Set the Product Goal and North-Star Metric for Facebook Live Streaming
Company: Meta
Role: Product Manager
Category: Analytics & Experimentation
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager at Meta working on Facebook Live, the feature that lets people broadcast video in real time from their profiles, Pages or groups while viewers watch, react and comment as it happens. You are asked what the goal of Facebook Live should be. State the goal, explain how it connects to Facebook's broader mission, and describe how you would measure whether the product is meeting it.
```hint What only live can do
Ask what a broadcast gives people while it is happening that a recorded video cannot. Let that answer shape the goal, then test every candidate metric against it.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Is this the goal for Facebook Live as an established feature today, or for its launch period?
- Should the goal cover every kind of broadcaster (friends and family, creators, businesses, public figures) or focus on one?
- Do replays watched after the broadcast ends count toward Live's goal, or only real-time viewing?
- Is this a goal for the Live team alone, or must it also protect the health of Facebook as a whole, such as time spent in the feed and on other video surfaces?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A goal grounded in what makes live video distinct and tied to Facebook's mission, rather than a generic "increase engagement".
- Both sides of the product, broadcasters and viewers, and how each side's health depends on the other.
- A north-star metric that captures real-time value, with a reason it beats simpler options such as total minutes watched.
- Supporting and guardrail metrics covering supply, demand, interaction quality, stream reliability, integrity and effects on the rest of Facebook.
- How the goal and metrics would shift by product stage or broadcaster type.
### Follow-up Questions
- Your north-star metric rises while the number of people who start a broadcast each week falls. Is Live healthier or not?
- How would you keep an interaction-based metric from rewarding sensational or harmful broadcasts?
- How would you tell whether Live is adding time to Facebook or simply moving it from other video surfaces?
Overview: A product metrics prompt asking what goal Facebook Live should pursue and how a product manager would measure progress toward it. It tests tying a real-time video feature to the company mission, covering both broadcasters and viewers, and choosing a north-star metric with supporting and guardrail metrics.