I check Reddit’s AMA (Ask Me Anyting) page maybe once a week or two. Some interesting profession or celeb is on, who understands how to hang out in a Reddit AMA, and it can be interesting.
There was a team for a porn site, I believe called PornHD. Other than the AMA thread here on the SDMB a while back, I have no knowledge here, so worth a click.
A question was asked about security of data, and the analytics possible. The response was practical and plain: they anonymize the data, and have large stores of “de-identified” data against which they can apply the same analytics you hear about with any other website. Lots of behavior predicting, micro-changes to your experience to see if they can get you to stay longer, etc.
In addition to listing things like popularity, transmission rates, etc., they termed one “the user’s journey.”
I have no idea what this means specifically within a pornsite context, but can imagine - again, understanding a person’s clicks and how to get them to stay longer. That has got to be some revealing stuff that any other consumer website would be dying to know. The level of knowledge they have about a person’s pornsite “journey,” and the various ways that could be applied in areas of engaging that person in ways they have no awareness of seems huge to this naïve non-digital native.
Jeez, this stuff is getting out ahead of us in ways I don’t think we will fully understand for 50-100 years.
Is this something you wrap your brain around from time to time?
ETA: Hmm, this should really be in IMHO. I will report this to request a move.
Meh, not really, the one or two sites I’ve been to didn’t do a really good job of getting me to stay when it seems it could have been much easier to do. Maybe I’m just not their customer base?
Not specifically with porn. That one just hit me because of the squick factor of some pornsite visitor’s “journey” being used in this way we are hearing about across the web.
This OP is intended to be more like “What do you think about Alexa listening in to your house all the time?” sort of thread. I had not stopped and thought about user-experience analytics on a pornsite before seeing this AMA on Reddit, and it put the whole topic in a different context for me.
I know - silly, ignorant WordMan. And I know folks love their Amazon Echo’s and see value in having their user journey tracked, whether on Pottery Barn, a News website, or a pornsite. It just makes me pause sometimes.
I work in advertising, and our agency does a lot of website development and design work for our clients.
“User journey” (or “user experience”) is very much how developers talk about how site visitors use websites. We think a lot about understanding the path that a user takes through a website, what things make a user stay on a site longer (or leave), what gets people to check out various aspects of a site, etc.
And, yes, in the context of a porn site, it’s a bit…interesting, when you think about things like “what keywords get click-through?”
Based on the porn addiction websites I have read (such as YourBrainOnPorn), the user’s journey eventually devolves into watching videos with more novelty, i.e. uncharacteristic levels of perversion.
That, in an of itself, could be risky if ever made public. But also it is what about what they are learning about us that can be applied in ways to influence us, on that site and if/when sold to others.
If I am framing this incorrectly, please educate me.
