According to the disclosure hereof, the functionality of a
server can be extended to collect data on content streams that the
server is delivering to clients, and to
beacon certain data back an analytics
system to facilitate monitoring of, reporting on, and analysis of the delivery of content streams. At various stages of the streaming process, a
server can read and update state information (for example cookie data) on the requesting
client reflecting, for example, status in playing a particular
stream. Based on the
client's requests and the state information at each stage, the server can
beacon appropriate information about the
stream and its playback status back to the analytics
system. The teachings hereof are particularly useful, without limitation, in streaming media analytics and for segment-based streaming approaches, including over HTTP.