Twitter’s analytics tool Answers can now tell developers what’s going on in their app

Twitter has released a feature for its Answers analytics tool that promises to show developers what’s going on in their apps. Called Answers activity segments, it shines a light on how apps are retaining their most active users and what can be done to prevent others from abandoning the app.

Twitter Answers is a tool that monitors app downloads and is part of the company’s developer suite, Fabric. And while it has expanded to look at user demographics — such as gender, geographic location, and interests — through Audience Insights, the feature announced today shifts the focus to non-domain properties. It also highlights Twitter’s efforts to help developers build better apps overall.

Answers activity segments feature provides a one-week snapshot of user activity. After the data is analyzed, users can be segmented into buckets, from inactive users to highly active users — based on the last time they launched the app. Developers can then determine how user engagement is fluctuating and get answers to questions like: “What percentage of low-activity users are new users?” “How many people moved from a medium activity bucket to the high activity bucket in the last week?” “How many users did we re-engage and rescue from their inactive state?”

The idea is that with Answers activity segments, developers will be more proactive in understanding their users and will be able to head any potential retention problems off at the pass.