Zynga

At Zynga, analytics is about impact

April 11, 2011

Ken Rudin is VP of analytics and platform technologies at Zynga, and he’s always on the lookout for new talent, but he’s picky. What does he look for in an applicant? Hint: don’t go in expecting your statistics to impress him.

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Lyzasoft says “power to the people” with free version

May 3, 2010

It was International Workers’ Day on Saturday and the official release day of Lyzasoft’s latest product: its foray into “free.” It’s a good way to say “power to the people.” Some people associate that slogan with protests and even violence. But I think the best paths to power usually involve well-analyzed data, whether in public [...]

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Mapping the many faces of “retention”

January 15, 2010

Everybody knows what “retention” means until they have to design a metric. Ken Rudin, once of LucidEra and now general manager of analytics at the games site Zynga, thought that he and his team could “put something together” quickly — but it actually took “four solid weeks of discussion and debate.” About 50 million people [...]

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