Fathom Analytics

Why Most SaaS Analytics Dashboards Fail Users

This article argues that many SaaS analytics dashboards undermine activation and retention by overwhelming users, lacking narrative/context, showing poor empty states, and failing to link insights to action. It cites benchmarks (Userpilot: 37.5% activation; Nielsen Norman Group: ~2.3 seconds scan time) and profiles four bootstrapped companies (Plausible, Fathom, Baremetrics, ConvertKit) that prioritize clarity: one clear hero metric, limited primary metrics, designed empty states, and actionable links from insight to task. The piece gives seven actionable takeaways for founders to improve dashboards, including choosing a north-star metric, removing unused metrics, adding comparisons/trends, designing empty states, showing data freshness, and surfacing next steps from analytics.

Bluesky CEO Transition: Toni Schneider Takes the Helm

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber announced she will step down as CEO and transition to chief innovation officer, saying the company needs a seasoned operator to focus on scaling and execution. The company named Toni Schneider — former CEO of WordPress.com parent Automattic and a partner at True Ventures — as interim CEO; CNBC notes both Automattic and True Ventures are investors in Bluesky. Bluesky was founded within Twitter by Jack Dorsey in 2019 and spun out as an independent company in 2021 when Graber became CEO. The platform ended its service agreement with X after Elon Musk’s acquisition in 2022. Bluesky has reported rapid user growth in recent years (15.2M to 21M in Nov 2024; ~28M in Jan 2025; 42M as of last month on its website).

Ist Google Analytics illegal?

The article explains growing legal uncertainty around using Google Analytics for EU user data after the 2020 Schrems II ruling that invalidated the EU‑US Privacy Shield. Several European data protection authorities (Denmark, France, Austria, Italy) have declared Universal Analytics (Google Analytics 3) unlawful in some contexts. The US administration signed an executive order on October 7 proposing a new transfer framework, with an EU‑US data‑transfer agreement planned for publication in March 2023, but legal challenges and possible EU court reversal leave outcomes uncertain. Google plans to end support for Universal Analytics in July 2023 and push GA4, but regulators (e.g., the Danish DPA) warn GA4 may still transmit identifiable data to US servers before IP deletion. The article outlines compliance options (wait, migrate to GA4, use a reverse proxy/pseudonymisation, or switch to EU‑compliant analytics) and names EU alternatives such as Piwik PRO, SimpleAnalytics and Fathom.