Flash and ISP

[Vishal]

I was wondering if there was a way/program that will count following:

1) % of people with Flash Plugin installed on the computer.
2) Connection Speed of the user. (dial up, dsl, cable, .....)
3) What state (within USA), and if possible what zip code user is coming from ?

Vishal

[Brett_Tabke]

1: put up a ittsy bitsy flash counter. Track it from your own log file.
2: no known way.
3: geo locating is tricky with many caveats. you can come close, but aol and msn throw the whole thing for a loop.

[Vishal]

2) I was thinking of doing this by using host name. I mean, someone coming from xxx.xxxxx.cox.net (like me) should be using Cable, while someone using xxx.xxx.aol.com is using dialup, and so on. But I was thinking if there was an easier way out.

[Vishal]

I am not sure, but am I making any sense by asking for this info?

I think this info would be very useful for few of our sites, but what do you guys think?

[Shane]

We are trying to determine who is visiting our site from our local province (= state) and have decided to put our log files into a database and filter based on a geographic database. It will not be perfect but we will come close. AOL and MSN will throw a wrench into the works (as will cable companies, ....). There we will tkae a % of the visitors based on market share. When we look at what local people do we will take only those visitors we know for sure are local. If you want more, sticky e-mail me.

We are also looking at using cookies as this will help gather more location information, however we haven't worked out how that will all work.

If you devise a better solution, I am interested in hearing it.

..... Shane