Metrics for social startups | Hacker News Reader

Metrics for social startups

swombat.com

25 pointsswombat7 comments

As a product manager in a social gaming company, I definitely kept an eye on those metrics.

However, I'd like to caution that these metrics are relevant in all phases of the product lifecycle, but the focus on feature development follows the order you mentioned.

For example, keeping an eye on Rev/DAU and conversion rates at the beginning of the product tells you about user engagement, while paying attention to reach metrics (virality and new customer acquisition) in the mid to end will give you an idea of longevity or potency of your user base. Specifically, pay attention to social/user metrics as they will tell you how active a user is in interacting socially as well as inviting new users to use your product/game.

BTW, this is also an excellent post on actionable metrics by Eric Ries : http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/05/19/vanity-metri...

Great tips -- but I wish it had more depth.

My Dumb question #1: , how do you measure "session length" for a user. I am assuming the session referred to here is not the same as HTTP Session on the web server.

My Dumb question #2: Is there a programmers' guide to measuring these metrics ?

Measuring session length will depend on your app. For a typical web app, what you would do is have some sort of process that updates the current session timestamp when a new user action happens. Then, another process will go through currently active sessions and automatically close those that have been inactive for longer than a certain time period. The actual time period depends on your app, of course.

I haven't spotted a programmer's guide to measuring these metrics. There are a number of people on this site who would be very qualified to write one, though (patio11 comes to mind).

Thanks for the response. Your answer on #1 is spot-on -- I could implement that.

Thanks for sharing. I actually got more out of your post than the presentation.

Thanks for the kind comment. That's what I try to do with swombat.com - find the best actionable startup advice percolating through the social media filters, pick them out, and either add some extra insight, or at least make them more digestible (or both). Do subscribe if you like it ;-)

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