Mediaboss Marketing

October 31, 2013

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports Your Universe Online

Social networking titan Facebook is testing new Web and mobile tracking methods that would drastically expand the breadth of data it collects from members in hopes of better understand user behavior, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Ken Rudin, Facebooks analytics chief, said the social network may start collecting data about user interaction with various types of content, such as how long members hover their cursor over an advertisement and whether a user is viewing parts of their news feed on a smartphone.

Ultimately, Facebook seeks to enhance its existing set of demographic and behavioral data on members, and would use the additional information to improve its products, Rudin told WSJ during an interview on Tuesday.

Facebook currently collects two kinds of data from its members demographic and behavioral. The demographic data captures a users life outside social media, while the behavioral data, such as a persons likes and friends, is collected in real time on the network itself.

The latest tests would greatly expand the behavioral data that is collected, and are part of an ongoing comprehensive technology testing program, although the company should know within months whether it makes sense to incorporate the new data collection into the business, Rudin explained.

It is a never-ending phase. I cant promise that it will roll out. We probably will know in a couple of months, Rudin told the Journal.

As the head of analytics, Mr. Rudin is preparing the companys infrastructure for a massive increase in the volume of its data.

Facebook uses a modified version of the open-source Hadoop distributed file system, which stores large amounts of data on clusters of inexpensive machines, to manage its data. There are additional software layers on top of Hadoop, which rank the value of data and make sure it is accessible, Rudin said.

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New Web, Mobile Tracking Methods Being Tested By Facebook