Dealing with “whales” in freemium data analysis The presence of “whales”, or highly-monetizing users (HMUs), in a freemium product’s user base often leads to analytical confusion. Contrasted… June 16, 2014
Low conversion in free-to-play is a feature, not a bug An article excoriating the supposed plague that is free-to-play made the rounds recently, citing engagement statistics from Swrve's April report… May 12, 2014
The Freemium Codex Freemium, as a business model, is not fairly well defined from an academic perspective -- that is, its application to,… May 5, 2014
Avoiding Simpson’s paradox in data analysis Simpson's paradox is a statistical phenomenon in which a population, comprised of different sub-populations (“classes”) with differing statistical properties, exhibits… April 28, 2014
Launching a free-to-play game: Ladder vs. Trampoline In my recent GDC presentation, I introduced the terms “Ladder launch” and “Trampoline launch” within the context of globally launching… April 7, 2014
Advertising dynamics in freemium apps Freemium app developers are almost universally dogged by the question of whether ad placements should be included in their products.… March 31, 2014
The click-through rate conundrum Mobile performance marketing campaigns are often evaluated on the basis of Cost per Install (CPI), or the cost per app… March 17, 2014
Bayesian Bandits testing for mobile apps A/B testing, while a useful and popular tactic, suffers from a few fundamental shortcomings for mobile apps: Many mobile apps, especially… March 3, 2014
Applying portfolio theory to mobile games The world's largest mobile gaming developers – such as King and Supercell, both with company valuations in the billions of… February 17, 2014
Mobile app metrics are moving targets Most models of app performance assume that a product at some point reaches a “steady state”, in which its inputs… February 3, 2014
