HN Explorer

Ask HN - way to get user demographic data in real time for 1st time visitor?

1 points by timhargis ↗ HN
I'm not a programmer but I appreciate all the insight I get on HN.<br>I'm curious if there is a way to get a users data/demographic info before they visit your site and based on that, change the experience/layout depending upon that information for a first time visitor? I know you can have them login with FB or Google and you can get that info but I'm wondering if there's a way to get that data in real time without having them login?

Similar to this concept:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323777204578189391813881534.html

Thanks!

4 comments

[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 20.0 ms ] thread
jeffmould
You can get a users location based on their IP address. Companies like maxmind.com specialize in building ip/location conversion databases.
timhargis
Jeff - thanks for this. Do they do like age demo/ sex, etc. or just location info?
jeffmould
No problem. They do not do age/sex/etc... Without knowing who exactly the user is there is really no way to determine exact demographics of an individual user. However, using the IP to determine the city/state the person is coming from, you could combine that with other publicly available info to come up with a profile of individuals from that area, such as average income, is it a city or suburb, etc... Based on that information you can then tailor pricing or possible products towards a specific demographic. Not a 100% solution in all cases though.
timhargis
FB and Google have this info but it's figuring out a way to use their API without username, email, etc. to get their data. I don't know if you can do with IP address or cookies of some sort since they've already been logged into FB or used Google recently without having them login when they first visit your site. It might not be allowed...