January 09, 2007

• I question the ethnicity estimate.
• The scale on those graphs is against a 100 that's some putative Internet average though, isn't it? It's not saying most users here are black people; it's claiming we have almost four times the Internet average for black users. I think. But I know jack about stats.
• I'd love to know where their demographic numbers are coming from. I know sites like Mefi do occasional surveys for their ad sponsors, and I wonder if they're somehow using those figures. The other option is that they're completely made up.
• I vote for "pulled out of their bums".
• /checks teeth for implants.
• Firefox can't find the server at www.totalpantscast.com.
• From the FAQ: We observe anonymous records of visits to internet destinations. For a portion of these observations, we have certain information, such as the age, gender or income level of the internet visitor and/or their household. This group is called a panel and forms one aspect of our analysis and reporting methodology. We also analyze internet log records which include information such as the page viewed and the IP (internet protocol) address used to access the page. The demographic audience analysis presented here is focused on US internet audiences. However, Quantified Publishers can obtain break downs of the origin of their audience from all around the world. Seems like a reasonable method, aside from US focus. And I can't really fault them on that, either, since their panel is mostly Usian. So the numbers really are mostly comparing our American base against the American Internet Average. (I don't know how to say that right. Average of american internet users per site?)
• yay! we're statistical!
• Maybe you are. I'm stochastical.
• xxx, robot
• This is both interesting and disconcerting. For the time being I think their figures are mostly pulled out of their bottoms, but that might not be the case long term. It's possible that any internet form you fill in could be attached to your IP address and go into some giant database run by the secret world government and then be sold to Quantcast and similar organizations and used to target advertising at you and so on and so forth. In the past six months, I've filled out two forms that contain "demographic" data. Perhaps I need to lie more systematically on these forms.
• Speaking as a statistician, there are no references to uncertainties of the estimates, and therefore I must vote "bums". Their methods should probably work better for larger sites, but the results are curiously lopsided even for google.com, yahoo.com and msn.com.
• Community postings that aim to find interesting, bizarre or just plain random links on the web, show off, and discuss them. Show off?
• Checked a few sites which visitor logs I know, the visitor stats quantcast mention about those sites are perhaps 10% of the actual sum, same with Alexa. Totally useless those things, they also probably base their records on some spyware (which all smart people all ready gotten rid of).
• Monkeyfilter: just plain random links on the web, show off
• Quantcast is the world's first open internet ratings service. Advertisers can find reports on the audiences of a half million web sites here. Publishers can ensure their sites are represented accurately by tagging them for direct measurement. *whacks Wolof upside the FPP with a lovely vintage '62 sunburst Precision bass* *follows with deluxe hardshell case*
• I vote for bums as well. And I have to wonder -- who's pulling over 100K a year? Moneyjane, sure, but she don't come round here no more. Maybe Lara, seeing as how she gets to "count the night deposits" at the bank... I ran a couple of dating sites through it -- three to one male to female ratio. Which makes sense. Also showed that there are a lot of users with grad school -- but givin the grammer and spelling and good inglish overal doubt it LOL.
• *dashes close to black quantcast monolith, almost touches it, skitters away*
• Black people love us.
• MonkeyFilter: I vote for "pulled out of their bums". MonkeyFilter: yay! we're statistical! MonkeyFilter: I vote for bums as well. Bums abounding. Goetter: ALL people love us
• Capt., I regularly edit manuscripts for Ph.D's and Ph.D candidates. It makes me want to tear my hair out, then hunt down all their former schoolteachers and tear their hair out. Sometime in the hippie era, the theory that grading writing and communication skills outside of an ELA class was overly harsh and a waste of time.
• *dashes close to black quantcast monolith, almost touches it, skitters away* Laugh of the day, in Wingoland.
• This thing really tries to lure ya in. You type your sites name and it give you the "We have sparse data about yoursite.com, so these are rough estimates. You can correct them". Then they want you to add their code to your site. Then the information flow starts. 1. Add code to sites 2. Collect information (underpants) 3. Profit Freaking genius business model.