Hello,
I was talking with the Sightmax team once, and they told me that the geolocation and organization databases could quite possibly be old information. I found a new service that provides a free updated database with this information monthly. Is it possible to replace the database with the new one? You can see the database I'm talking about here:
http://www.weblogexpert.com/download.htm
Thank you!
I have run into some issues with the Geolocation tool but your solution is not free. The light version is free but the pro version costs $74.95. I'm pretty sure you can only get so much out of the light version of this if the pro version cost that much. Because most people have a dynamic ip address it’s rather hard to have a 100% solution for most of the tracking issues. It would be like me getting a new drivers license number every time I went to sleep. So about 3-4 times a week I would change my information I do believe the whole idea of having this feature is to see approximately where the user resides. Our company doesn't use it... I don't see a point to this other then to say "So, I see you live close to the mall... or That’s a nice pool in your back yard, mind if I come over some time?" If you need to know where the person lives or where the company is located you could always include that in your survey at the beginning of your chat.
Thanks for the reply TEAMONECU!
I really don't mind if we have to buy the pro version to get the database- in fact, I just downloaded it separately from that link for free. I do understand the dynamic IP address thing. We are really using SM differently than it's marketed- we kind of use it as a marketing tool to help identify trends in a particular organization. We extract that data into another application for analysis at the end of every day. Our product is expensive enterprise software in a vertical niche, where I can then have the sales dept. follow up with the organization to see if there is any opportunity. For example, let's pretend that I'm in healthcare IT and market a product to hospitals.....over time (if they have a static IP range, and the Org. database is up to date) I can kind of get a 'picture' of what that hospital is looking for depending upon the various queries into our site. They rarely ever click the chat button, but we can follow up with them later, and address specifically what they were interested in.....
So, is there any further information on updating the Organization and Geolocation databases? Is there a way for me to swap out the database with the updated one?
Thank you in advance to anyone that can help us!
You may find it ok to purchase that database as a standalone user but for a company to purchase software to incorporate it in its own cause’s legal/financial problems. The price would no longer be for one license it would be a much larger corporate price. Seeing that you would use it in all your software of which you receive profit from. This goes back to the music industry for example... I purchase a cd so I can listen to it and use it for my own personal things. Once I start using it in a game I made or a movie I produced, I have to give that company compensation for using it on such a broader scale. Since the ip address I stored in the reports you could always purchase this software for yourself and just have the operator type it in to get a more accurate search. I do have to admit the database should be updated more frequently but that’s not entirely sightmax's fault. You would have to contact Sightmax support directly to see if it is possible to swap out the database. I completely doubt it due that they can’t support someone else’s software. It would be like working at Dell and doing tech support for HP. Still, my only solutions would be using the alternate piece of software separately or contacting support directly to see if. I hope this helps.
We use the MaxMind database, which is regarded as the top Geolocation Database in the industry.
It's a compilation of data with varying degrees of accuracy. We are dealing with IP data, with data being only as accurate at the data submitted to the governing organizations. You can imagine how often IP data changes.
MaxMind has another database, which is about $100 per month and is interchangeable with our product. SightMax ties into MaxMind at the API level, so it's tightly integrated. If you are interested in the other database, please let us know. There is no real simple solution here, both databases are going to have their own sets of data that isn't always 100% accurate, but if you want to spend the money, let us know and we'll get you in touch the right people at MaxMind.
Thanks.
Eric Weber
Eric Weber, President SmartMax Software, Inc.
Thanks for your response, Eric.
I think you remember who we are (Jonathan and Mohan) and why it's so important to us. I appreciate TEAMONECU's responses, but believe that they misunderstood what I was saying and how we're using the application. We are most definitely not redistributing software.
How often do you update the Sightmax Maxmind database? We did buy the support and maintenance agreement with Sightmax, so, if you update once a month or so, then we could update our version of the Sightmax software. If that is not possible, then we may look into an arrangement with Maxmind.
Also, BTW, have you made any progress on the custom invite we talked about?
Thanks very much in advance for your help!
When we release updates, we always grab the latest version of the maxmind database. I haven't seen any data that has changed in the update, in regards to the data we see on our site. I did see a few changes in the premium version of that database.
So far, we haven't changed the invite, we will be adding quite a few things this summer. In the meantime, we are prep'ing SightMax 4.0 (previously was going to be called 3.1).
Eric
We have been using the geolocation database from IP2Location. It has been updated monthly in the last 6 years and we are very happy with its speed and accuracy.
http://www.ip2location.com
-Al