Tracking user counts in android app

Question

I need to create one app where I have to show total number of users visited the app at current moment. (Something similar to web-stat in a web page where we can show "Total Visitor:1000").

As soon as any user opens up the app (across globe), he should see the Total Visitor count as of now.

Is there any solution exists for this requirement?

Appreciate any help/suggestion. Thanks

--More Info-- There is website http://www.web-stat.net/ which does it for a webpage. Need something similar for android app.

What have you tried ? You can use Google Analytics to record the count, and use its API to fetch the result, but it's not realtime. — Raptor, Aug 12 '13 at 06:52
you need to have a web method for this which will be called for increment of the counter only once. — Anuj Sharma, Aug 12 '13 at 06:52
Thanks Anuj, but I need an approach where the visit count should be incremented each time one user opens up the app. — ravi tiwari, Aug 12 '13 at 06:56
@ravi in the web there are a client side and sever side, android is only a client like your web browser. You need a server that stores that information. — NickF, Aug 12 '13 at 07:10

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:05

Two examples you could read into:

http://www.flurry.com

http://www.google.com/analytics/

These both are DataReporting services which offer APIs to export your data e.g. as JSON. The main aim is that your app sends usage statistics to external servers (where the data can be viewed by you). Furthermore, you can also connect to those servers and retrieve the data back on your device.

UPDATE - LOCAL STORAGE

If you only want a local counter on the device that shows the user how often he visited the app, check out SharedPreferences. SharedPreferences enables you to store data on your device and also retrieve that data again when you open or close the app.

UPDATE - GLOBAL - DATABASE

If you want just a "global" counter. Id recommend you create an SQL Database for that where you store the current visitor count and increment it each time the user visits and receive the current count on app startup to display it. If you want to track the different users of your app that are currently using the app, you could generate an identical id for each user and store it in your SQL Database when the user first opens the app and increment the counter. For that you will of course also need a table where the ids are stored. When the user closes the app, you will need to connect to the database again and remove his id from the table and decrement the counter.

This could be a way of getting a unique ID for each user:

public class Installation {
    private static String sID = null;
    private static final String INSTALLATION = "INSTALLATION";

    public synchronized static String id(Context context) {
        if (sID == null) {  
            File installation = new File(context.getFilesDir(), INSTALLATION);
            try {
                if (!installation.exists())
                    writeInstallationFile(installation);
                sID = readInstallationFile(installation);
            } catch (Exception e) {
                throw new RuntimeException(e);
            }
        }
        return sID;
    }

    private static String readInstallationFile(File installation) throws IOException {
        RandomAccessFile f = new RandomAccessFile(installation, "r");
        byte[] bytes = new byte[(int) f.length()];
        f.readFully(bytes);
        f.close();
        return new String(bytes);
    }

    private static void writeInstallationFile(File installation) throws IOException {
        FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(installation);
        String id = UUID.randomUUID().toString();
        out.write(id.getBytes());
        out.close();
    }
}

Taken from here: Android unique id

Link-only answers are insufficient, please provide more details. — Raptor, Aug 12 '13 at 06:55
So you are only talikng about incrementing locally on the device? — Philipp Jahoda, Aug 12 '13 at 06:58
@Phil, let me give an example: suppose u have that app, I also have and like that 10 persons have this app. today u opened it up. So visit counter=1 then I opened. visit counter=2 then person 'X' opened. visit counter=3 you closed. visit counter=3 (still 3. shouldn't decrement) now u opened it again. visit counter=4 hope u got it now.. — ravi tiwari, Aug 12 '13 at 07:02
Ok now I get it. You want every user to see how many different users the app already had? (so each user can only increment the counter once) — Philipp Jahoda, Aug 12 '13 at 07:04
@Phil, sorry.. Looks like I couldn't explain it. The counter value should be visible to everyone. In my example above, all users should see the value 4. — ravi tiwari, Aug 12 '13 at 07:13
Yes, I understand that. You want every user to know how many different users the app had? Therefore every user will increment the counter only once and on disconnecting, decrement it again. check UPDATE — Philipp Jahoda, Aug 12 '13 at 07:14

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 12 '13 at 06:57

0

Extend the Application class.
Create a web method that can increase and reduce the number of users.
Use the onCreate() method to report active user (increase the number).
Use the onTerminate() method to report not active user (reduce the number).
Create a method for getting number of users.

answered Aug 12 '13 at 06:57

NickF

5,637
12
44
75

Do u have any link/example showing this approach please? – ravi tiwari Aug 12 '13 at 06:59
You need to choose server side technology like ASP.NET, PHP etc... – NickF Aug 12 '13 at 07:01
In the server side, in the client side (android) you call the methods I mentioned. – NickF Aug 12 '13 at 07:06
Do u remember any example/code which does similar to this? Appreciate if u could share. – ravi tiwari Aug 12 '13 at 07:09

Tracking user counts in android app

2 Answers2