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Flash Google Analytics Tracking for Adobe Flash

Discussion in 'Web Development' started by ishkey, Nov 10, 2009.

  1. ishkey

    ishkey Moderator, Logos, Sports Crests Staff Member Verified Member

    I was rooting around in Google Analytics looking for for some information for a client of mine, when I came across Google Analytics Tracking for Adobe Flash

    It has been for a long time, a know fact that Flash Websites, no matter how awesome just didn't get the PR in search engines as everything else displayed on the web.

    Well it looks like Google has done it again with a simple one page explaination containing a Flash tracking component in two styles having same functionality, depending on your development.

    The first sentence reads;
    "This document covers everything you need to know to set up Google Analytics Tracking for Adobe Flash for the Adobe Flash development environment."

    We all know that you shouldn't have to have an account with Google Analytics to be Indexed, but in my mind it sure does help.

    For all you Flash Maniacs out there - Get It - Install It.
     
  2. Andrew P.

    Andrew P. New Member

    Not so fast!

    I have a love-hate relationship with Adobe, Inc., and Shockwave Flash. While Flash makes YouTube videos possible, Adobe has a spotty record with their deployments of the Flash Player and Flash Player plugins for browsers. They seem to be patching the player every 4-8 weeks for security issues, and they regularly put out versions that absolutely don't work.

    I have a couple of old workhorse systems that run Windows 98SE, that, due to the software running on them, can't be replaced with Windows XP or later. About mid-December 2009, Adobe foisted another security patch on Flash Player 9, the highest major release level that runs on Windows 98, and now it's totally hosed. Almost every other site I visit with the SeaMonkey (Mozilla) browser generates a warning from the OS that the Flash plugin has performed an illegal operation, suggesting that the browser should be restarted. There's a checkbox to suppress further warnings, but by then the damage has already been done. The browser starts to run erratically, crashes outright, or it even crashes Windows. On some occasions the system continues to limp along, but I get warnings that there isn't enough memory to start a particular application, e.g., Notepad. In short, Flash Player now has a severe memory leak. A couple of weeks ago I performed a fresh installation of Windows 98SE on a spare hard drive, downloaded and installed the latest version of Adobe Flash Player, and the squeaky-clean new system acted just like my older installations, crashing right and left whenever the browser encountered Flash content. Since Adobe Flash Player 9 was working trouble-free up until mid-December, the only conclusion one can draw is that Adobe fouled it up in their latest patch.

    Since sites that carry ads often have embedded Flash content, even without the site designer having intentionally put it there, it means the Web has become a minefield for any machine that has the Flash Player installed, rendering the machine useless.:mad: My only option in the last few days became to download the Adobe Flash Player uninstaller* and completely remove Adobe Flash and the browser plugins from the machines. Even the uninstaller crashed on exit, but at least it seemed to have removed Flash from the machines; that should tell you something about Adobe's software quality. (Why can't they follow the usual Microsoft software model and make the Flash Player removable via the Control Panel?) Of course, I can't use theses machines anymore to visit YouTube or any site whose entire content is Flash-based. Fortunately, I have a couple of Ubuntu Linux systems running with the Flash plugin, so I'm not totally disabled -- yet.

    In my opinion, any Web designer who intentionally puts Flash content anywhere in a site where a visitor can stumble upon it or where navigation is based on Flash is being shortsighted and naïve. Since its inception, Flash has proven itself to be so unreliable that it should only be used as an auxiliary aid to Web content, and Flash files should only be downloaded via a hypertext link, never embedded in a Web page. Adobe, Inc. have pushed Shockwave Flash heavily in the last ten years, but they haven't been doing a good job of vetting the versions that they release, causing plenty of grief for hundreds of millions of users.

    *The uninstaller download page has Flash content, so it, too, caused my browser to crash, even as I was downloading the tool to get rid of it!
     
  3. ishkey

    ishkey Moderator, Logos, Sports Crests Staff Member Verified Member

    so what's your point?
    your babel has what to do with Google Analytics?
     
  4. Andrew P.

    Andrew P. New Member

    Look again

    You're obviously not paying attention, ishkey. See my quote from your original post at the top of my "babel". Now, go out and play in traffic ...:D
     
  5. ishkey

    ishkey Moderator, Logos, Sports Crests Staff Member Verified Member

    Your right I got lost...
     

    Attached Files:

  6. flyinpc

    flyinpc Banned

    Google Analytics Plugin of Moyea Web Player can track events within the flash video player. With this plugin, the tracking results of the player events like play, pause, stop, complete, can be easily viewed in Google analytics account, and you can easily know how the users operate the player, which video is more popular.
    You can check it.
     
  7. Olaf

    Olaf New Member

    so how do they track clicks/pageviews using external JS files?
     
  8. ishkey

    ishkey Moderator, Logos, Sports Crests Staff Member Verified Member

  9. Olaf

    Olaf New Member

    ishkey, are these links an answer on my question?
     
  10. ishkey

    ishkey Moderator, Logos, Sports Crests Staff Member Verified Member

    Yep
    If you do a little research into " Eclipse " which Google has been embracing it will answer your question. Google seems to be heading in the direction of AJAX web applications.
    Eclipse has been around for some time since 2001.

    Google does not do anything they can not watch over, as all their applications tie-in together. Google tracks everything to determine what works and what does not.

    One example would be if you use external java files, rather than maintaining the core files on your server which have to to perform several server requests, Google supplies servers around the world and finds one close to your IP and serves up one request which is maintained in your temp pages. This allows for faster browsing and less stress on the web.

    "The AJAX Libraries API is a content distribution network and loading architecture for the most popular, open source JavaScript libraries. By using the google.load() method, your application has high speed, globally available access to a growing list of the most popular, open source JavaScript libraries."

    Google AJAX Libraries API
     
  11. Olaf

    Olaf New Member

    Hi Ishkey, I know the Google Ajax API since some time.
    I'm not so experienced with Flash, so I was wondering if it was possible to use google JS code right in my flash application. I guess that this is possible, I remember me that Flash is able to execute JS code right away.
    Thanks for your explanations regarding the Ajax API, but actually that wasn't my question. I'm sure some other reader will profit from them ;)

    Back to my question, I did some search research on Google and it looks to me that all GA code is used in the HTML and not inside the AS section. That's what I thought first, would it be possible to place GA code inside the flash file and no that looks not to be possible.
    Please correct me if I'm wrong