Hi there..

I hope someone can help me..

I'm looking to track how many of my vistors play the videos on my website.

Is this possible? I will probably be using something like instantvideogenerator.com . But will I need to stream the video from my own server to track the number of plays?

Thanks if you can help


Sincerely,
Paul

1. You could simply track the page to see how many visits you get, but this won't indicate if they actually watched the video.

2. A better way would be to use Camtasia and do a re-direct when the video is finished (to a specially-made tracking page). This way you know the visitor has gone through the entire video.

3. You could get the newest version of Camstudio (it has the same re-direct feature). I believe Vin Montello is selling this product and is ten times less expensive than camtasia.

Perhaps someone knows of another product that will do this for you, but I don't know of any at the moment.

and if you have basic web stat tools installed( I use wusage, included in my cihost.com unix server for all my sites), you can simply track how many times the .flv/.swf gets downloaded, as it provides stats.

one thing I REALLY need to figure out (techhead stuff) is how to packet-sniff the connection and serve the right speed/framerate/size video, based on the users' connection.. probably requires a special streaming media server account..

I'm losing a ton of international sales because many of those folks have dialup still, or slower-than-cable connections, and can't watch my videos.. workaround is I'm providing downloadable wmv links, but that's not the best answer..

ken

Thanks for your replies.

I think you're right, Ken. You definitely need to auto-detect and serve the appropriate size video to their connection (possibly even just have an audio version for super-slow ones). I think load-up time is the key. (I know if they have to wait more than a few seconds for it to load.. they will start looking elsewhere. I am certainly that way. I start drumming my fingers impatiently if the video takes more than a few seconds. And possibly just leave.

When people are on the internet, they have much shorter attention spans, greater impatience.. and so expect things instantaneously. If you can't provide this, you will lose them.


Also... another things I need is to track *how much* of the video they watched. I may need to either get this custom-done... or... find an existing video-streaming service which provides such data.



Thanks again for your help.
Paul

Ken, you will definitely need a hosting account with a streaming engine installed -- as well as some way to access that engine and specify settings for your site. These are questions for a prospective host, be sure to ask before signing up!

Alternatively though you could simply have the viewer select their connection speed which is a VERY common practice on video sites.

As far as how much of the video they watched? ...you can track this in Google Analytics. Go under Content Optimization > Content Drilldown. Each page visited has an "average time spent" calculated for it. You can see each day's average time spent on the page (it is a chart option).

If you need further detail, you'll need a custom stats package. Going into greater detail (like listing view length for just one page, but listing each user who viewed it) is an unusual stats package feature. The standard stats scripts out there just don't do it. If I was looking for per-user detail, to be honest, I would just manually go through my raw access logs.

Bailey

The only things a flash streaming media server does is....

1. Not download the video onto your computer (this results in higher security)

2. It can provide more fail safe by spreading your video across multiple servers. (Your video does not depend on one server)

3. Video control - Viewers can seek to any point in the video and have it start playing immediately.

You have two options for delivering different media streams...

1. Have them select it. (I do this with The Referral Movie - Unique Autopilot System site)

2. You can have a custom player built that detects it. (I had one built by Blue at EarthScienceAgency.com - email is vbs@earthscienceagency.com - You can see an example of it at Get More Houston Customers)

Hope this helps.

David Frey
MarriageAdvice.com

Just to clarify here,

when we referred above to a "streaming media server," it was a generic term, not format-specific, e.g. we weren't talking about Flash in particular. There are many other popular formats which can be driven with a streaming server, including QuickTime and Windows Media. Each of the streaming media server packages comes with different functionality. For instance, QT's streaming server has different features/capabilities than Windows Media.

However, I just came across Sonic Memo, which seems to do what the OP is needing:

Here's the link for Sonic Memo: Internet Marketing Jump Start

Bailey