LookStat – Microstock Analytics

One of the questions my co-founder Casey likes to ask is, “Are we winning?”

This is a big question, but in the context of microstock earnings, we’re trying to see what our earnings trend is and how our month is likely to shape up. To do this in LookStat, the easiest way is to view the last 30 days and compare that number to your last month’s earnings. This way you can get a quick read on how the month is shaping up. If the total for the trailing 30 days is greater than your earnings in the prior month, then you’re on track for an upswing, and vice versa.

Microstock Earnings - 30 day snapshot

This is imprecise due to seasonality and other factors, but it’s a great gut check.

Over time, we will be adding in more metrics to help answer the ‘are you winning’ question. Having data is great, but giving that data meaning is where things really start to get interesting.

We’re pleased to announce the beta of LookStat – a web service from Orange Line Media that will allow you to make more money online with your digital photography and illustrations by allowing you to:

1. Track your portfolio
2. Analyze your performance
3. Automate your workflow

We started exploring microstock earlier this year and as technologists began developing tools to help us manage our own microstock portfolios. As we got further down the path, we realized that the tools we were developing might be useful for other contributors as well.

The service is very much in beta form at the moment but we’re confident that with some input from our users, the service will evolve rapidly.

The first feature we’re launching is performance tracking. We want to make it easy for you to monitor the performance of your images across multiple sites from a single location. Once you create an account with LookStat, we obtain your sales history, match your images across sites and present you with a complete history of your performance. We’re launching the beta with support for Dreamstime & Shutterstock and plan to add support for iStockphoto, Fotolia & 123rf in short order.

Sample Screenshot

Sample Screenshot Showing Dreamstime Data

One important difference between LookStat and other tools for tracking earnings – we look at your entire history. Once you start using the service, we build a complete picture of your earnings from the beginning of your microstock career. On top of this, we update your data periodically, so you can always see how you’re doing, from anywhere on the web.

We hope you’ll give the service a try and let us know what you think. I know some issues that will be top of mind are security and privacy. We take those very seriously and you can review our FAQ and privacy policy at the site.

We are confident that our security standards meet or exceed those of existing sites & software. All our site pages are encrypted and we have no access to your LookStat password. All data stored on our servers is encrypted and secure. Both Casey & I will be writing a lot more on this in the near future.

In addition, you should know that we’re eating our own dog food, as it were. We use the service to monitor and track the performance of our own portfolio. Our goal is to create a service that delights our customers (microstock contributors) and helps them take advantage of the growth of this market segment.