What are proper ways to count application launches?

Question

Say, I'm developing a Windows (if OS is important) application that will be available to download for free and I would like then to collect some usage statistics. In the easiest case - count of application launches. It looks superfluous to maintain a server (e.g. VDS) just for this.

I've been thinking to use Google Analytics for this (manually send requests to GA server). This will probably work, but it is not GA designed for - the idea looks like a hack.

What are the options here?

Answer 1

I don't think this is a hack. It's all just data about user interaction. There is little logical difference between opening a desktop app and clicking a button vs opening a web page and following a link. Both are measurable user actions you can track, aggregate and put on graphs.

In fact, Google provides a lower level HTTP based "Measurement Protocol" that is intended for exactly that.

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/v1/

From the overview:

The Google Analytics Measurement Protocol allows developers to make HTTP requests to send raw user interaction data directly to Google Analytics servers. This allows developers to measure how users interact with their business from almost any environment

Just put an HTTP request with the correct parameters in your application launch or button click code and it will collect the data. Any data you want to collect.

In other answers to this question there are suggestions like making web services or storing the data locally but why reinvent the wheel? Google Analytics already provides the collecting and reporting tools and it seems like a good solution.