Mobile Beta/Watchlist/Logging

This page presents data from the logging of watchlist star taps on the Wikimedia mobile web.

Background

We were interested to see how many users would use the watchlist star feature if we presented it on the mobile web. We first built a prototype watchlist star on the beta mobile site, then promoted the feature to the full version of the Wikimedia mobile web. Unlike on desktop, the star is displayed to all users, registered and unregistered. The behavior is the same as the desktop for registered users, but unregistered users receive a call to action to log in or sign up for a Wikipedia account to use the feature.

First 24 hours

In the first 24 hours since deployment:

457 unique registered users used the watchlist star to watch or unwatch at least one article
- These users performed a total of 1,026 watch actions and 619 unwatch actions
- 36 unwatches came from the watchlist view, and the rest directly from articles
95,560 watchlist star taps came from unregistered users (raw count, not deduped by user)
- 526 new accounts were registered via the watchlist star CTA for unregistered users (0.6 % conversion rate assuming most taps came from unique unregistered users)
  - 92 of those users went on to use the star again at least once in this 24 hour period

First 2 days

1,041 unique registered users used the watchist star
- These users performed a total of 1,641 watch actions and 1,017 unwatch actions
- 56 unwatches came from the watchlist view, and the rest directly from articles
231,379 watchlist star taps came from unregistered users (raw count, not deduped by user)
- 978 new accounts were registered via the watchlist star CTA for unregistered users (0.4% conversion rate assuming most taps came from unique unregistered users)

First week

3,738 unique registered users used the watchlist star to watch or unwatch at least one article
- 3,639 (97%) of these created their account via mobile (e.g., are brand new users)
These users performed a total of 6,157 watch actions and 3,671 unwatch actions
A total of 4,198 unique pages watched
- 534 unwatches came from the watchlist view, and the rest directly from articles
874,341 watchlist star taps came from unregistered users (raw count, not deduped by user)
- 3,144 new accounts were registered via the watchlist star CTA for unregistered users (0.4% conversion rate assuming most taps came from unique unregistered users)
5,736 total accounts created via mobile

Conclusions

Account creation hooks like the watchlist star are an effective way to draw more new users to sign up: Over half (56%) of new users creating an account on mobile came directly from the watchlist star CTA. This number is an underestimate of users coming from the CTA, since we were not logging users who first visited the login link from the CTA and then tapped on Create account from the login page.

New users may not understand or value the watchlist star feature as much as existing Wikimedians: The vast majority of one-time watchlist star users were brand-new Wikimedians who had registered via mobile. However, the vast majority of users who tapped the star more than once were existing users who already had a Wikimedia account.

Very few users are unwatching pages from their watchlist view: Either most users are not finding their watchlist view, or the unwatch-from-watchlist feature is not useful for those who do find it.

Overall, the watchlist star hook + account creation has proven to be a very effective new account creation funnel, helping arrest the year-over-year decline of new account creations: Since the full deployment of account creation and watchlist star to the mobile web, new account creations have held steady at about 800 global registrations/400 English Wikipedia registrations per day. These additional account are pushing the hourly registration rates up to 2012 levels. See live updating new user registration dashboards.