Roku Developer Program

[judithraj]

Hi,
Does Roku offer any kind of reporting/ metrics pertinent to a channel on a monthly basis? Or, how are channel publishers today tracking: how many views a channel & the corresponding vids have had?
Thanks for your help!
Judith

[OddScott]

From looking at the network traffic generated by Roku players, I'm pretty sure the Roku tracks some aspects of channel use, not sure if they are watching things down to the individual stream level. As far as I know, Roku does not share this information with the channel owners. Most channel owners/developers implement their own tracking system, doing a GET or POST to a logging URL. This can also be done with Google Analytics if you want to easily generate some spiffy graphs and charts.

[judithraj]

Thank you for your feedback! Is there an easy way for one to identify Roku usage from a vid server metrics? Are there any unique identifiers for a vid accessed via Roku?

[OddScott]

Perhaps the User-Agent header? Here's a couple of examples, the numeric strings are the player firmware version:

Roku/DVP-3.1 (013.01E01011A)
Roku/DVP-4.8 (024.08E01178A)

[toddfletcher]

Can you provide a sample of the code needed to make that POST or GET? I have dig down to the VideoScreen script where the index is returned every 30 second, but I would like to capture that information on my server.

Thanks!

[RokuJoel]

This might be of value to you:

Google Analytics for Roku Developers

- Joel

[zm3sichi]

"OddScott" wrote:
From looking at the network traffic generated by Roku players, I'm pretty sure the Roku tracks some aspects of channel use, not sure if they are watching things down to the individual stream level. As far as I know, Roku does not share this information with the channel owners. Most channel owners/developers implement their own tracking system, doing a GET or POST to a logging URL. This can also be done with Google Analytics if you want to easily generate some spiffy graphs and charts.

I understand the benefits this kind of data might provide content providers (I actually do this kind of data collection for a living) but, as an individual consumer, I'd be very concerned with the "right to privacy" aspect of it if individual streams are being tracked and linked to a specific account holder or Roku serial #. I don't ever "log in" to Google/YouTube for searching/viewing, for that very reason. Yes, I know they can track activity on the WAN IP but, thankfully, that changes every so often, as the network grows.

Roku***** Engineers/Moderators, can you confirm/deny that the device(s) and/or software are/aren't doing this kind of tracking? Honest question... hopefully, an honest answer. 🙂 I'll worry about what the other content providers (Netflix/Amazon, etc.) do, later.

Thanks much.

[destruk]

I'm not too concerned with this as I know the NSA/DHS/FBI all track every packet going across the internet 24/7.

[zm3sichi]

"destruk" wrote:
I'm not too concerned with this as I know the NSA/DHS/FBI all track every packet going across the internet 24/7.

I'm not as concerned with them... I think they have much bigger fish to fry than li'l ol' me. 🙂 Although "state/local" LE might be a bit of concern. And, besides, I'm not talking about anything that might raise any red flags with any of their scanners/filters. 😮

I'm thinking more of things like private marketing agencies, financial institutions (i.e. banks, credit reporting and the like), potential employers or business customers, etc. etc., all of whom would pay a TON-O-CASH for that data gold mine and the chance to do "tailored, direct marketing" to an "individual," or make financial/credit/employment decisions based on what that individual chooses to view/not view. The next time you go into your Supermarket and swipe your "frequent shopper/member" card to buy your groceries and such at a discount, just remember how that discount is paid for, and where all that data are going... And now it's got your P.I.I. attached to it. :shock:

[destruk]

But the credit agencies already sell your information, so what more harm can be done? Your employer also sells your information too. The only way to truly be off the grid is to not live in a modern society.
http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/0 ... -data?lite

Just do a google search and you'll find thousands of stories and verified articles about how this all works.