

Metrics for social startups - swombat
http://swombat.com/2011/1/4/metrics-for-social-startups

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Zeelar
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.

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dmitri1981
BTW, this is also an excellent post on actionable metrics by Eric Ries :
[http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/05/19/vanity-
metri...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/05/19/vanity-metrics-vs-
actionable-metrics/)

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badmash69
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
?

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swombat
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).

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badmash69
Thanks for the response. Your answer on #1 is spot-on -- I could implement
that.

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

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swombat
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 ;-)

