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Digital analytics has changed. Drastically. No longer are we limited to measuring a website or mobile app - we can truly measure just about anything. To prove that point, today we are
measuring the great game of Bocce Ball. That’s right, gleeful
Opticon attendees will enjoy the favorite pastime of elderly Italian gentleman on a beautiful terrace overlooking San Francisco - and we will capture it all using Google Analytics.
What’s even better is that you can follow along at
bocce.analyticspros.com where we have prepared a live gamecast and leaderboard for the sporting pleasure of both attendees and home viewers.
Turning an idea into reality almost always starts with a whiteboard[/caption] Those jokes turned into a few impromptu whiteboarding sessions and then a round of beers and bocce at Seattle’s one-and-only bocce bar,
Von Trapps. That was all of the inspiration we needed and a plan began to take shape. We turned Brandon “The Dude” Nutter and Luka “The Slovenian Sensation” Cempre loose on the project and had a working prototype relatively quickly. They then continued to refine both the tracking and leaderboard over the course of a few weeks.
we used a Microsoft Kinect as the main sensor for "The Eye of Bocce"[/caption] The Kinect acts as the main sensor and, with a bunch of software magic, creates a digital representation of the Bocce court in real-time. [caption id="attachment_7669" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
our team wrote software to process the Kinect sensor data into gameplay data and a visual representation of the court[/caption] We then process the measurement and distance data, along with details about the teams playing and beam it up to Google Analytics via the Measurement Protocol. [caption id="attachment_7672" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Game data gets streamed to Google Analytics via the Measurement Protocol[/caption] Our team built a web app on Google AppEngine to then ingest this data and display it, along with a live feed of the Bocce Court, at The Eye of Bocce (our fond name for this whole contraption, and yes, LOTR may have influenced this name). We tested it in many scenarios, like a backyard, with chickens running interference and the sidewalk in front of our office.
[caption id="attachment_7666" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
testing the bocce measurement capabilities outside our office[/caption] In addition to measuring the court, we are also measuring the Bocce web app and, using
Universal Analytics, are able to tie together the data about the Bocce Ball match with the web behaviors of the team members that signed up. Can you really do cross-device tracking? Apparently, yes, even non-digital devices like Bocce Balls!
What’s even better is that you can follow along at
bocce.analyticspros.com where we have prepared a live gamecast and leaderboard for the sporting pleasure of both attendees and home viewers.
Our Inspiration - How It Started
As long-time fans and users of Optimizely, we were excited to hear about their first user conference and even more excited when we learned that there was going to be a bocce ball court. We, of course, jumped on that opportunity and began to joke around about measuring it all. [caption id="attachment_7668" align="alignright" width="300"]
Turning an idea into reality almost always starts with a whiteboard[/caption] Those jokes turned into a few impromptu whiteboarding sessions and then a round of beers and bocce at Seattle’s one-and-only bocce bar,
Von Trapps. That was all of the inspiration we needed and a plan began to take shape. We turned Brandon “The Dude” Nutter and Luka “The Slovenian Sensation” Cempre loose on the project and had a working prototype relatively quickly. They then continued to refine both the tracking and leaderboard over the course of a few weeks.
How It Works
In short, we are using a Microsoft Kinect to track the position of the bocce balls in relationship to the pallino (the white or yellow ball). [caption id="attachment_7670" align="aligncenter" width="280"]
we used a Microsoft Kinect as the main sensor for "The Eye of Bocce"[/caption] The Kinect acts as the main sensor and, with a bunch of software magic, creates a digital representation of the Bocce court in real-time. [caption id="attachment_7669" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
our team wrote software to process the Kinect sensor data into gameplay data and a visual representation of the court[/caption] We then process the measurement and distance data, along with details about the teams playing and beam it up to Google Analytics via the Measurement Protocol. [caption id="attachment_7672" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Game data gets streamed to Google Analytics via the Measurement Protocol[/caption] Our team built a web app on Google AppEngine to then ingest this data and display it, along with a live feed of the Bocce Court, at The Eye of Bocce (our fond name for this whole contraption, and yes, LOTR may have influenced this name). We tested it in many scenarios, like a backyard, with chickens running interference and the sidewalk in front of our office.
testing the bocce measurement capabilities outside our office[/caption] In addition to measuring the court, we are also measuring the Bocce web app and, using
Universal Analytics, are able to tie together the data about the Bocce Ball match with the web behaviors of the team members that signed up. Can you really do cross-device tracking? Apparently, yes, even non-digital devices like Bocce Balls!