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But the choice of "engagement" as the success metric directly stems from the advertising revenue model. That's why it is chosen as the definition of success. Be

But the choice of "engagement" as the success metric directly stems from the advertising revenue model. That's why it is chosen as the definition of success. Because it triggers ad payments. All the "customer value", "customer happiness" and all the rest is inward facing PR. Creative people need a better motivation to build these attention traps than "suck em in so they watch ads" so it has to be phrased differently to them.

KirinDave 9y ago
I think you underestimate the power of intertia and groupthink in this industry. I also think there are lots of counterexamples who still do this even though they don't directly market ads.
- spuz 9y ago
  Do you work in this industry? I used to work for a social games company and while 'engagement' of our free-to-play users was certainly a driver, I can tell you, the bosses cared much more about revenue. Engagement was certainly secondary to that.
  - KirinDave 9y ago
    Yes. I've been involved in 3 ventures and successfully exited on my own once. If your model is explicitly ad revenue, then yes; you will find similar pressures. I don't work in entertainment and I'm telling you we got the same guidance even from respected VC firms. We never once showed an ad and we had a similar model for a long time.
Scarblac 9y ago
I think it was chosen as definition of success because it is _easy to measure_. From the beginning of the Web onwards, you had very little idea of what people actually did on your site, but the fact that they visited was an easily counted line in a plain text log file. The moment something else was available (e.g. actual clicks on an ad, or conversion rate), that was used.
- Grustaf 9y ago
  Even if a site gets micro-paid for each video viewed or article written, they still have an incentive to nudge viewers to keep viewing. If you think about it, even if they have a pure subscription model they will want people "engaged", i.e. addicted.
- freshhawk 9y ago
  Yes, the tendency of focus on easy to measure metrics instead of what you actual care about is a whole other discussion of interesting craziness. But isn't that orthogonal to this discussion? There are better metrics, but they still have the same large scale attention economy, filter bubble, junk food media effects as "engagement" does. "actual clicks on ads" is conversion rate x ad views and ad views is a function of engagement. I don't see how more accurate measurements would positively affect the way content is written, presented and optimized. If anything wouldn't it just get worse?

KirinDave 9y ago

I think you underestimate the power of intertia and groupthink in this industry. I also think there are lots of counterexamples who still do this even though they don't directly market ads.

spuz 9y ago
Do you work in this industry? I used to work for a social games company and while 'engagement' of our free-to-play users was certainly a driver, I can tell you, the bosses cared much more about revenue. Engagement was certainly secondary to that.
- KirinDave 9y ago
  Yes. I've been involved in 3 ventures and successfully exited on my own once. If your model is explicitly ad revenue, then yes; you will find similar pressures. I don't work in entertainment and I'm telling you we got the same guidance even from respected VC firms. We never once showed an ad and we had a similar model for a long time.

Scarblac 9y ago

I think it was chosen as definition of success because it is _easy to measure_. From the beginning of the Web onwards, you had very little idea of what people actually did on your site, but the fact that they visited was an easily counted line in a plain text log file. The moment something else was available (e.g. actual clicks on an ad, or conversion rate), that was used.

Grustaf 9y ago
Even if a site gets micro-paid for each video viewed or article written, they still have an incentive to nudge viewers to keep viewing. If you think about it, even if they have a pure subscription model they will want people "engaged", i.e. addicted.
freshhawk 9y ago
Yes, the tendency of focus on easy to measure metrics instead of what you actual care about is a whole other discussion of interesting craziness. But isn't that orthogonal to this discussion? There are better metrics, but they still have the same large scale attention economy, filter bubble, junk food media effects as "engagement" does. "actual clicks on ads" is conversion rate x ad views and ad views is a function of engagement. I don't see how more accurate measurements would positively affect the way content is written, presented and optimized. If anything wouldn't it just get worse?