs added in last 30 days: 5,203
- US: 3,050
- Rest of World: 2,153
- Validated in last 30 days: 360,510
- US: 150,691
- Rest of World: 209,819
April 2023
What's New
- Improved Lat-Long for the US (GeoSummarizer Model)
We improve lat-longs by a process called Geocode Summarization, where the final latitude and longitude for a POI is selected based on analysis of the geocodes from multiple data sources.
- To test the improvement in accuracy of predicted lat-longs, we sampled data with manually inspected lat-longs from multiple trusted sources. We found that,
- The median distance between the actual (ground truth) vs predicted (by geo summarizer model) lat-longs has reduced by 24%, when compared to old lat-long.
- Nearly 11% POIs (>5M) are expected to move to the correct building with this update.
- When we evaluated the change with this update for all POIs in FSQ data,
- 50% of POIs moved <10 meters
- 90% of POIs moved <50 meters
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,716,732
- US: 22,791,234
- Rest of World: 103,925,498
- POIs added in last 30 days: 91,609
- US: 42,017
- Rest of World: 49,592
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 101,749
- US: 18,109
- Rest of World: 83,640
- Validated in last 30 days: 2,494,625
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,123,621
- US: 1,561,990
- Rest of World: 1,561,631
- POIs added in last 30 days: 26,067
- US: 24,303
- Rest of World: 1,764
- Validated in last 30 days: 379,218
- US: 276,615
- Rest of World: 102,603
March 2023
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,725,694
- US: 22,767,053
- Rest of World: 103,958,641
- POIs added in last 30 days: 54,619
- US: 5,632
- Rest of World: 48,987
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 21,899
- US: 3,444
- Rest of World: 18,455
- Validated in last 30 days: 3,821,059
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,110,089
- US: 1,548,799
- Rest of World: 1,561,290
- POIs added in last 30 days: 3,086
- US: 2,367
- Rest of World: 719
- Validated in last 30 days: 472,109
- US: 306,571
- Rest of World: 165,538
February 2023
What's New
- ~87K new POIs added in South Korea, which is about a 4% increase in coverage.
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,691,618
- US: 22,763,442
- Rest of World: 103,928,176
- POIs added in last 30 days: 194,574
- US: 50,119
- Rest of World: 144,455
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 45,112
- US: 16,449
- Rest of World: 28,663
- Validated in last 30 days: 8,816,214
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,111,395
- US: 1,547,689
- Rest of World: 1,563,706
- POIs added in last 30 days: 9,637
- US: 6,912
- Rest of World: 2,725
- Validated in last 30 days: 194,574
- US: 50,119
- Rest of World: 144,455
January 2023
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,540,117
- US: 22,729,546
- Rest of World: 103,810,571
- POIs added in last 30 days: 486,906
- US: 122,626
- Rest of World: 364,280
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 350,089
- US: 55,504
- Rest of World: 294,585
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,109,044
- US: 1,547,419
- Rest of World: 1,561,625
- POIs added in last 30 days: 21,772
- US: 20,182
- Rest of World: 1,590
- Validated in last 30 days: 650,266
- US: 415,975
- Rest of World: 234,291
December 2022
What's New
- Extended valid South Korean addresses to include 로. This resulted in an additional ~160k addresses added to the South Korean dataset.
- Added additional crawls in Mexico. This resulted in 452,829 POIs added (
12% improvement), and 46,479 lat/longs added (1.2% improvement in fill rate). - Increased chain coverage by 775 chains in the US.
- Improved accuracy of lat-longs in 6 countries to be rolled out in Jan 2023.
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,401,883
- POIs added in last 30 days: 629,327
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 260,060
- Validated in last 30 days: 8,164,898
Chains
- Total POI count: 3,122,118
- POIs added in last 30 days: 111,570
- Validated in last 30 days: 530,593
Improved at-Long (GeoSummarizer Model)
- To test the improvement in accuracy of predicted lat-longs, we sampled data with manually inspected lat-longs from multiple trusted sources. We found that on average across the 6 countries, the median distance between the actual (ground truth) vs predicted (by geo summarizer model) lat-longs has reduced by 18%, when compared to old lat-long. Canada and Japan saw a huge improvement at 27-28%.
November 2022
What's New
- Fixed a bug that caused POIs generated by UGC to be removed if the lat/long conflicted with the associated country’s polygon. Since UGC data is flagged as high quality, the team created an exception so that POIs generated by UGC are not removed.
- Improved fill rates (0.5% Globally and 2% in the US) by making Place crawls more accepting of partially correct and/or partially available hours.
- Fixed a bug where the DMA attribute (US Only) was dropping leading and trailing 0’s. Resolving the bug resulted in adding values for 3.8m POIs (~8%).
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 126,032,616
- POIs added in last 30 days: 315,061
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 29,798
- Validated in last 30 days: 4,032,417
Chains Changelog
- Total POI count: 3,010,548
- POIs added in last 30 days: 6,166
- Validated in last 30 days: 353,673
October 2022
What's New
- Resolved a bug for POIs in South Korea that resulted in addresses being removed. By pushing the fix, more than 129k POIs in South Korea gained an address value and over 20k POIs had their address modified.
- Expanded EV charger coverage, which now includes +62k POIs globally, up from ~2.8k POIs at the start of the month.
- Made Places crawls more accommodating of partially correct and/or partially available hours of operation information earlier in Q3. This change generated a .5% improvement in fill rate, globally. In the US, this improved the fill rate by nearly 2%.
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 125,754,117
- POIs added in last 30 days: 1,225,897
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 77,020
- Validated in last 30 days: 12,519,660
Chains Changelog
- Total POI count: 2,977,032
- POIs added in last 30 days: 35,173
- Validated in last 30 days: 909,612
September 2022
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 121,082,217
- POIs added in last 30 days: 606,203
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 86,080
- Validated in last 30 days: 11,026,200
Chains Changelog
- Total POI count: 2,946,389
- POIs added in last 30 days: 9,944
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 0
- Validated in last 30 days: 1,036,638
August 2022
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 120,921,154
- POIs added in last 30 days: 550,065
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 500,081
- Validated in last 30 days: 3,105,429
Chains Changelog
- Total POI count: 2,883,221
- POIs added in last 30 days: 7,624
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 0
- Validated in last 30 days: 326,141
July 2022
What's New
- +16,000 Electric Charging Station POIs were added, globally.
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 120,913,998
- POIs added in last 30 days: 2,081,970
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 673,291
- Validated in last 30 days: 8,315,935
Chains Changelog
- Total POI count: 2,846,370
- POIs added in last 30 days: 30,537
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 0
- Validated in last 30 days: 1,076,700
June 2022
What's New
- Census Block ID available and a core attribute for new customers.
- The Website attribute for ~300k POIs in Italy redirected to the POI’s page on a popular digital business directory. We have blacklisted that site, and removed it from the corresponding POIs. This impacts ~30% of all POIs in Italy.
- Removed +36,000 fake venues in Antarctica.
POI Changelog
- Total POI count: 125,448,839
- POIs added in last 30 days: 723,415
- POIs removed in last 30 days: 1,225,573
- Validated in last 30 days: 4,056,048
Chains Changelog
- Total POI count: 2,771,513
- POIs added in last 30 days: N/A
- Validated in last 30 days: 305,299