title: Does Google Analytics have a "heartbeat" function for long running web applications?
body: <p>I'm making a web application that's focused around watching embedded content. I would like the application client to send a "heartbeat" type of signal to GA (Google Analytics) to keep the session going. It seems now that if the visitor watches a video for 5-10 minutes GA assumes that he has left the page and registers an action from the user as a new session.</p>
  
  <p>I'm making this assumption after I got a few hundred people to test the application and the GA Real-time beta registered ~100 people on the page. After a few minutes the numbers started to drop drastically, even though almost all the visitors were still using the application to watch live streams.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks</p>