Sorry about that - pricing is $12/month or $78 if paid annually. We're going to add it back to the site - it was on the old version of the account create page before we added the new survey (oops).
Yeah, we've analyzed enough data over the years that I think for the most part we can finally move away from this. The trick is keeping up with new applications and websites and understanding how they fit into peoples' work habits but that's a solvable problem, I think.
"tattleware" is the exact opposite direction that we want to go, and this new release is part of us putting our flag down against it. Thank you so much for saying this.
You're totally right - we think it might exclude some of those people, too. We're tracking user feedback, though, and keeping an eye on it. But we just want to make sure we don't promote unhealthy habits with too much detail.
That's a great question. I think it would be better answered by Mark, who is our current CEO - he's been around the longest! Myself and my cofounder left for a few years and came back. I could talk for hours about what that was like, and less about what it was like to be here the entire time. I will say that we achieved profitability very quickly and have had the luxury of sustainability to give us the ability to entirely reimagine our product and relaunch. That's been the motivating factor for me since I've been back: getting to take another stab at solving a problem everyone has with all of the knowledge and data we've accrued over the years. This team is the best I've ever worked with and I'm really proud of what they've been able to do over the years.
In short we track the name of the application you're using, and the window title OR the URL of the website you're on (if you're in a recognized browser). We query the OS to detect what's in focus and whether or not the computer has gone idle to track time spent on a particular thing. We also use crowdsourced data collected over the years to understand what categories applications and websites are (meeting tools, communication tools, design/coding/business tools, etc.)
All of our data is never used individually, only analyzed in aggregate in an anonymized way. We're compliant with GDPR rules.
We're all over the place having started building in 2007. Mostly rails (latest version though!) on mysql, with lots of good old jQuery thrown in. ;) The client stack is cross-platform C++ with platform specific UI on top, including some Swift!
Great note. We're releasing a reworked version of offline time entry next month. Our stand on bringing classic features to this new version involves evaluating how they might work in this new balance-centered mindset. Reports on time spent by app are likely coming back in some form, but we're reworking everything so it's less about hours tracking and more about whether you got your work done. Hopefully that helps explain the reasoning for the differences a bit more.
Sorry - it wasn't our intention to obfuscate it. Pricing is $12/month or $78 if paid annually. Making a note to add it to the front page (it was on the old signup page before the relaunch).
Thanks so much! Super great feeling to think of us as an inspiration. Tony had a LOT to do with this new version - he came back for a little over a year to product manage it himself.
Hm - there might be something wrong with your old account. Checking into it, but things should be working. Can you email help@rescuetime.com and we'll see if we can sort out what's up? Sorry about that!
It might be possible to work that way, none of us have tried it explicitly yet though. That's a great feature suggestion, I'm adding it to the roadmap.
Thanks so much for the support! Yeah YC was a long time ago for us, but we're really happy to be in the family. They've been amazingly supportive over the years.
Wow, thank you so much! We don't have the linux build for this version finished just yet but we get a lot of requests for it, for sure. Honestly hoping to get that build soon - but you're right, we're a small team (13) and so we have to balance priorities. The good news is we recently hired someone who is passionate about linux and we're hoping that'll jumpstart the process and make supporting it easier with this new version.
We don't have the linux build for this version finished just yet - but the good news is we just hired someone who is pretty passionate about linux, so there's good reason to think it'll be prioritized. As for app tracking, we're also rebuilding our mobile apps with this new version in mind. Unfortunately Apple prevents us from doing any app tracking on the iPhone but the android version allows for some of that.
Wow that's great! Thanks for coming back and giving us another go! If you want to migrate your old account, you can do it from here: http://www.rescuetime.com/new_rescuetime
Thanks for the nice note. In the old days we used to get a lot of requests from bosses who wanted to see screenshots of people's computers. We vowed we'd go out of business before building anything like that, and I'm sure we'd lose most of our talent if we asked them to build a product like that. Not to say that someone wouldn't build it, but I don't think it'd be easy to find anyone of quality to help you out.
Requiring sending data to a remote server is definitely something we want to move away from. The good news is our engine is pretty advanced and we're looking at being able to bundle it for a local install. Notes like these help motivate us to prioritize that, so thanks.
Yeah I typoed it in my hurry to respond, fixed. And totally a good idea. It used to be front and center on the signup page and then we entirely reworked our signup flow to have the personalization survey first.
We've decided to launch this version to new users since it's so much different than the old version. We definitely support upgrading, though, just know it's quite different. If you want to migrate, you can go here: http://www.rescuetime.com/new_rescuetime
Fair. Apologies, that wasn't my intention. We're going to do better with this version to prevent that kind of abuse. It's a complete 180 from the analytics tool that enabled that in the past. I'd go as far as to say that we'd disable any account where we heard this was happening. We're committed to preventing this kind of thing from happening in the future. None of us want to contribute to the kind of world where workers are treated that way.
We definitely support that! You can set any number of flexible work zones during your day, and it'll even send you an alert if you work too long in a zone you said you wanted for recharge time. :)
Thanks for the reply - I feel the same way. I'd go as far as to say that if someone forced it on you we'd want to know so we could disable the account. That's not something we want to support at all. This is designed to help individuals set boundaries for their work, especially in a work from home scenario where it would be too easy to work well past the end of an optimal work day.