Animesh Pathak's Crazy Ideas

Sunday, April 03, 2005

How to tell the sex of a visitor to your website?

WARNING : ADULT CONTENT... above 18 only.

I actually got 90 hits on my blog yesterday (April 2). I wonder what caused it ?!

That set me .. and more importantly, M, thinking about how many of them were heterosexual females, since that is the species I am on the lookout for. M suggested that I put something up on the website that would decipher that info for me.

So here it is - the first audience-speak of this blog. Dear readers, please remember to read all the comments and append your idea at the end. If you want to, please leave your email address behind in the comment, so that due credit (or brickbats) can be given.

Here's my idea #1:
Post a link to "sexy pictures of [insert name of hot female celebrity here] " on the blog. Then count ratio of visiters who visit the link. The only problem is that lesbian girls may also click on the above. But come to think of it, I should not care about it since they won't be interested in me anyways :-).

Idea #2: Post a link to "online window shopping". The number of visiters going to that link should give a pretty close estimate of the number of females visiting the site [or is this a mere lower bound, since some guys might also be interested in shopping (ewwwww) ].

Finally, and the best (?) idea:
Just put a poll on the site saying "are you male or female?". Trust in people's honesty, and assume that the number of whackos giving wrong answers is the same across the sexes. Then the anomalies will cancel each other out and we have the answer to the question about my life, universe and everything.

So, dear reader, how did you like this one... crazy huh?

I know all the above methods have loopholes. Maybe a method that uses a combination of the above strategies will work best. I don't know. Do you?

Please do post your comments and let others know what you think about this. I am sure this will help a lot of people who have their blogs :D. Also let me know if you have thought about this problem before.

waiting for comments... and signing off.
-A
P.S. So, what is your sex?

11 Comments:

  • Dear Animesh,

    Good traffic on your blog...obviously 90 hits is something unbelieveable. well coming to ur problem on gender issue it is little tough to determine...all the three methods of identification cannot be trusted.

    1. Hetro sexual females: hmmm i guess 70% will be hetro...rest 30% will be homo..and wud be visiting your blog either by mistake or coz of a different relationship(friends, cousins) that they share wid u ;) so be happy 70% crowd is for you...keep looking ;)

    2. Online window shopping: hmmm not all that bad..but just because a person is clicking on a shopping link doesnt make it a obvious female case. There will be guys clicking for computer accessories, books, cars, bikes etc. But one solution for this problem exists. Beauty concious females can be trapped. Put a link which directly connects to latest cosmetics and do mention that the latest lippers and other cosmetics of various brands are here at 50% off (promotional measure). 95% will be famale ;) i am dead sure. :)

    3. Poll: well it depends on the honesty of the visitors.

    There is one more crazy idea which will irriate some. In the comments section do a little modification such that person who has just finished typing the comments is halted by a pop up window asking them "Are u a male/Female?" before actually publishing the comments and once they click on the answers direct them to a page which will have a set of questions determining gender. like choice of cars, color, place, magazines, movies, TV serials etc etc...the answers will be very general for females ;) choice of color will be pink and blue. Cars preffered will be long sleek ones and black in color and so on.


    I had given a thought to this problem quite sometimes back but cud not find any solutions.

    Last part: whats my gender??? A female

    Yours truly
    :)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:17 AM  

  • This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 5:57 AM  

  • Yo!
    This is more a suggestion than a concrete idea. If you are a regular on slashdot, you must've read their 'Ask Slashdot' section. This is a question there. You'll get hundred times more response than what you would by posting something here.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 5:58 AM  

  • I have to say bhai....this is definitely the craziest idea...being a guy u have to care how many women/girls visited ur site...I don't support this idea at all...it really shudn't matter who looks at ur blog or site.

    and who says men don't shop online...I think men and women shop online equally.

    I really don't know..what's with knowning the gender of the people who visit ur site....u do realise that some women like urs truly might not visit the website again, if we are asked such questions...because I have seen that men like chatting with women and that is the reason why the first question on anonymous chat is "ASL?"....so as u can see I am totally against this crazy idea of urs.

    By Blogger Neha, at 1:56 PM  

  • I understand that the question would have troubled you for sometime. It is definetly important to know about your audience... their likings and dislikings ... and their liking for you ....

    Idea #1 the best idea of all ... definite way of removing biased response.

    Idea #2 doesnt help ... statistics reveal more men shop online then females ... reasons are self explanatory.

    Idea #3 Might work.. but only if you are ready to spend time with rigourous statistical tool of cleansing data and extrapolating results.

    Keeping the final objective in mind .. you should take your quest to the next level.

    Your blog should have a gateway with a tree of questions leading the guest to pre-defined leafs (destination pages).... here is a sample set of questions (with perfect matches !!)

    1. Are you male or FEMALE
    2. are you 18 -21
    3. Are you located in LA
    4. Are you interested in theatre and movies

    The last answer starting a SKYPE protocol connecting the guest directly to Animesh's cell phone !!


    PS. I'm Male 23 ... located in BHX .... not interested in movies or theatre with you around

    By Blogger Ash, at 3:13 PM  

  • Pretty interesting question...and I think a good way is to put a touchy gender based question as a survey on ur website. Questions like, 'Are women better managers than men?' with a 'Yes' or 'No' as answer will definitely give you the idea of the number of Females and the number of 'Feminist Males' visiting ur page. Wotsay...?

    By Blogger Varun, at 4:51 AM  

  • Pretty interesting question...and I think a good way is to put a touchy gender based question as a survey on ur website. Questions like, 'Are women better managers than men?' with a 'Yes' or 'No' as answer will definitely give you the idea of the number of Females and the number of 'Feminist Males' visiting ur page. Wotsay...?

    By Blogger Varun, at 4:52 AM  

  • All very interesting ideas, of course based somewhat on stereotypes... but stereotypes don't come from nowhere.

    Good luck!

    dancewriter (female, by the way)

    By Blogger Tallyflute, at 5:12 AM  

  • Just assume that the ones who claim to be girls are, otherwise you'll go crazy avoiding the possibilities of strange imposter homos.

    On the otherhand, watch out for the ones who claim to be girls, cause they might turn out to be strange imposter homos.

    Of course, since the communication is text only, it doesn't much matter. But be sure that girls are really girls before actually meeting them in person or --- whatcha! Danger!

    mr strauss

    Pop goes lethal

    podcast

    By Blogger Unknown, at 5:26 AM  

  • almost a dead blog...going to be 7th month now..2 more months and a baby will be on the earth...

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:54 AM  

  • Very funny !!!

    Thats all I have to say ..

    Shiv

    By Blogger Smugam, at 12:58 PM  

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