Now for something completely different…
After the seriousness of the last few posts I think we need a bit of light relief.
Doing my stuff in the back office (not orifice, read it properly!) I was checking the site’s ranking on Alexa.com. I read the description of the commentators commentards customers of Raccoon Arms and though it quite good to pass on.
You spend roughly six minutes per visit to the site and just over a minute reading each article we spend hours crafting by hand. Relative to the overall population, the Raccoon Arm’s customers tends to be between the ages of 35 and 65; they are likely to both high- and low-income, both uneducated and highly educated, and likely to be childless men virtually visiting the bar from their homes.
The bouncers on the doors have further identified 7 different sub groups within these 35-65, non-median income, stupid but high IQ people.
There are the outsiders who walk past with nerry-a-glance. There are those who are non-interested knowers who hear about our good works but don’t bother to visit. Then there are the trouble makers who can find themselves have the door shut in their face if the don’t listen to polite requests to calm down. Those are the people who don’t enter the bar.
For those who the bouncers let in, we have the lurkers who just like to sit and listen while they supp their beer or pina-colada. We also have the non-contributing participants who might ask the odd question but who also sit quietly in the background. Then we have the noisy lot of partial-contributing participants and regular contributers who do all the talking.
If you disagree with this profile of you please let us know and we will take the into account the feedback so that we can design the bar accordingly.
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March 15, 2012 at 18:19 -
Usually a Milk Stout and can she bloody milk it!
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March 15, 2012 at 17:31 -
The bar is quite comfortable, the hosts genial, and most patrons well-informed. I would hope that the fine old oak bar will not be replaced with a low-maintenance press-board and laminate monstrosity with valance lighting.
One very minor tweek to the comment thread software would be beneficial, it shows up in spiral architects comment at 10:55, after four comments to a thread suddenly the reply option disappears. This sometimes makes following a thread difficult. A little oil on that particular squeaky hinge is about all the renovation required as far as I can see.
I seem to remember that the landlady originally wanted to provide a ladies snug away from the blokes noisy sport and page three commentary in the public bar, I think that has been unneccessary as from what I observe some of the more caustic and informed comments come from the ladies. And a pretty bunch they are too, especially Gloria.
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March 15, 2012 at 17:37 -
You can only begin to imagine how pretty she is. I hate going out with her, all those ‘I s’pose yer mate wants a drink too’ comments……
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March 15, 2012 at 20:58 -
Shameful conduct, that must have been in Peckham and Brixton, put yer white ‘eels on, an come norf’f tha river, to Essex, they no’owta treat ladies there.
Though the TOWIE gang are busy “renovating” and burning down old coaching inns that I once frequented in what kids would now describe as the medieval period. Pub renovations are very over-rated.
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March 15, 2012 at 17:20 -
Just keep doing what you are doing.
I do not recognise myself in your reader profiles, but I like what you do.
Good luck. -
March 15, 2012 at 16:13 -
Troublemaker – who are you callin a troublemaker? Are you lookin at my pint? Outside…….
And I am not a man, I am a….. who put that there???????????
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March 15, 2012 at 15:49 -
Yup, they got me to a tee too. Well, most of my various personalities; sober, drunk, content and angry – the others they were way off with.
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March 15, 2012 at 14:08 -
“childless men”
that’s just the internet as a whole, isn’t it?
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March 15, 2012 at 11:04 -
Can we have sawdust on the floor and compulsory smoking please Anna?
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March 15, 2012 at 11:16
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March 15, 2012 at 09:31 -
I’m sick to the back teeth of all these ‘experts’ and ‘market information gatherers’ trying to pigeon-hole me, so if you don’t mind I’ll just perch on this bar-stool and preen my feathers.
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March 15, 2012 at 09:34
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March 15, 2012 at 09:12 -
Website?
Gees folks, have you never heard of an rss feed.
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March 15, 2012 at 08:34 -
They missed out ‘tipsy’.
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March 15, 2012 at 08:18 -
Brilliant. All of that just about sums me up at different times of the week.
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March 15, 2012 at 07:47 -
Furnish a corner of the cellar for the carpet chewers. Call it the Ranters’ Pantry.
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March 15, 2012 at 07:58 -
Brilliant!
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March 15, 2012 at 09:00 -
There are things that a hostess must do:
If the carpet you’re trying to chew,
Or you want to sling mud
And are baying for blood
Then it’s down to the cellar for you!-
March 15, 2012 at 09:16 -
You can trust for one thing, our Macheath,
Her comments will always be brief,
Hits a nail on the head,
Not easily led,
A pint behind the bar if you would.-
March 15, 2012 at 09:20 -
Cheers!
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March 15, 2012 at 16:15 -
They missed out the unique ‘limerick lovers’ sub-group that only exists in the Raccoon Arms.
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March 15, 2012 at 07:42 -
Happy to be a mostly-lurking, stupid-smart regular visitor, occasionally- commenting saddo.
Keep up the good work and don’t let the turkeys get you down!
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March 15, 2012 at 07:24 -
“we will take the into account the feedback so that we can design the bar accordingly”
Perhaps some carpet in the snug for those who wish to chew it?
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March 15, 2012 at 13:01 -
You do realize, I hope, that some of us are not actually raccoons. ΠΞ
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March 16, 2012 at 02:22 -
Is “Chewing Carpet” the same as “Rug Munching” if so the demographic you are are aiming at may be busy getting married and you should consider the addition of a Funcion Suite to cater for wedding receptions.
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March 15, 2012 at 03:16 -
“the odd lonely individual, seeking companionship, but sitting alone in a corner”
Lonely, perhaps, but less of the odd, please!
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March 15, 2012 at 00:45 -
I think that this is an accurate assessment of the denziens of the Raccoon Arms…
Like many bars, it has its regulars; the lairy types – those who should not drink at all because they cannot hold their liquor; the odd lonely individual, seeking companionship, but sitting alone in a corner; the know-it-all type, with an opinion on every subject, speaking the loudest, vying to be the centre of attention; the stone crazy type, muttering nonsensical gibberish, convinced of its rightness, but being laughed at from afar… Some are professionals, or profess to be. Others have straight ‘ordinary’ jobs, or have retired from the hustle and bustle. Ages vary, from the decrepitly old, to the very young.
All are catered for in the comfortable surrounds of the bar.
Those who are bent on trouble don’t last very long… as the landlady looks the unfortunate aflicted one in the eye and utters the fateful words… “Your’e barred”.
Occasionally, this firm verbal dismissal is not enough and the malefactor leaves the bar at a far higher velocity than he entered it… in his posterior, deeply wedged, so it looks as if it will be painful to remove, is a size 8 training shoe…
For whatever the reason for their presence, the inhabitants of the Raccoon Arms are glad they have found their way there.
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March 15, 2012 at 00:33 -
I am a 67 y/o, highly educated quiet type who likes to sup his beer and listen to interesting conversation. There is quite a lot at M’mselle Raccoon’s bar. A bit of fine food would be nice. Perhaps if you seek development advice, a ‘Bar & Grill’ would be a fine addition. I will enjoy hearing other’s ideas for the menu but might suggest, as a starter, some fried pollie, perhaps a shank of ‘World’s Greatest Treasurers’ to slice pieces off, or even a ‘Global Warmed Chicken little Salad’.
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March 15, 2012 at 00:23 -
How does Alex.com know all this?
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March 15, 2012 at 02:45 -
By buying the data off 3rd party companies & using publicly available data sources.
The methods of collecting data are numerous. Take this site as an example (just an example BTW, how this site operates is normal for all websites)
If you came here via an RSS reader your browser first went to feedproxy.google.com which recorded that you visited this site and the article. You were then automatically redirected here. If you came via a google (or other) search then google records your visit here.
Once here, various other sites also record your visit. For example on this page the following know you have visited.
tweetmeme.com, topsy.com, facebook.com, advertserve.com, googlesyndication, linkedin.com, fbcdn.net (Facebook CDN), sharethis.com, google-analytics.com, statcounter.com
If your browser keeps cookies then all those sites potentially know you have revisited here and built a more detailed picture of your internet habits.
Before you get uber paranoid, at this point they dont know its you. Just some random PC on the internet. This data is summarised & made anonymous before being sold.
However, if you are also logged into a social network, or other very popular site (digg, linkin,twitter,facebook,google etc) then every visit is recorded by the respective company and linked to your profile.
If you are always logged onto facebook then facebook has a complete history of every visit you made here. Again, this data is summarised & made anonymous before being sold. Facebook is an extreamly valuable source of demographic data (breakdown of site usage by age, sex etc). Traditionally this information was only available by using surveys which are very unreliable & costly.
All this might sound distasteful, but it is the faustian bargain you make when using the internet. Tracking is a major source of revenue, without which, many sites would not exist or would be behind a paywall (where you have to pay to view content).
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March 15, 2012 at 05:28 -
Yes, but how do they know that I’m a sad, middle-aged loser with a high IQ and low EQ?
Do they read my posts?
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March 15, 2012 at 06:58 -
Age, as discussed. Reasonable guesses can be made about income and IQ using proxies. Types of sites you visit, which type of PC, smartphone etc you use.
A reasonable guess can be made where you live based on your IP number to about the same resolution as a postcode. From that a guess can be made about economic status etc.
In the future, they may well read your posts using linguistic analysis, (the only real hurdle being computing power).
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March 15, 2012 at 10:55 -
Bugger me.
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March 16, 2012 at 02:34 -
The Free Apps and Add ons that people use within most popular browsers in many cases affiliated to AD Servers that are tracking all your keys strokes and your IP Address, User Agent details and where you break out onto the internet for location specific services and advertising.
The Banner Ad scripts on many webpages are reading this info and relaying it back to affiliated servers and tracking your movements. if you have a static IP address your card is marked. if you are dynamically assigned how often are you changing.
Your Smart phone has embedded hardwired tracking software . The iphone tracks every key stroke, the andriod tracks every sms message. The Free Apps you download give you a list of things they say they are doing or are doing on first install. To update and amend the data being harvested is simple. Emails, contacts, user names, text messages, emails can all be collected and transferred without your knowledge.
These techniques are common and profitable so you can be damn sure they are being used.
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March 16, 2012 at 10:56 -
Similar techniques have been used every since the first shop was created. The ads brokers and other websites gather information on people which in turn is fed back to the companies doing the advertising. They use the information to fine tune their products to fit what the consumer wants.
The first shopkeeper in existence used similar methods in identifying his customers, finding out what they regularly bought, and making sure that they had enough of so that customer could buy it off them. That shopkeeper probably knew more personal details about his customers than the massive companies do in these modern times, e.g via who was shagging who type gossip. However the massive companies can make do with generalisations because their customer numbers are so much bigger.
So whilst keeping private data secure is very important, I would be more concerned about the local shopkeeper’s knoweldge of my shopping habits than Tescos. For instance, as a young boy I might have bought some naughty magazines from the top shelf. This shop is also the place where my parents bought their newspapers. Would the shopkeeper never tell my parents what my purchasing habits were or could that information leak out in some conversation they had.
Just putting it all in context.
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March 16, 2012 at 19:55 -
I heard a great quote the other day during a radio discussion on the topic of privacy on the internet: If the product you are downloading is free then the product is you.
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March 15, 2012 at 00:01 -
Slight flaw in the analysis method. The people visiting are likely to be of a libertarian persuasion. This means they are more likely than the average Joe (or Jane) to be clued up on matters such as the surveillance state, and web monitoring. They are therefore likely to be accessing all web pages via anonymous proxies, anonymizing services such as tor, and/or are more likely to have stronger privacy settings which thwart web tracking services. I’m not surprised it gave such confusing and apparently contradictory results. Anyway, that’s my six minutes up – must dash.
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March 16, 2012 at 03:04 -
I would agree with you anon is best. There are so many targets for the criminals, advertisers and authorities that make simple precautions a must. You never know when they will start crunching the data harvested or the implications for users when they do.
If people understood that connecting to the internet means the entire internet is also connected to you they would be a little more careful.
Anyone interested google “Tor Tails ” and select the first link on google to read more.
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March 14, 2012 at 23:48 -
But if I comment it might change my ranking – oh
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