Lean Analytics

Chapter 26. User-Generated Content: Lines in the Sand

Content Upload Success

(Content upload success also applies to two-sided marketplaces)

If there’s an action on your site that you want users to take because it’s key to success, it has a funnel you can track and optimize. On Facebook, for example, sharing photos is one of the most common things users do. In 2010, Facebook’s Adam Mosseri revealed some data on how Facebook’s photo upload funnel worked:^[126]

• 57% of users successfully find and select their photo files.

• 52% of users find the upload button.

• 42% successfully upload a picture.

Success can be a complicated thing to define. For example, 85% of users chose only one picture for an album, which wasn’t good for the way Facebook organized pictures. So the developers added another step that allowed users to select more than one picture more easily. After the change, the number of single-picture albums dropped to 40%.

Bottom Line

There’s no clear number, but if a content generation function (such as uploading photos) is core to the use of your application, optimize it until all your users can do it, and track error conditions carefully to find out what’s causing the problem.

Time on Site Per Day

(Time on site per day also applies to media sites)

There’s a surprisingly consistent rule of thumb for social networks and UGC websites. Across many companies we polled, the average time on site per day seemed to be 17 minutes. This number was mentioned several times by companies participating in ...