Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by jmjerlecki on Friday June 24, 2011 @05:06PM
(#2693871)
I love in all of these posts they claim Foursquare has 10 million users. There is no way the amount of active users is anywhere close to that. So many people I know sign up, check in once or twice, and never use it again.
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Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by MatthewB on Friday June 24, 2011 @05:18PM
(#2693919)
Good point. I like to talk trash about Facebook's PR but one thing they consistently do correctly is report total user numbers only when they are confirmed active users.
Facebook only reports "active" users because it is possible for them to do it in a positive light. If they had the same sort of usage that Foursquare undoubtedly has, they would be counting all users that signed up as well.
That said, I still give Facebook credit for doing it.
Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by andrewljohnson on Friday June 24, 2011 @06:12PM
(#2694133)
Fundamentally, because Facebook counts it, that's what they seek. That's probably part of the recipe.
Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by xentronium on Friday June 24, 2011 @07:13PM
(#2694316)
I wonder if number of registered accounts on facebook already exceeds Earth's population and is kinda absurd to use in any kind of statistics.
Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by phereford on Friday June 24, 2011 @05:43PM
(#2694010)
I dont think when Facebook said they had 500 million users that they meant they had 500 million active users. I thought I saw a post today (or this week) that they hit 750 million users (without the word active in it...or so I think).
The definition of active is so obtuse and varies wildly from company to company that it doesnt even matter :).
Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by mikeryan on Friday June 24, 2011 @05:52PM
(#2694044)
I dont think when Facebook said they had 500 million users that they meant they had 500 million active users.
From Facebook's Statistics Site
More than 500 million active users
50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by phereford on Saturday June 25, 2011 @09:58AM
(#2695651)
Okay. My point is what is active? Someone who logs in once a year? Once a month? Sure 50% of "active" users log in once a day, but what about the other 50%?
Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by dillydally on Saturday June 25, 2011 @01:53PM
(#2696132)
For Facebook "active" has always meant "signed on within the last 30 days."
Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by jorgeortiz85 on Friday June 24, 2011 @05:34PM
(#2693977)
We report 10 million _registered_ users. We've never reported (or made any claims about) active users.
Most tech companies report registered users; Facebook being the notable exception. When Twitter says they have 200M users or Skype says they have 650M users, they're reporting registered, not active, users. That Foursquare only reports registered users is in line with what most of the rest of the industry does.
Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by makmanalp on Friday June 24, 2011 @06:03PM
(#2694089)
Why do you think all those companies report registered users instead of active? Because it's always likely to be much larger and to fool those who don't know any better. Many times the image you project, is in stark contrast with reality. Eg: Skype has 650M registered but when I log in at any given time, there are around 20M users.
Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by daleharvey on Friday June 24, 2011 @06:32PM
(#2694201)
because the definition of registered is precise, the definition of active is fuzzy.
sure it makes the company look better, but its also nice to avoid the arguments over "what is an active user"
The definition of active is absolutely not fuzzy. Standard metrics include 1, 7 and 30 day actives, i.e. the number of people who have logged in at least once in the last N days. Tracking those three over time gives you some good statistics.
Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by JayNeely on Friday June 24, 2011 @05:49PM
(#2694036)
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.
Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by harryh on Friday June 24, 2011 @06:02PM
(#2694084)
FWIW 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
presumably 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.
Re:Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation
by physcab on Friday June 24, 2011 @08:33PM
(#2694515)
All 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.