Hummingbird: Real Time Web Traffic Visualization | Hacker News Reader

Hummingbird: Real Time Web Traffic Visualization

mnutt.github.com

140 pointssstrudeau33 comments

Pretty neat! I wish it was access log based though. Using the access logs means being able to see anomalous activity such as spikes in particular status codes, performance issues, that sort of thing. I do have a project I could use as the base for that, but I suspect I might be one of the few people who cares about that sort of info.

Unfortunately, it's not log based. Just like Google Analytics, you insert a little script in, when request comes in, the script will update MongoDB in the backend.

Though, your need are not unusual, I guess. So, publish it.

I'm interested as well and may contribute

Or you could just install glTail - http://www.fudgie.org which I wrote to do exactly this, with multiple parsers and OpenGL display.

That would be cool. It actually wouldn't be hard to adapt Hummingbird to pull from the logs, or of course you could use another existing WebSockets server to serve the requests. WebSockets is a pretty simple protocol, and Hummingbird just sends short JSON messages over it.

Don't miss the video http://vimeo.com/11613517

And the presentation at MongoSF: http://www.10gen.com/event_mongosf_10apr30#gilt

Nice...I used to work with Michael Nutt at Limewire...very talented developer

Very cool technology demo, but I can't think of any scenario where you'd actually need this "realtimeness". I'm constantly annoyed by the 24h you have to wait for google analytics, though.

The original site, Gilt Group, is a clothing sales store which has sales which start at 12pm EST. Frequently things will sell out within scarse minutes of the start. I imagine having your stats update 20 times/sec is extremely interesting (and exciting) for that kind of application.

They said it was mostly used to impress clients who came into their office and wanted a visual experience of seeing users rushing in and buying stuff.

Might want to have a look at glTail for that purpose as well. It also helps with showing management why you need that shiny new server. :-)

You don't actually have to wait, you just have to manually select the date from the date picker.

It's still not real-time: updates are about hourly.

Woah, thanks. I kinda feel dumb now.

Not for me. The most recent 24h is never available...

It's for the Hollywood-created movie star webmasters of the future! After all, in the movies, everything must scroll incessantly.

Kidding aside, it feels more useful if the rate of usage is slightly less than that in the demo... Seeing hits pop up in real-time definitely has a certain appeal!

That looks promising. Is anyone familiar with a self hosted solution like this?

Also: What is the tracking pixel gif for if it's using websockets?

The tracking pixel is for tracking the stats from the web requests, the websocket is for updating the actual admin interface (from what I understand).

I can double confirm it.

Nice, but it's using WebSockets so that means it only supports tracking clients with recent webkit based browsers (no IE, no Firefox, no Opera). Unless it uses some kind of emulation - I couldn't find anything about this in the docs.

I don't think that they use web socket for tracking. They use it only for showing the realtime stats.

Edit: check out the client tracking js. No web socket is used.

You are right indeed. Thanks for pointing this out.

I saw this demo'd at MongoDB conference by Gilt Groupe. Hummingbird display only supports webkit. My friend made the same thing later that night (took him maybe 1 hour total) using tracking pixel + Tornado + javascript graphing software (not canvas). The admin panel worked in IE/Firefox too b/c he used long-polling (not websockets). You can definitely roll your own to offer multi-browser support.

Yeah, but it wouldn't be as fast.

Tracking works on any browser since it serves up a single pixel for each page view. Only the front-end monitor for the graphs use WebSocket.

Will anyone turn this into a web service?

chartbeat.com

I'd love to use the free trial but I'm hesitant to go for one of those credit-card-required trials.

Chartbeat should be so essential that if I forget to put in my CC info and the trial runs out, I notice it immediately and update payment info.

With this system, even if Chartbeat ends up being useless for me, I could simply forget it even exists and still get charged.

This is what credit card statements are for. (And ChartBeat is pretty darn cheap.)

I'm not knocking the price and I'm definitely not rendering judgement as to whether or not it's worth paying for.

I was hesitant at first too, but really wanted to try it. I've been really happy so far and don't mind paying for it.

I use woopra.com and can't recommend their service enough. I've recently just upgraded from their free package to bronze. They're releasing an iPhone app soon.

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