hello everyone,

there is a new sales tracking & portfolio management tool called statsprime:


StatsPrime is a desktop application for windows and mac os x, which does the following:

• stats (royalties, downloads, uploads, RPI; sales distribution by collection, file type, file size, file age)
• top selling files, top selling folders
• lightbox management (adding and removing files; creating, deleting and editing lightboxes)
• photo+ / exclusive+ management (adding and removing files from the plus collection)

statsprime is istock-only, it doesn't track sales on any other site.


more info and download -> http://statsprime.photonullplus.de

or see the discussion thread on istock -> http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=347765

Using it for a few month now, love it !

> once the inevitable bugs are fixed
well, most of them should be fixed now as the beta phase is over.
software is never totally bug-free but the ones you reported a while ago should be gone now.

> but I think the pricing seems high
there seem to be quite a few people who think so. my personal opinion on this is that it's everyone's right to feel that way. however, if you look at other stats apps out there, you will find that statsprime is - in comparison - actually quite affordable, esp taking into account that on top of stats it also does lightbox and e+ management (which may be more relevant to some users than to others).

> I think that having a choice for limited features regardless of portfolio size might broaden your market a bit.
i thought about this but felt that having 6 licenses (bronze silver gold - each with only stats or stats+rest) and all the different upgrade licenses was a bit too complicated / intransparent to the end customer. but things may change in the future, one way or another.

anyway, thanks a lot for your feedback.

I've been using StatsPlus for about three weeks.  I've enjoyed using it and it's become a part of my daily routine.

But I also won't be buying it for $89.  $29 yes.  $89 no.

It's been useful to me in checking sales, managing collections, and I've found managing the E+ transfers much easier.  I'll be sorry to stop using it.

I also don't understand the pricing.  Photoshop doesn't charge me extra depending on how many photos I process.

I'm not critical of the product - it's a good effort, and useful.  But I think the price is too optimistic.

> or becoming independent?
should i ever go independent, there is some chance that SP will go independent, too. however, i don't see that up on the horizon for now
however, there are at least 2 sales tracking programs out there which are cross-site, so if that is important to you, please have a look at those products, too.

> anyway needed to say you have done a beautiful job!
thank you very much.

> Also, I think you've caused some confusion by using "base, bronze, silver, gold"
> as license terms
thanks. the contributor you mentioned (or someone else) actually mailed me and told me about the issue. i see your point and this has been fixed. the licenses are now called basic / advanced / pro / ultimate. nothing else has changed, only the name.

> Photoshop doesn't charge me extra depending on how many photos I process.
this is true. however, photoshop does charge you considerably less if you get an educational version, or, in other words, if you use the product "just for fun" without making (considerable) money from it. similar goes for e.g. ms office where you can get a "home & student" license for pretty cheap or a "home & business" for roughly twice the money (or a "pro" for again twice the money). with office, there are some differences in features, but definitely not as much as to justify the price hike. the price hike is justified by the way you use the software and the money you make / time you save by doing so.

the bottom line is: sw licensing is very often based not on features, but on the (presumable) value it has for the end user. of course it is beyond my power to assess which value SP may have for which contributor and how much time it would save you and how much value you put on that time. so, as i said: i fully respect it if someone feels that SP is too expensive or not worth the investment.

thanks for the honest opinions, everyone.

I like it but it is WAY over priced.

> on a bit of software that won't help increase sales

i guess this depends on how you go about your stock business.

if you feel that knowing how much you are selling of what and when is not helpful for better deciding which content to produce next and/or if you feel that the e+ management functionality is not helpful for making better informed decisions about which files may generate more revenue in which collection, then i guess that SP really isn't of any help to you. but then the main problem is the product's functionality, not the price.

^^^ I can do all of this using DeepMeta

what the heck are you talking about? it has nothing to do with DeepMeta, not even 10%

^^ So what ? I can still do most of these things with DM or excel or my head.

first you like it, then its expensive, after you tell it does the same thing as DM, now you can use excel or your brain! ok

I think that it is very expensive too but even if it was 29$ I would not buy it mainly because its just iStock, that said I think we always devaluate others work and want it for free, basically we only value what we have done

The added licenses do make it more of a worthwhile deal for me, thanks - but I have a question:

My understanding is that the program gathers the data by scraping it from the istock displays under the userid, not by using the API - that being the case, presumably if/when istock change something in the layout of the pages, it's possible that it will break the data collection.

I presume that will be covered under the maintenance patches, but your license page says they are for "min 12 months".

I'm a little concerned that this could mean that, after a year, the program could become useless just because of some minor iStock change, and  won't be supported without buying a new version.

Is that the case?

> gathers the data by scraping it from the istock displays under the userid, not by using the API - that being the case,
> presumably if/when istock change something in the layout of the pages, it's possible that it will break the data collection.
this is correct

> I presume that will be covered under the maintenance patches
yes

> but your license page says they are for "min 12 months". I'm a little concerned that this
> could mean that, after a year, the program could become useless just because of some minor iStock change
this is - or could be - the case, yes. however, i trust you understand that no software product ever comes with a "life-long-guarantee".
applications get replaced by newer versions and not all previous versions can be maintained indefinitely.

update: v1.2.0 is now available for download.

this adds a series of new features, the most important among them being the ability to:

• open a list of sales (incl sold size, royalty, etc) which have taken place during a certain time period.
  

besides being very interesting in general, i'm sure you'll find this feature particularly useful for tracking your e+ performance on getty -> go to the "settings" dialog, select to show GI sales only, then open the list mentioned above to see which files from which collections sold.

here is the complete list of changes:

• Sales list: it is possible to open a list of sales which have taken place in the selected timeframe. Click the "green arrow and notepad" button next to the timeframe selection in the Stats module's timeline & distribution views
• Stats module: the columns "Last DL", "DLs", "$$" etc. in the file list now honor the sales filter set in the "Settings" dialog
• Stats module: when adding files to a folder, it is possible to filter out all files which have been added to any other folder
• Lightbox module: list on the left only shows files which are not in the currently selected lightbox
• Lightbox module: list on the right now shows files' upload date and downloads
• Data update: the files' deactivation status is fetched only if the respective option is set in the "Settings" dialog (OFF by default).
• Fixed a bug which occasionally caused thumbnails to not be displayed
• Fixed a bug which caused file titles containing special characters to be displayed wrongly
• Added the "Application Version Release Notes" Dialog