Smoke and Mirrors: How Snap and Pinterest Hide User Attrition

Re:Smoke and Mirrors: How Snap and Pinterest Hide User Attri... by gregmac on Thursday April 25, 2019 @09:36AM (#19747891)

Hm, interesting, I thought this would be more about how these companies define "active user". For example: is a user with the app installed, logged in and running in the background considered "active" that day, even if they don't actually launch or really use the app? If you send them a notification, even if they don't click on it, are they 'active'?

Normally I'd be cynical and say it's in the company's interest to be as loose as possible how they count 'active' so the MAU/DAU (monthly/daily active users) numbers are high, but if you are looking at ARPU (average revenue per user) then a lower MAU/DAU means higher ARPU. What's more valuable?

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Re:Smoke and Mirrors: How Snap and Pinterest Hide User Attri... by cycrutchfield on Thursday April 25, 2019 @01:44PM (#19750624)

>For example: is a user with the app installed, logged in and running in the background considered "active" that day, even if they don't actually launch or really use the app? If you send them a notification, even if they don't click on it, are they 'active'?

I’m not aware of any company that defines active user in this way. Typically for an app it would have to be an explicit user interaction such as opening the app to count as an active user for that day.

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Re:Smoke and Mirrors: How Snap and Pinterest Hide User Attri... by DataSciGuy_401 on Thursday April 25, 2019 @05:22PM (#19752640)

The ARPU numbers that are reported are for the quarter, so they just take total revenue / # of users present on the service in the quarter. They don't look at MAU or DAU for that calculation (if they did, they'd be reporting ARPDAU or ARPMAU, which are industry-standard terms).

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Re:Smoke and Mirrors: How Snap and Pinterest Hide User Attri... by scrooched_moose on Thursday April 25, 2019 @06:36PM (#19753142)

Anecdotally that's been fun to observe in the media. I remember at one point it was "Hours/day of engagement per user". At some point it became Active Users (at least once per day). Recently it's been Active Users (at least once per month).

I've never gone back to look at official filings or press releases from any company, but it feels like they're constantly redefining how widespread they are.

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Re:Smoke and Mirrors: How Snap and Pinterest Hide User Attri... by ghostly_s on Thursday April 25, 2019 @01:38PM (#19750558)

I'm particularly interested in whether Pinterest is counting users as 'active' if they have the pin extension installed and displaying their annoying overlay buttons on websites but are not actually pinning anything or visiting the site.

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Re:Smoke and Mirrors: How Snap and Pinterest Hide User Attri... by liuliu on Thursday April 25, 2019 @07:00PM (#19753326)

https://drz.today/2019/mdau-dau-and-the-growth-hacks-for-hig...

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