Facebook Breaks Desktop Applications User Count
Yesterday Facebook managed to implement their biggest strategic mistake so far, IMHO. From yesterday Facebook does not show and sort applications by "total users" in the application directory. Instead they introduce new metrics:
"This week you'll see us shift our application directory metrics to a focus on user engagement. This will help inform users as they make decisions on which applications to add as well as shift developer focus to engagement rather than total users."
"With a change this foundational to Facebook Platform's measurement, we want to make sure that you completely understand how we will be measuring engagement. We define engagement as the number of users who touch your application every day (measured from midnight to midnight each day)."
Developers are not happy. Jesse Farmer on developers discussion board nailed it:
"Facebook doesn't know best, but the market does. I'm surprised a company full of smart 20-somethings isn't willing to let the market decide which metrics matter and which don't."
According to Facebook the touch points are:
- Canvas Page Views
- Link Clicks in FBML
- Mock-Ajax Form Submission
- Click-to-Play Flash
As for now the whole new metrics system is buggy but the worst thing is that Facebook Desktop Applications have no single touch point therefore get no metrics at all. Desktop apps metrics is broken and they are dropped to the bottom of the directory. Sigh :(
Update: desktop applications metrics fixed apparently..
Thursday, August 30, 2007 2:38 AM
