Show HN: real-time eye tracking web analytics

[tersiag]

Hi, I would like to introduce Gazehub, an online eye tracking and web analytics platform that shows you real-time data of where visitors look (and click) on your website.

We are currently running a free limited beta.

To sign up, visit www.gazehub.com

[codeddesign]

Wait... So I would have to purchase a $99 "eye tracker" just so that some random website can follow my eye movement?

Seriously? I understand the concept, but if it relies on 3rd party software/hardware for the user that has a camera to watch the user, it would never work.

Good concept, but bad implementation.

[seivazi]

No, you don't need to buy anything. We have all real eye trackers. What you need to do is to just register and add the tracking code to your site. It is very similar to google analytics and crazyegg but here there is data from real eye trackers.

[tersiag]

Hi, your thinking about right now. In a few years time, eye tracking will be as widespread as webcams are today. Plus there are already tens of thousand eye trackers in the world. And as the technology is maturing, its becoming more available

[codeddesign]

Of course I am talking about right now. Why would someone want to sign up for a service that they could "possibly" use several years from now? The wonderful thing about analytics is that it doesn't affect the user experience. If you user knows that a camera is going to be turned on when they visit your website, your user activity is going to drastically drop. Not to mention you are relying on the fact that not only will it be adopted by users as "acceptable" but also adopted as a pre-packaged hardware. Otherwise, you are going to have a difficult time convincing end-users to purchase an eye tracking device that they won't personally use.

The only way that this would be remotely feasible is if you were able to remotely turn on a user's camera - which won't happen and wouldn't be taken lightly by the end-users.

Ofcourse - all of this doesn't include the cost of awareness that it would take just to make remote use of eye-tracking. You say "tens of thousands" of eye trackers are on the market. With 7billion+ people in the U.S., it's highly likely that you wouldn't receive one person using an eye tracker in the next 10 years - in which you would need hundreds just to make a reasonable estimate on potential site adjustments.

I get what you are trying to do, but the market just isn't there. A better way would be user predictions - or predicting user actions and engagements. That technology is around but not heavily used yet in analytics and would be able to make similar predictions.

[seivazi]

About eye tracking in future: Things are changing it was hard to believe Kinect will find his way to every one house too. Eye tracking getting so cheap and people are willing to buy them. It is not 10 years it time now: - Eye trackers are already on the laptops (http://www.tobii.com/en/gaze-interaction/global/demo-room/co...) - They are as cheap as 60 box (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/4tiitoo/nuia-eyecharm-ki...) - They are as good as a high cost eye trackers (https://theeyetribe.com).

[timhargis]

So what does a user need to have for you to be able to track their eye movement?

[seivazi]

GazeHub platform has two side: 1) Users who want analytics, they just add the code to their website and see results. 2) Users that already has real eye tracker, The data will be collected from this group.

[tersiag]

I misread your original comment your right, a visitor/user needs to have an eye tracker, but a website, only needs to have a tracking code

[seivazi]

The problem with current analytic tools is that they are good for site with huge number of visitors. I can not get anything from few number of visitors.

With real eye tracking i can even know why people left my page in first 10 seconds. Where they looks in first 10 seconds.

[justhw]

There was a similar startup a while ago that was acquired by fb, http://gazehawk.com/

Goodluck

[seivazi]

Hi, Yes, we know them but they use web came for eye tracking and that has been always problem with those ideas. There are many like gazehawk but recording eye movement with normal web came is always a problem

[dawson]

Opengazer, is an open-source gaze tracker for ordinary webcams http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/opengazer/

p.s. not affiliated, but have met with the team several times at the lab

[codeddesign]

Yes, that would be feasible. In that aspect they have actual "testers" and not genuine users that you are generating data from.

[seivazi]

Our users with eye trackers are not genuine users that like to generating data. They will get benefit from using the eye tracker.

[timthimmaiah]

I'm guessing this requires access to a site viewer's webcam? That would be a request that probably wouldn't fly with new, unique site visitors.

[tersiag]

Hi, actually were not using webcams at all. We using real eye trackers. Commercial eye trackers are becoming cheaper (eg. $99 see https://theeyetribe.com/) and even the bigger eye tracking companies such as Tobii and SMI are starting to make low cost eye trackers.

Tobii, which is partly owned by Intel, has also already developed laptops that have eye trackers intergrated

[mikemoka]

interesting

[tersiag]

We made it as easy as google analytics, where you just have to put a tracking code in your website to get eye tracking data