A VC - Latest Comments in Three Statistics That Lie

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Antman — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:36:43 -0000

But they make real good marketing numbers . . . perception is reality and for many they create one hell of a perception.

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Hannes Johnson — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:33:52 -0000

Interesting points - and very true.

But don't forget that your 877 followers on Tumblr might only view your content on the Tumblr dashboard without going to your site/tumblelog - so you got probably a bit more than 250 people reading the content you post on Tumblr.

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Dorian Benkoil — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:12:10 -0000

Paul, what's it tell you?

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Dorian Benkoil — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:30:58 -0000

Thanks for the nice words, Fred. I was talking in purely economic terms, as well.

Just one example: For IT-oriented lead generation, each individual lead can be worth hundreds of dollars, and it's better to have a few high-qualified leads than a mass of unqualified.

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

fredwilson — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:17:07 -0000

That is very true and I am particularly blessed with the quality of the people who read this blog

Although I do run advertising on this blog and in the feed, which goes to charity, the real value is in the relationships it has allowed me to develop with the readers

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Dorian Benkoil — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:41:57 -0000

One thing that bothers me a tad about this is it seems to assume a user is a user, period. That it's all about aggregate numbers. That may be true in mass media (Desperate Housewives, the Super Bowl), but in a targeted medium, 3,000 of the "right" people may be more valuable than 3 million of the general public.

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Sagar — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:23:26 -0000

i'm a facebook developer and yes, facebook install numbers are HORRIBLE...hahah

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Hashim Warren — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:05:56 -0000

another number that lies - unique visitors and pageviews.

What really matters is engagement. What really matters is loyal visitors.

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Melanie Baker — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:39:27 -0000

Hi Fred - Thanks so much for this, and excellent timing! Served as the perfect example to illustrate some work we've been doing on measuring social engagement as opposed to just "storyless" numbers: Storytelling ROI: social engagement metrics for Marketing & Social Media bloggers (As a side note, your overall engagement score currently is 28919, very respectable.)

I think sorting out all these metrics and providing relevant context for people is still in embryonic stages, and there is so much potential for really cool developments. At the same time, though, the true connections between people, the incredible value of what you can learn from others -- I don't think stuff like that will ever be accurately analyzed. Nor does it need to be. :)

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:25:07 -0000

Thank you for the correction

As usual the commenters have the right answer

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Chris — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:09:13 -0000

This makes me feel good since I'm not really active in Twitter and I just opened a Facebook account. Now at least I know that the people who visit my blog, albiet modestly small, are quality visitors. But don't you have to drive a lot of traffic to your site in order to attract a few good ones?

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 07:01:08 -0000

Totally agree

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 07:01:06 -0000

Subscribers = horsepower.
I like it

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:07:07 -0000

Its the feedburner daily reach stat for this blog's feed

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 03:54:04 -0000

Its not a guess

Feedburner reports daily reach numbers

Fred

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

AngelaE8654 — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:49:21 -0000

I am still just learning about all these social bookmarking places. LOL

Angela

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

john@doe.org — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:28:48 -0000

I DISAGREE STRONGLY.

Two thumbs up for sexy seo commenter, I like your call sign/trademark. I am going to create my own called SEXY BEAST!

---

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. After reading all the comments, I have to disagree with you Fred.

STATS do not lie at all, they are what they are. It is the cultural perception to take it for its face value that has become the stinker. We could go a step further and include more detailed stats should an inquiring mind explore. Maybe have the feedburner count turn into a link where you can get far more detail stats for the public like someother companies currently offer. I think sitemeter.com, I am not to sure of the top of my head.

I think your argument though has good points and got me thinking about influence. One solution can be the one I describe above were details stats are always are available for the curious minds where it is simple and easy to access.

This then got me thinking about how influential a person is within their domain. There stats are insight, but what it comes down to is how much influence do you truly have.

I was just reading about that company earlier this week about how they are working with Meebo to identify how much influence a certain individual has for ad purposes. I think that is just brilliant that a company is finally pursuing this next step in marketing, BRILLIANT!

Breaking it down to the person :-)

Sorry for the rants, great post!

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Kalpesh Khivasara — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:09:49 -0000

Hi Fred, couldn't agree more with your point. BTW, can you let me know how did you
"guess" that the people reading your feeds number less than 4000? I'd be very interested to know.

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Boudicca — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:42:56 -0000

Spira

Sorry if you are a statistician and that phrase upsets you and I strongly agree that statistical illiteracy is a Huge problem in our society. But I have to disagree that the phrase in nonsense.

The line isn't "there are liars, damn liars and statisticians" : )

Of course it is people who lie - lies are told by people,damned lies are told by people and its people who lie with statistics (sometimes intentionally and sometimes simply because of incompetence).

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Boudicca — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:29:27 -0000

Love the opening line!
The question of how to quantify the number of people actually interact in a meaningful way is a big question made up of numerous pieces. I really like one of the pieces you brought up here - what is the ratio of of users/viewers and what are the variable that contribute to the variance in ratio between different sites.

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Vijay Goel, M.D. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:08:22 -0000

You've hit the lazy thing straight on. While I was at McKinsey, I did a ton of customer segment mining through existing company data trying to match business results with customer data. Its not that the data doesn't exist in most cases, its that people don't actually want to make the numbers mean something, because then they'll have to get off their rears to fix the issues that emerge.

It's important to track what's happening to individuals to really be able to understand what your customer base is doing (e.g., rapid subscribes may mask an unhealthy early attrition rate if you're only monitoring overall retention).

Its also important for the company to know which customers (and their activities) make them money and what causes that loyalty to disappear. Nothing like having customer service maximizing their handle time per average caller when you're an account decisionmaker thinking about renewing your relationship with a company...

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Chase Barfield — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:44:37 -0000

Mr. Wilson - Very insightful and so true.

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

ajayinsead03 — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:38:18 -0000

I just stumbled at your blog. Although I agree with the general idea behind your ascertain: I dont agree that the numbers are completely useless or lies -- misleading - perhaps. Perhaps, because it depends on where you want these numbers to LEAD you ?

While many have given different analogies..How about an analogy, from the world of Finance - from options.. Real Options..

When people install an app, or tune in - > its an option they excersize - are they not? If yes, then that option has to be worth something... is it not? Think of the economic value ( not the monetization ) that such an option entails: * X millions have downloaded this bar --> u could be the next :( *

My 2 cents

Cheers,
ajay

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

John — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:29:40 -0000

I would throw out the idea that what's needed is more specific measurements for many of these. Take, for example, Twitter followers. The number is generally meaningless, unless you could determine what % of those followers have notifications turned on... and what's more, if you could actually measure the number of impressions of folks who actually saw or were delivered your tweet. The sad part is... all of these numbers could be reported, they just aren't!

Re: Three Statistics That Lie

Marcel LeBrun — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:11:45 -0000

To use a high school science analogy: it is like the difference between potential energy and kinetic (or motion) energy. Someone with 5,152 followers on twitter has a greater potential for engagement than someone with 100 followers, but not the guarantee. The right way to measure engagement or influence is by measuring the actual conversational dynamics which truly indicate engagement (comments, votes, bookmarks, links, etc.) around a topic or post.

I think your point is especially visible with services where users/followers/subscribers constantly accumulate (like the facebook installs - since users may never remove them, even though they are rarely used). Good post.