MicrostockGroup

Hi all,

I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Michael and I'm from Austria. I've been doing microstock with shutterstock for about one year now and recently also joined the other "big" microstock agencies. I don't know about you, but I'm one of the statistic freaks who usually check their sales very frequently. Of course, when I joined all the other microstock sites, this got very time consuming.

Luckily, my other "hobby" is programming. Therefore I started to write a software which would pull all the relevant stats from all the agencies which I contribute to and display them in a small window. Recently I've finished this software and have been using it a lot for myself.

Today, I'd like to announce that I'm providing this software, which I call "Microstock Monitor" to anyone for free. Microstock Monitor is a local windows application and it is from now on available for download at:


and currently supports Shutterstock, Dreamstime, Fotolia, BigStockPhoto, StockXpert and LuckyOliver. iStockphoto is coming very soon.

Since I really appreciate the value of Microstock Group forums, I did contact Tyler (aka Leaf) and asked him if he could provide a forum to discuss Microstock Monitor in exchange for a link in the application. While it's easy enough to setup a forum these days, I did not want to set up just another forum, but rather work togeter with my favourite microstock discussion site in bringing this software to you. Tyler kindly accepted (after testing the software) - many thanks!

One question which Tyler immediately asked me was:

What assurance can you provide to myself and others that the software is safe to use (ie, password, user theft)?

which I answered with:

The software will run on the local computer of the user and will store all user information locally. It does not send the user information anywhere, except for the microstock agency web sites. The user can configure their firewall to allow the software to only communicate with the websites of the microstock agencies and therefore avoid any mis-communication with unknown servers. Windows standard firewall allows such a configuration.

Another question is which compensation I get for developing and maintaining this free software for you. The answer is quite simple. I've a links section on the Microstock Monitor website and links inside the software which have my referal code added to them. So if you like Microstock Monitor then I'd greatly appreciate it if you use one of those links to sign up with microstock agencies, which might give me a little compensation for my work. Thanks!

Said that, please go to http://microstockmonitor.unfolded.com and give it a try. I'd love to see you using this free software and I'd love to get your feedback in this forum. This is a new software, so I fully expect that it may have bugs (although it runs very stable on my machine) - so please report them back here as well!

Many thanks and all the best,
Michael

It would be very helfpful if you could:

1. Write up the features that the software provides on your webpage.

2. Post screenshots of the product on your webpage, so that potential users could see what is offered before they download and install the product.

3. I would also suggest that you eventually (once all of the kinks have been worked out) add a Paypal link so that people that enjoy the software can contribute.

Good luck.

2 accounts for the same agency??  Did you refer yourself??

yeah i have been toying with the idea for a while actually berryspun and trying to figure out something that would work, but haven't figured out a good solution.  To display the stats and keep eveyone's info secure/private is a challenge.

Michael, only little bugs:

Each time I refresh the statistics, it erases all the posts from the SS Latest Topics page:

http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/search.php?search_id=newposts

This means that in order to get the SS stats, is sends a signal to logout and login again, because logging out is the only time when this page empties itself.  When we always are logged in, the recent posts stay, even when we refresh the page.  I hope that you can fix this one.

In the statistics, LO shows 'N/A' for the downloads, and IS shows 'ToDo' for both boxes.

Hi all,

I've created a seperate thread where I maintain all features which are considered for future releases. That other thread is sticky and locked, it's just "for your information".

Let's keep discussing all issues in this thread for now. If traffic goes up, I'll create some sticky threads with dedicated topics (Features, Bugs, Questions, ...).

By the way ... if you want to do me a favour - please spread the word about Microstock Monitor. Feel free to tell people about it in the various stock forums which you partecipate in. Would be awesome!

All the best,
Michael

Thanks Michael,

although I'm fairly new to this microstock business it seems this is a great way to keep track of all that lovely money I might earn if I get better. I have signed up to Stockxpert from your links, so hopefully that will prove fruitfull for you.

I have a question though, I can't get access to my fotolia stats, the box comes up as wrong login? I have checked that I havn't entered my login details incorrectly, and have logged in manually from the fotolia home page to ensure I havn't been banned or something. The other sites are fine. Am I the only one encountering this problem?

Paul

I'm logging in via fotolia.co.uk, when I click on the link in Microstock Monitor it automatically takes me to that specific url, so I don't know if that is part of the issue.

It's most probably me doing something stupid, but if it is I don't know what yet.


Paul

I don't think I can access that specific url, strange as that may sound. When I click on the link, or manually type it in I automatically get diverted to fotolia.co.uk

Is there a way round this?


Paul

I am a member of FT USA and when FT Brazil came up, it became my default even if I type www.fotolia.com I get redirected to br.fotolia.com.  If I then use my ID and password, I am redirected back to FT USA.

Regards,
Adelaide

Michael,

I haven't istalled it.  I'm a bit neurotic about security issues and so I will wait until people have more experience with it.

Regards,
Adelaide