For some time now, I’ve been using Google Analytics for various personal websites including this weblog. Recently though, we’ve begun using it at my place of employment and have received a request to track user generated events from a live Flash Media Server stream. After poking around a bit and coming upon numerous dead ends, I was lucky enough to stumble upon Google Analytics for Flash (gaforflash).
Not only can you pass in “page views” to be reported just like HTML, but you can also craft custom events in a very customizable format:
trackEvent( FMS, Seek, rtmp://localhost/vod/mp4:test.m4v, 60 ) trackEvent( FMS, Pause, rtmp://localhost/vod/mp4:test.m4v, 8 ) trackEvent( FMS, Play, rtmp://localhost/vod/mp4:test.m4v, 8 ) trackEvent( FMS, Pause, rtmp://localhost/vod/mp4:test.m4v, 10 ) trackEvent( FMS, Play, rtmp://localhost/vod/mp4:test.m4v, 10 )
The “Event” view within Analytics itself is still in closed beta but you can request the UI to be enabled on a profile via this form.
You can also track events with a little cheat. Once logged in, just edit the address bar from “reporting/content” to “reporting/events”. You can even then add it to your Dashboard.
I use Google Analytics for most of my sites. You’d be surprised how far you can actually dig into your stats. The problem is though that many users just use the basics without realising the flexibility and the information you can extract from it.