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Author Topic: Lookstat Giving it a try  (Read 46228 times)

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« Reply #25 on: January 12, 2009, 06:27 »
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Is there any third party security audits planned on site security so we can trust to store our passwords? And how about thawte or similar daily security scans etc?

The idea behind the system is very good and I will gladly use the system, but I need to well known third party confirmation about site security before I can trust my passwords to any third party organizations.

br, MjP

This is a great point and a very reasonable perspective.

My intention had been to put in place McAffee daily secure scans (as seen in the footers of DT/SS) and I have no issue with a 3rd party review either although I must confess I have not yet selected a provider yet. I'm very proud of our commitment to security and I'm confident that from a technical perspective we're doing the right things so I have no issue whatsoever with either of these steps.

My belief on trust was that I needed to build it directly with the community by being transparent and available, asking our users to talk about us and then using 3rd party validation after that. Overall I think your suggestion is terrific and it is definitely something we plan to do, I just wanted to share my thinking behind why it hadn't happened yet.

Basically, this is a long way of saying that we'll act on this item in Q1 of this year and I'd be happy to get in touch with you with an update once I get that ball rolling. Thanks for taking the time to share your perspective and being open to using the service in the future.

Rahul

I registered into lookstat with one stock site ( just in case:) ) and I will do the rest after security confirmation from security audit or a good words from wellknown high profile microstock contributors. But so far everything looks good.

The data which the program collect is looking good and I can see it's huge benefit to contributors in a long run. We can have much more knowledge about what is selling and when and overall statistics as well. But ofcourse you have lot of coding work to get everything done, so good luck with the development phase.

Maybe you could provide simple secure interface specification to low earner/smaller sites which they can implement to allow easier integration to lookstat (I think that way sites win(they might more users since good contributor tools) and lookstat get information easily and more securely etc (e.g. seperate passwords for data gathering etc) ).

I will post ideas and suggestions in the future if I get good ones:) .

br, MjP



« Reply #26 on: January 12, 2009, 12:10 »
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Quote
I registered into lookstat with one stock site ( just in case:) ) and I will do the rest after security confirmation from security audit or a good words from wellknown high profile microstock contributors. But so far everything looks good.

The data which the program collect is looking good and I can see it's huge benefit to contributors in a long run. We can have much more knowledge about what is selling and when and overall statistics as well. But ofcourse you have lot of coding work to get everything done, so good luck with the development phase.

Maybe you could provide simple secure interface specification to low earner/smaller sites which they can implement to allow easier integration to lookstat (I think that way sites win(they might more users since good contributor tools) and lookstat get information easily and more securely etc (e.g. seperate passwords for data gathering etc) ).

I will post ideas and suggestions in the future if I get good ones:) .

br, MjP



Hi there,

Thanks for being willing to try us out and for the kind words of encouragement. Please feel free to contact me directly at anytime as well. We definitely have a ton on our plate from a development standpoint, but user input is always very valuable and definitely shapes our thinking.

Your thought on providing an API is a great one and it's something we have definitely talked about internally. My guess is that we will be very focused on moving the product forward in the immediate term, but that an API is definitely something we should do.

Thank you again for trying us out. I'll definitely be in touch as our third party seals get put in place but in the meantime, here are a couple of mentions:

http://blog.lookstat.com/2008/11/24/some-encouraging-early-feedback-on-lookstat/

Cheers,

Rahul
« Last Edit: January 12, 2009, 13:19 by Rahul Pathak »

« Reply #27 on: January 12, 2009, 16:53 »
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I signed up to try, but I feel quite nervous about giving my login data. Whatever, it is mentioned that stats per image over sites are grouped. Does that mean that lookstat has some sort of image recognition software, or do we have to specify ourselves which image is which on the different sites?

« Reply #28 on: January 12, 2009, 17:10 »
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I signed up to try, but I feel quite nervous about giving my login data. Whatever, it is mentioned that stats per image over sites are grouped. Does that mean that lookstat has some sort of image recognition software, or do we have to specify ourselves which image is which on the different sites?

Thanks for trying out the service. Please feel free to email me directly (my email is on my profile) and I'd be happy to call you to talk about security and our future plans. LookStat attempts to match images across multiple sites automatically. We occasionally get this wrong and plan to release a feature that allows you to correct any errors you notice in the matches. Once that is done, the system will recalculate your stats. Our goal was to have the system do as much work for you as possible.

DanP68

« Reply #29 on: January 15, 2009, 00:45 »
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I would like the ability to see the top performers by Downloads at each site.  The reason I suggest this is 1 EL sale, or even a On Demand sale at SS can vastly skew the data.  The way I tend to judge a photo's performance is to look at the DL's at each site, and then multiply the average earnings per DL at the site to get a better gage of earnings performance...assuming that over time the subscription sales, EL's, and PPD's all even out.

For instance I know that over time I tend to make about 40 cents per DL at Shutterstock.  If I am getting 10 DL's per month from an image at SS, I know that image is worth about $4.00 per month from SS even if one recent EL sale generated $28.

« Reply #30 on: January 15, 2009, 01:52 »
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I would like the ability to see the top performers by Downloads at each site.  The reason I suggest this is 1 EL sale, or even a On Demand sale at SS can vastly skew the data.  The way I tend to judge a photo's performance is to look at the DL's at each site, and then multiply the average earnings per DL at the site to get a better gage of earnings performance...assuming that over time the subscription sales, EL's, and PPD's all even out.

For instance I know that over time I tend to make about 40 cents per DL at Shutterstock.  If I am getting 10 DL's per month from an image at SS, I know that image is worth about $4.00 per month from SS even if one recent EL sale generated $28.

Thanks for trying out the service and I think your suggestion is a good one. I'll see what we can do about it. Also, thanks for sharing your thinking about averages and per site earnings performance. It's really helpful to get a feel for what matters in terms of metrics.

Cheers,

Rahul

« Reply #31 on: January 19, 2009, 17:59 »
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Is there any third party security audits planned on site security so we can trust to store our passwords? And how about thawte or similar daily security scans etc?

The idea behind the system is very good and I will gladly use the system, but I need to well known third party confirmation about site security before I can trust my passwords to any third party organizations.

br, MjP

Hi there,

Thanks again for this feedback. We have implemented daily third party intrusion testing via McAfee Secure. I am proud to say that we passed out of the gate and you can see the badge in our footer. (This is the same vendor used by SS/DT/123.)

Cheers,

Rahul

« Reply #32 on: January 28, 2009, 21:57 »
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I'd be more interested in seeing my sales volume by image in a coherent manner. Istock is best in that regard with their Sales per Month stat as an example. SS's stats suck big time, worthless in most cases. It would really help to see all my images plotted out with sales stats per site. Just dreaming, I know. But I wonder how many sales are lost by, say, SS, by not providing meaningful results for contributors?



Image sales history by site is live.

http://blog.lookstat.com/2009/01/28/image-sales-history-thumbnails-are-now-clickable/

Cheers,

Rahul

PS: For those of you who I've told about this already, my apologies.



« Reply #33 on: January 28, 2009, 23:56 »
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Rahul, what time the date is changed on the site?
Cannot catch exactly, but at least at 7PM PST it is already tomorrow at lookstat...

« Reply #34 on: January 28, 2009, 23:59 »
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Rahul, what time the date is changed on the site?
Cannot catch exactly, but at least at 7PM PST it is already tomorrow at lookstat...

it's on GMT. This is something we know about, but have not gotten to yet.

avava

« Reply #35 on: February 01, 2009, 12:18 »
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To the guy who doesn't want his name released to the public I have sent you the second PM to answer your questions if you don't receive it this time this is to let you know I have sent your answer this morning.

Hope it helps,
AVAVA

avava

« Reply #36 on: February 01, 2009, 16:02 »
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 Hi All,

 The new feature Rahul has added is now making this software very helpful if you use multiple sites. It only now shows you a handful of images separately but once it can show you all you images I think it will help a great deal in seeing what is making you money and what isn't as well as what season and that image. Looking forward to the upgrade let us know when it is going to be released I would love to try it.

Best,
AVAVA

« Reply #37 on: February 01, 2009, 17:30 »
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Signed up a couple of weeks ago. Cool site! looking forward to the addition of the other missing sites, particularly FT, STX.

It doesn't appear to be recording EL sales properly, maybe Rahul can clarify this?

« Reply #38 on: February 01, 2009, 17:43 »
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Signed up a couple of weeks ago. Cool site! looking forward to the addition of the other missing sites, particularly FT, STX.

It doesn't appear to be recording EL sales properly, maybe Rahul can clarify this?


Thanks for signing up! We currently do have a bug with istock EL sales but it is something we aim to fix in very short order. Also, Fotolia is next in the pipeline. We don't cover every single earnings scenario yet, but we are committed to getting there.

Avava - thanks for the kind words re: image earnings history. (You can currently hack the site URL to see more images (change the 1 to the 2 etc but a page showing all images is in the works!)

To all of you - thanks for the support and the feedback. It's a real treat to not be working on this in a vacuum.

« Reply #39 on: February 02, 2009, 10:17 »
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Per-image stats would be useful if it was correct. Just checked one of my images - its downloads in IS and DT are shown being ~ twice more than in reality.....
Too bad, I hoped that I just missed some downloads  ;)

« Last Edit: February 02, 2009, 11:26 by UncleGene »

« Reply #40 on: February 02, 2009, 10:51 »
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Per-image stats would be useful if it was correct. Just checked one of my images - its downloads in IS and DT are shown being ~ twice more than in reality.....
Too bad, I hoped that I just missed some downloads



While we are hoping that we can help contributors boost their earnings, this is clearly the wrong way to do it. Thanks for pointing this out. I'll follow up directly so we can get this resolved asap.

Thanks for the feedback and sorry about the discrepancy.

« Reply #41 on: February 02, 2009, 11:28 »
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Per-image stats would be useful if it was correct. Just checked one of my images - its downloads in IS and DT are shown being ~ twice more than in reality.....
Too bad, I hoped that I just missed some downloads



While we are hoping that we can help contributors boost their earnings, this is clearly the wrong way to do it. Thanks for pointing this out. I'll follow up directly so we can get this resolved asap.

Thanks for the feedback and sorry about the discrepancy.

No problem, at this stage of your site development I see this as just a funny bug - though hope you can fix it soon :)

« Reply #42 on: February 02, 2009, 12:25 »
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No problem, at this stage of your site development I see this as just a funny bug - though hope you can fix it soon :)


Thanks for understanding and we will definitely get this sorted out as soon as we can.

« Reply #43 on: February 02, 2009, 16:50 »
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I just signed up and am in a holding pattern while my stats are collected.  I'm curious to know how it handles the same image across sites, but with a different title on some sites.

« Reply #44 on: February 02, 2009, 19:07 »
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I just signed up and am in a holding pattern while my stats are collected.  I'm curious to know how it handles the same image across sites, but with a different title on some sites.

Hi there,

Thanks for signing up. Our matching is definitely not perfect but it will improve over time. Please let me know how it turns out. The initialization process can take up to 48 hours but in most cases is quicker than that.

Please feel free to contact me directly with any questions or feedback.

Sincerely,

Rahul

« Reply #45 on: February 05, 2009, 20:37 »
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Hi All,

 The new feature Rahul has added is now making this software very helpful if you use multiple sites. It only now shows you a handful of images separately but once it can show you all you images I think it will help a great deal in seeing what is making you money and what isn't as well as what season and that image. Looking forward to the upgrade let us know when it is going to be released I would love to try it.

Best,
AVAVA


Just a quick follow up to let folks know that we added the ability to view all images that sold at all the sites. More details on our blog: http://blog.lookstat.com/2009/02/05/new-lookstat-feature-view-all-images-that-sold-at-all-microstock-sites-in-one-place/

Also, Fotolia stats are next and should be available in the very near future.

« Reply #46 on: February 06, 2009, 03:51 »
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ok, created an account and will see how it works...

When you're adding Fotolia, do you consider different currencies? As I am in FT Germany, I'm paid in Euros. So you need a currency conversion somewhere in the system.
And Fotolia changed the credit value (at least in Euros in in Pounds) a few months ago, so you need to consider that credit values may be different depending on the time the credits are earned.

« Reply #47 on: February 06, 2009, 07:13 »
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Very nice Rahul I like the new feature! As dirkr said you might have a problem of currencies with FT. Being in UK zone,  pounds will be considered as dollars certainly at first . Hope you can anticipate that !

« Reply #48 on: February 06, 2009, 07:19 »
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Nice feature. Unfortunately the systems doesn't recognize the same image from all the sites, so some images have their earnings split in two or more.

« Reply #49 on: February 06, 2009, 09:44 »
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Nice feature. Unfortunately the systems doesn't recognize the same image from all the sites, so some images have their earnings split in two or more.

We knew this feature would highlight areas where our matching doesn't do as well as it should. I've updated the known issues page on our blog to reflect this. This is definitely an area that will get our attention but it will be after we add fotolia support to the the site.

dirkr - thanks for signing up - great to have you as a user. also, thank you for flagging the currency & credit issues.

ldambies - glad you like the feature! also, thanks for the fotolia currency nudge as well. we'll do the best we can on this.

Thanks a ton everyone.

Rahul


 

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