Developer Analytics
June 25, 2008 – 3:24 pm by Kyle WelterLaunched only two months ago, Developer Analytics has found a simple, yet eloquent way of forming a community around social network application developers. Application development is a relatively new market that does not have much data substantiating the value that different applications hold. This database is a much needed source of media measurement and will definitely prove to be a useful resource in the search for advertising possibilities within branded applications.
As outlined on their homepage, Developer Analytics intends to provide four main features to its users. These include…
- To serve as a comprehensive Facebook application stats directory
- To provide detailed application case studies, developer interviews, and in-depth application analysis
- To offer analytic tools to help developers make better sense of the social graph phenomenon
- To give actionable recommendations for ways developers can actively improve the success of their applications
In order to investigate, I entered in three of my favorite applications including Bumper Sticker, iLike and Fed Ex’s Launch a Package. The results are clear, concise and flat out interesting. Organized in a ranking form, dA displays the number of installs (13,122,782 for Bumper Sticker), the number of active users (1,443,506 for bumper sticker), the percentage of people who install the app and are classified as active users as well as the increase or decrease in the number of active users. Included in the results as well is a graph following the applications successes and failures throughout the past year.
While I do enjoy the application statistics, even more important is the social network that Developer Analytics has created around the application developers. This site provides a close environment for application developers to gather, communicate, read case studies and even join up and work together. In addition to the general application overview, dA provides further, in-depth analysis of user demographics including gender and age. Preparing for the future facebook’s application recommendation system spawning from the elimination of bulk invites, dA has also included…
- App User Overlap: the percentage of users who installed this app also installed
- App User Affinity: the likelihood of users who installed this app to install other apps
- Number of Friends: the average number of friends of users who installed this app
Still in Beta testing, Developer Analytics is currently providing in-depth statistics to a select number of developers with hopes of perfecting the reports and releasing them to the public.
