title: How do I make a MySQL query that's equivalent to Fusion Tables "summarize" function?
body: <p>I am parsing a collection of monthly lists of bulletin board systems from 1993-2000 in a city. The goal is to make visualizations from this data. For example, a line chart that shows month by month the total number of BBSes using various kinds of BBS software.</p>
  
  <p>I have assembled the data from all these lists into one large table of around 17,000 rows. Each row represents a single BBS during a single month in time. I know this is probably not the optimal table scheme, but that's a question for a different day. The structure is something like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>date    | name   | phone        | codes | sysop   | speed | software
  1990-12 | Aviary | xxx-xxx-xxxx | null  | Birdman | 2400  | WWIV
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Google Fusion Tables offers a function called "summarize" (or "aggregation" in the older version). If I make a view summarizing by the "date" and "software" columns, then FT produces a table of around 500 rows with three columns: date, software, count. Each row lists the number of BBSes using a given type of software in a given month. With this data, I can make the graph I described above.</p>
  
  <p>So, now to my question. Rather than FT, I'd like to work on this data in MySQL. I have imported the same 17,000-row table into a MySQL database, and have been trying various queries with COUNT and DISTINCT, hoping to return a list equivalent what I get from FT's Summarize function. But nothing I've tried has worked.</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone suggest how to structure such a query?</p>