Checking to see if a webcast is currently being viewed?

[mrtomak]

We've been utilizing the meetinghouse webcast hardware to broadcast stake meetings for a while - especially to very remote branches. We would like to know the online attendance to some of these webcasts. Is there a way to view these numbers while a webcast is being streamed?

thanks
-tom

[harddrive]

We've been utilizing the meetinghouse webcast hardware to broadcast stake meetings for a while - especially to very remote branches. We would like to know the online attendance to some of these webcasts. Is there a way to view these numbers while a webcast is being streamed?

thanks
-tom

If this is going to building in your stake, then you have the ward clerks in those buildings do a head count. Here is a quote from one of the wiki pages here:

Meetinghouse Webcast is intended to broadcast events from one building to other buildings. Allowing others to view the webcasts from locations other than Church buildings should be done only when unusual circumstances exist and stake and area leaders deem it appropriate.

This is what we are planning on doing for our June stake conference. We are going to only broadcast to 5 of our 6 buildings. So to me the easiest thing to do is to have the clerks in those buildings count the members.

[mrtomak]

We have some branches many hundreds of miles away - no internet in the buildings, no satellite dishes either for one of the communities - members gather at various households to view the broadcasts. So while the above (having a clerk call-in numbers)would be great, it doesn't do the trick for us - especially for firesides . And yes... this is unsual and approved by the stake presidency.

Anyone else want to weigh-in for an online solution?
thanks!
-t

[Aczlan]

I have two ideas:
1. Send out a web survey with the link to the broadcast
2. Have the head of household for each broadcast email someone (ward/branch clerk, bishop, branch president) with the number of attendees at their session.

Aaron Z

[sammythesm]

For clarification: did you want a headcount at each location, or just a number of video streams that are being viewed?

Seems like the webcast software could easily have a line of text in the status area saying "3 viewers watching" or something like that. Then you would know whether the remote buildings are logged in and ready to go without calling/txting/emailing them all separately. That sounds like a reasonable request to me.

For a more formal "headcount", I think you just rely on clerks or presiding authorities in each location.

[mamadsen]

Unless things have changed, keep in mind that there are a limited number of connections to your stream, 10 or 15, unless you request more connections.

[mrtomak]

looking for the "3 streams being viewed" solution ... not the headcount of viewers.

It isn't that I'm expecting large numbers, just that I'd like to be able to tell stake leaders how many PCs were viewing -- and if that number is high - then we can contact Salt Lake to ensure we have enough connects available to the certain types of braodcasts.

The survey idea will work as a lagging indicator - and is a decent way to help us improve the service... thanks for that one.

t