Is there a way to track play counts for embedded videos? Ideally without resorting to a thumbnail linked to launch the embed / iframe code.
Example (try it yourself on jsFiddle):
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Example</title>
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="log"></div>
<ul>
<li class="video" id="video1"><iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/z6lL83wl31E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><li>
<li class="video" id="video2"><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/28231570?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0"></iframe></li>
<li class="video" id="video3"><embed flashVars="playerVars=autoPlay=no" src="http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/3153323/the_three_stooges_minisode_beer_barrel_polecats_season_1_episode_0008.swf" width="440" height="248" wmode="transparent" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" name="Metacafe_3153323" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></li>
</ul>
<script>
/* Here's what I've tried so far: */
$('.video').mouseover(function(){
$('#log').html('Mouseover!');
/*alert('Track mouseovers instead? Is this the best I can do?');*/
});
$('.video').mouseout(function(){
$('#log').html(' ');
});
$('.video').mousedown(function(){
$('#log').html('Mousedown!');
alert('mousedown');
/* This will track mousedown events in embed objects (not iframes), but not allow the click event to pass through to object. */
});
</script>
</body>
</html>
How can I track play counts for each of these videos?
This works for Vimeo... Triggers a javascript alert on the "Play" event but there are a number of other events like "finished", "pause", "playProgress" (constantly updating while video is playing)... Uses Jquery
Ryan, the only way to do this is to use the video sharing site's player api(s), as html and javascript have no native support for this.
To do this for youtube videos, you can check out the documentation here
To do this for vimeo videos, you can check out the documentation here