08.14.08
New Metrics for Facebook Apps
Facebook has made a move towards standardising the often convoluted world of web metrics by switching its engagement rating for applications and widgets from daily usage reporting to reporting on active users monthly, Adweek reported yesterday.
Since opening development to third parties in May 2007, more than 24,000 applications have been built for Facebook.
This new monthly measurement is apparently more in line with the approach taken by large internet marketing research firms like Nielsen and comScore. These already report engagements, and favour the monthly model because this is less open to manipulation.
A model based on the number of installs was previously used by Facebook to rank the popularity of applications. This was then changed in favour of a daily active-users measurement to iron out the potential skewing of popularity (because many people may try an app once but not actually use it ever). It’s felt that a monthly metric gives a more accurate representation of what is popular because some applications may be date (or day) specific.
The obvious benefit of the monthly metric for marketers is that they can more accurately assess the popularity of apps by seeing the number of active users on a monthly basis.
What this will mean for application developers is that they will have to think more carefully about the longevity of the widgets they create. To create apps that deliver value for clients – applications will have to be more than a proverbial ‘flash in the pan’ and will have to cultivate “longer-term engagement”, according to the Facebook Developers blog.
In short, this is a way to entice widget developers into creating more ‘useful’ applications.
Other news from the Facebook camp is that an “applications you might like” algorithm is currently being tested. The algorithm suggests applications to users based on a number of factors including apps their friends have installed and applications that have engaged similar users.