Question

I have a downloadable software product that I’d like to instrument with tracking so that I know how many people are using it. I want data something like:

183 unique installations used on October 7, 2011
187 unique installations used on October 8, 2011
...

I do NOT need to know anything else about the users: not the domain, not a license key, nothing.

This is a J2EE app with a web UI so I could use a Google Analytics-style tracking bug. However, I’ve experimented with various permutations of GA page tracking and event tracking and haven’t found a robust way to count the # installations used per day.

Is there a hosted service out there that offers this? Some other approach to suggest?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I figured out a way to do this with Google Analytics, though it’s real hacky and I’d prefer a better solution.

Pick a web page that is always going to be hit on the installed system (like the front door). Fire a Google Analytics event of the format:

• Event Category: “SystemID”
• Event Name: [Actual System ID]

In the Google Analytics UI, go to event tracking and create a search that returns all the events in the SystemID category. The pagination will tell you how many unique system IDs there are. For example: “Showing events 1 -15 of 15,000 in category SystemID”.

I couldn’t find anything saying how many unique events Google supports, but Google says it supports collecting up to 50,000 unique URLs a day per profile. Let’s assume that applies to events, too. So you can set up a profile just for tracking this event, and it may last you up to 50,000 software installs.

Like I said, it’s extremely hacky and I’d prefer a better solution, but it’s gotta be one that’s hosted and cheap to be better than this.