Mobile App Analytic

[Breon]

I was flipping through my "Mobile" folder on Google Reader when I came
across a new service from Google: Analytics for Mobile Apps. Here was
my initial comments and a link to the article after. Justin and
Gangadhar had some comments. I'll post those as replies. They will
probably chime in again.
---------------------
I like the fact that the Market tells developers how many downloads
and active installs they have. But it doesn't tell them anything about
usage.

I used to have the VoiceRecorder app on my G1. I hardly ever used it.
But I would have qualified as an active install.

Do you guys know how active installs are measured? Is it based on the
user installing AND uninstalling via the market? What happens if the
user uninstalls the app using a third party app or via MENU>SETTINGS?

Breon
---------------------
http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/11/introducing-google-analytics-for-mobile.html
Last week, we introduced expanded mobile reporting features in Google
Analytics. To help developers, this launch includes features that make
it easy to see how people are using specific parts of their iPhone and
Android applications. The same Google Analytics reports that provide
insights into website traffic and engagement are now available for
mobile apps.

As with websites, there are two basic categories of user interaction
you can track: pageviews and events. Since mobile apps don't contain
HTML pages, developers simply determine when their apps should trigger
pageview requests. Google Analytics then aggregates this data in the
Content reports to display the number of visits, session length and
bounce rates. The data gives insight into how your users interacted
with the app.

[Breon]

Justin's Response:
---------------------
Good question. I'm not sure how it know that it's "active" other than
*possibly* when you open the market app, it sends back the install
data of what apps you have installed on your device to the market.
That's the only way that I can think of it. Otherwise, you are right,
they would really be able to track the uninstalls very well. I'm
guessing the data wouldn't get back to the market on your uninstalls
until you launch the market app AFTER removing the app from your Menu
=> Settings.

But I don't have any real proof of this.

Justin

On Nov 3, 11:33 pm, Breon <breonn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was flipping through my "Mobile" folder on Google Reader when I came
> across a new service from Google: Analytics for Mobile Apps.  Here was
> my initial comments and a link to the article after.  Justin and
> Gangadhar had some comments.  I'll post those as replies.  They will
> probably chime in again.
> ---------------------
> I like the fact that the Market tells developers how many downloads
> and active installs they have. But it doesn't tell them anything about
> usage.
>
> I used to have the VoiceRecorder app on my G1. I hardly ever used it.
> But I would have qualified as an active install.
>
> Do you guys know how active installs are measured? Is it based on the
> user installing AND uninstalling via the market? What happens if the
> user uninstalls the app using a third party app or via MENU>SETTINGS?
>
> Breon

> ---------------------http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/11/introducing-google-analytics...

[Breon]

Gangadhar's Response:
---------------------
Have any of you used the pinchmedia's code for tracking the app usage
on iPhone?

--
Thanks,

Gangadhar Sulkunte
Founder of hLog, the iPhone health log
www.hlogapp.com

[Damon Allison]

Pinch Media's analytics library serves the same purpose as the mobile
reporting features mentioned in Breon's post - tracking users. Pinch
is very simple to use. The main difference - it seems (i've never
used google's solution) - is that google's is based on "page requests"
and the web model. Pinch is based more on activity. You can log a
single event, which is the most common action, but you can also track
duration of an event (how long a game session lasted). You can
optionally log location with your events, which pinch uses in their
reporting. They have hooks into facebook for tracking demographic
information, however I've never used that feature.

I would recommend hacking with pinch for a couple of hours if you are
an iPhone developer. It's certainly worth the time and has no
learning curve.


Damon

[Justin Grammens]

I've never used google mobile stats either, but if you are looking to do ads and get usage data, another option that we have done for clients is Admob. They have easy to use libs for both iPhone and Android  (and web requests) and provide usage statistics on the various devices people are using your app. They also use location awareness to feed ads and gps location points. It's pretty barebones in terms of what it looks like pinch can do, but it's worth the easy learning curve.
Justin

[Doug Hamlin]

Does Android Market provide any numbers other than downloads and
active installs? Also does anyone know if the iPhone app store has any
kind of active installs count?

And are these numbers worth anything or do you pay much more attention
numbers you get from AdMon et al?

Doug

[Breon]

I don't have a developer account for Google, but from what I've been
told it's only total downloads and active installs. Active installs
would only be part of the equation for me. I would want to know if
people are using my app and which features they're using.

Joe Lapenna, the developer for the Foursquare Android app, uses
dumpcatcher.googlecode.com for some analytics.

[Justin Grammens]

Doug,
The Android market only provides total number of downloads and active installs. The last time I checked iPhone app store does not give you active installs, just downloads.

Depending on the type of app, I would think download numbers would be very worthwhile. Especially if it's paid app. =)
I think it's also very important to show how many people FOUND your app and downloaded it - probably based on your description and keywords. I personally find these number valuable to know just how many people pressed that "install" button.
I don't know if there is a general consensus on the percentage of free apps that are downloaded and then UNINSTALLED, but I would bet it's well over 50% - depending on the app of course. Typically, clients who use Admob are going to be looking at the Admob numbers more since this is where revenue is tied to. But, me as a developer of the application, I'm more looking at downloads and active installs.

With so many apps out, it's pretty difficult to cover the cost of development, just on app sales alone - however I would argue it's much easier to do this on Android, since there is still room for you to get your app noticed. But, what people need to realize is that either ads are going to need to be employed to pay for the app or, and this is probably more the case, you will sell other services, or providers that the mobile app will drive them to. Like a website, your app is just another channel to get people to your services. "number of installs" (even if uninstalled) could be viewed in some way as parallel to a "hit" to your website.

Justin