Tim Bass
07-22-2008 12:46 PM
Most readers who operate a web site are familar with Google Analytics*(GA). GA users add a bit of Javascript on their web pages. The Javascript has tracking code that executes when visitors request web pages. The GA tracking code basically sets or updates cookies on*the user’s browser and requests a single-pixel image from the GA servers.

In the last release of the GA code, Google added Event Tracking.***In Google-speak, events are actions that visitors take on a web page that do not generate new pageviews. Examples of these events are, interacting with a Flash player, a AJAX widget or an audio player. In the old GA,*webbies could track event-data as a pageview.* However, because*event tracking*using crude pageviews is not very effective,*GA*added*new functionality they refer to as*Event Tracking.

There are 4 components in the GA events data model; Objects, Actions, Labels and Values. GA Objects are areas of web pages that visitors interact with, for example a video player or an Ajax widget.* The second part of the GA event tracking data model is Actions. *Actions are*related to an Object, representing Actions that visitors perform on the Object.* Labels further describe Actions,*associating*context with*Actions.***Last, but not least,*Values are quantities associated with Labels.

Notice how Google defines this event processing model as Event Tracking.** Similar to the reference architecture we described in What is Complex Event Processing?,* operations on single event objects are generally tracking-oriented,*often referred to as Event*Refinement* in the*art-and-science of*multisensor data fusion (MSDF).*

The GA event tracking model does not (yet) incorporate Situation Refinement, which in MSDF-speak, would be object-to-object processing, representing a higher level of interaction modelling.***

Can you provide examples where object-to-object interaction between various*objects on a single web site*represents a real-world*situational (complex event)*model?*

Taking this one step further, can you*think of some examples where object-to-object interaction between various*objects on different web sites represents a real-world*situational model?

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