NotebookBloom: Why I stopped treating “installed” as activation
I used to watch an install count move and assume the product was growing. That number is comforting, but it does not tell me whether anyone reached the useful part of the extension.
For NotebookBloom, a real first-use journey looks more like this:
extension_open → panel_open → feature_selected → action_started → action_success / action_failed
The old analytics mostly recorded successful actions. That created a blind spot: if ten people opened the extension and only two finished an export, I could see the two successes but not the eight people who got lost, changed their mind, or hit an error.
The next version records each step with a small set of parameters: extension version, feature, method, mode, item count, successful items and failed items. It still does not record notebook titles, search queries, URLs or document content.
This changes what I can improve. A drop between extension_open and panel_open points to onboarding or compatibility. A drop after feature_selected points to confusing controls. A high action_failed rate points to reliability. “More installs” cannot tell those stories.
My new definition of activation is simple: the user completes one useful action, not merely installs the extension.
NotebookBloom: https://notebookbloom.com
Chrome Web Store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/fmnhogknjhlaicceielblddajjabjlha
