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"XX users currently viewing" - How?

I have a refreshing webcam shot on my site and I was wondering if
there was a way I could display how many people are currently viewing
it?

Thanks in advance.
Jul 20 '05 #1
14 2492
in post <news:57************************@posting.google.co m>
Brian Maupin said:
I was wondering if there was a way I could display how many people are
currently viewing it?


its impossible to know that
--
brucie
30/November/2003 12:04:57 pm kilo
Jul 20 '05 #2
brucie wrote:
in post <news:57************************@posting.google.co m>
Brian Maupin said:

I was wondering if there was a way I could display how many people are
currently viewing it?

its impossible to know that


Are you sure? I've seen many sites (especially, say, community and
bulletin board systems) that show the number of people viewing the page
(even those not logged in).

Jul 20 '05 #3
in post <news:bq*************@ID-214165.news.uni-berlin.de>
JustAnotherGuy said:
I was wondering if there was a way I could display how many people are
currently viewing it?
its impossible to know that
Are you sure?
yes
I've seen many sites (especially, say, community and bulletin board
systems) that show the number of people viewing the page (even those
not logged in).


just shows you can make any wild guess and people will believe it.

<p>there are currently<? echo rand(1,4000);?> visitors</p>

works just as well

--
brucie
30/November/2003 12:08:27 pm kilo
Jul 20 '05 #4
On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 12:14:38 +1000, brucie
<br******@bruciesusenetshit.info> wrote:
in post <news:bq*************@ID-214165.news.uni-berlin.de>
JustAnotherGuy said:
I was wondering if there was a way I could display how many people are
currently viewing it? its impossible to know that

Are you sure?


yes
I've seen many sites (especially, say, community and bulletin board
systems) that show the number of people viewing the page (even those
not logged in).


just shows you can make any wild guess and people will believe it.

<p>there are currently<? echo rand(1,4000);?> visitors</p>

works just as well


They use sessions. They measure a hit to a webpage and then assume
that the user will be there for let's say half an hour.
That's why this number are often much higher than the real number of
online people.
With a java applet it is possible to give the number of people that
are viewing your applet, like you see the number of chatters in a chat
applet.
Jul 20 '05 #5
in post <news:1u********************************@4ax.com >
Roderik said:
>I was wondering if there was a way I could display how many people are
>currently viewing it?
<p>there are currently<? echo rand(1,4000);?> visitors</p>
works just as well
They use sessions. They measure a hit to a webpage and then assume
that the user will be there for let's say half an hour.
That's why this number are often much higher than the real number of
online people.
a wild guess in other words
With a java applet it is possible to give the number of people that
are viewing your applet, like you see the number of chatters in a chat
applet.


no, you can only guess
--
brucie
30/November/2003 12:33:52 pm kilo
Jul 20 '05 #6
Brian Maupin said:
I was wondering if there was a way I could display how many people are
currently viewing it?
brucie wrote:
its impossible to know that

JustAnotherGuy <no******@sorry.com> wrote:Are you sure? I've seen many sites (especially, say, community and
bulletin board systems) that show the number of people viewing the page
(even those not logged in).

Hint: 89.7% of statistics are made up.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Jul 20 '05 #7
in post <news:MP************************@news.odyssey.ne t>
Stan Brown said:
Hint: 89.7% of statistics are made up.


only 43.2% believe that.

--
brucie
30/November/2003 12:44:57 pm kilo
Jul 20 '05 #8
On Sun, 30 Nov 2003, Roderik wrote:
They use sessions.
HTTP doesn't have "sessions". They can't "use" something that doesn't
exist. There are ways of establishing sessions on top of HTTP - but
there's still no definite way of knowing that a user has left. Nor
indeed whether the user is paying the slightest attention to the page
- maybe it was so horrible that they opened a fresh browser window on
top and went off somewhere else...?
They measure a hit to a webpage and then assume
that the user will be there for let's say half an hour.
So the numbers are sheer fantasy, just has other f'ups have said.
That's why this number are often much higher than the real number of
online people.
You speak is if it might be possible to know what the number really
is!
With a java applet it is possible to give the number of people that
are viewing your applet,


I don't think so! It could be noodling away in a hidden window,
behind the one that the user's actually now using. Or the user could
have gone to make coffee, whatever. Why don't you talk in terms that
can be reliably measured, instead of taking dubious estimates of one
thing that can't be measured accurately, and using them to make even
more-dubious guesses at something else?

At least if they said "nnn fresh host addresses connected in the last
half hour", it could even be the truth.
Jul 20 '05 #9
brucie wrote:
in post <news:1u********************************@4ax.com >
Roderik said:
With a java applet it is possible to give the number of people that
are viewing your applet, like you see the number of chatters in a
chat applet.


no, you can only guess


Well, depends on what the applet's doing, doesn't it? If it's an
embedded IRC client (eeewwww) then /lusers will probably tell you
exactly how many people are connected; /whois and /ctcp VERSION will
probably tell you how many of those are using the web page and how many
are connected through other means.
Jul 20 '05 #10
In article <bq*************@ID-214165.news.uni-berlin.de> in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, JustAnotherGuy <no-
em***@sorry.com> wrote:
Are you sure? I've seen many sites (especially, say, community and
bulletin board systems) that show the number of people viewing the page
(even those not logged in).


People have focused on the fact that the numbers given are
completely bogus. It's important not to lose sight of a more
important point:

Even if the numbers were accurate, they would be useless to anyone
except (possibly) advertisers. "Number of people viewing" is not an
indication of quality, usefulness, or anything else, except one
thing:

A site that shows "XX users currently viewing" trips my "clueless
Webmaster" meter, and sends me elsewhere.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Jul 20 '05 #11
On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 08:25:28 -0500, Stan Brown wrote:
Even if the numbers were accurate, they would be useless to anyone
except (possibly) advertisers. "Number of people viewing" is not an
indication of quality, usefulness, or anything else, except one
thing:


Web boards.

(I didn't say it was a *good* thing.)
Jul 20 '05 #12
Tim
On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 08:25:28 -0500,
Stan Brown <th************@fastmail.fm> wrote:
Even if the numbers were accurate, they would be useless to anyone
except (possibly) advertisers. "Number of people viewing" is not an
indication of quality, usefulness, or anything else, except one
thing:

A site that shows "XX users currently viewing" trips my "clueless
Webmaster" meter, and sends me elsewhere.


Well, there is one "use" for it. If you see that a few hundred people
were using a service at a given moment, it might explain why it's too
slow to work for you, and to give up trying for the moment.

--
My "from" address is totally fake. (Hint: If I wanted e-mails from
complete strangers, I'd have put a real one, there.) Reply to usenet
postings in the same place as you read the message you're replying to.
Jul 20 '05 #13
In article <hs********************************@4ax.com>, one of infinite monkeys
at the keyboard of Tim <ad***@sheerhell.lan> wrote:
Well, there is one "use" for it. If you see that a few hundred people
were using a service at a given moment, it might explain why it's too
slow to work for you, and to give up trying for the moment.


Service, yes. Website - no, you can get number of hits per second,
but that doesn't tell you whether they read the page carefully, or
hit the back button while still loading.

--
Nick Kew

In urgent need of paying work - see http://www.webthing.com/~nick/cv.html
Jul 20 '05 #14
Tim
Tim <ad***@sheerhell.lan> wrote:
Well, there is one "use" for it. If you see that a few hundred people
were using a service at a given moment, it might explain why it's too
slow to work for you, and to give up trying for the moment.


ni**@fenris.webthing.com (Nick Kew) wrote:
Service, yes. Website - no, you can get number of hits per second,
but that doesn't tell you whether they read the page carefully, or
hit the back button while still loading.


I did chose "service," deliberately. ;-) (Seeing as webcams were
mentioned, if I recall correctly.)

I'd say that all access statistics are flawed in that manner. Don't
forget that the statistics also don't tell you whether the visitor found
your page on purpose, by accident, whether it was useful, etc.

--
My "from" address is totally fake. (Hint: If I wanted e-mails from
complete strangers, I'd have put a real one, there.) Reply to usenet
postings in the same place as you read the message you're replying to.
Jul 20 '05 #15

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