4 ms·
But don't you think that's kind of shitty? "in line with what most of the rest of the industry does" doesn't make it any better of a metric.
by JayNeely 15y ago
But don't you think that's kind of shitty?
"in line with what most of the rest of the industry does" doesn't make it any better of a metric.
- harryh 15y agoFWIW I actually agree with you on this point. It's a bit of a prisoners dilema problem though. Basically everyone at this point has "defected" (reported signups). To be the only company to "cooperate (report active users) would be bad PR in a world in which most people don't pay attention to (or in many cases even understand) the difference. It sucks a little, but I'm not sure what to do about it. -harryh, engineering lead @ foursquare
- jdp23 15y agopresumably your new investors understand the difference and are happy with the real numbers. so it's a great chance to invent the future (as you said above): do it the right way, and have other folks copy you.
- physcab 15y agoAll you want to do is showcase your company's growth in the best possible way without being misleading. They're not being misleading or shitty. If you're a free service that doesn't require a signup and makes money off advertising, then reporting registered users doesn't make sense. Advertisers just want to know eyeballs, so Google Analytics Visitor numbers will do. For Foursquare reporting registered users doesn't really make much sense either. They could have easily reported mobile installs too, but that would be similar. Internally, I'd be checking other growth metrics such as "How many people are using Explore", or "How many people are referring friends", or "How many businesses are getting new leads as a result of Foursquare". These are much more important questions, but alas, getting the media to care about that is hopeless.