Keenspot - Keenspace?: Relations?

[Joeymanley]

The Downward Trend:

The traffic flow itself could be remaining relatively the same, the thing is, their rank could be getting knocked down due to any number of reasons. For example, new peeps just getting the internet and unaware of the good websites. This doesnt necessarily indicate a drop in readership

True, true.

It could also reflect a change in the demographic of people who install the Alexa spyware, or even a change in the way Alexa measures traffic (they note in their terms of service that they do make those kinds of changes from time to time, and that artificial fluctuations in individual site's traffic statistics will be the result).

It could also mean that the number of new comics readers are growing at the same pace they always did -- or even growing -- but that there are so many more comics out there that the audience is getting spread out more widely.

I dunno.

I've got deeps reservations about Alexa's methodology. You see that big spike in the Modern Tales traffic listing back in October/November? That happens to coincide with my own installation of the Alexa toolbar. The long drop-off happens to coincide with my de-installation of the Alexa toolbar. And, yes, just a few days ago, I reinstalled Alexa. And MT had a big spike again.

Probably coincidence. Erm. Probably.

I note that MegaTokyo seems to be holding its own during the same six month period.

Joey
http://www.moderntales.com

[RPin]

I think you are still very loyal to KeenSpace.

If Keenspace = Keenspace Forums, then yes.

I see no difference. My loyalty is aimed at the people that makes this a great place to hang around. KeenSpace is not just the webhosting and automation for webcomics. It's also a community, and the community is what I care about.

Certainly looks interesting to say the least. Can't wait to see it completed.

I agree. This will make a nice tool for every and any webcartoonist who, like me, doesn't feel like going indie because is too afraid to be alone in the sea of webcomics.

[Phalanx]

Certainly looks interesting to say the least. Can't wait to see it completed.

I agree. This will make a nice tool for every and any webcartoonist who, like me, doesn't feel like going indie because is too afraid to be alone in the sea of webcomics.

You know, if 4 or more people could just gang up and share one of those big publisher accounts... The costs would be much less and you get your own community to boot!

Come to think of it, 500 megs is a lot of space. And bandwidth is unlimited...

Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all.

Come to think of it, I think webcomicsnation was mentioned in the other thread CC posted in:
viewtopic.php?t=54633&start=140

[RPin]

This is something I'll give a look after my strip completes one year, definitely.

[Ghastly]

How long are we talking until Webcomic Nation becomes a reality? It seems like it would have everything I want. Automation, unlimited bandwidth, plenty of storage space (and expandable too although it would be some time before I'd run out of 500mb of storage even with multiple comics) I take it there's a nameserver to set up multiple URLs on my account. All this is looking pretty good provided, like I said, the service is reliable. It seems to be the best webcomic specific host I've seen.

[Joeymanley]

I'm working like the dickens to get it launched. I promise I'll hype like crazy when I do. I can't make any solid announcement about a launch date yet. I've tried doing that, and have missed it each time. But soon, soon.

Joey
http://www.moderntales.com

[Ghastly]

Well I'd rather have you take your time and get all the bugs worked out of it before hand than start the service half-assed and have it turn into another KeenPrime. Dear god, the stink of that fiasco still permiates these halls.

[Chris Crosby]

No when the issue is "Sexy Losers might offend too many people because it's pornography" then bringing up LWIBH is a very valid argument. Crosby et al have yet to provide a good answer on that one. Shit, bringing up "Sore Thumbs" is a very valid argument. Chris's new comic gets greenlighted for Spot when it's nature is designed to piss off about 50% of the American population. The conservative right that Crosby is so worried about offending with adult humour comics doesn't seem to be an issue when it comes to left leaning political comics.

Advertisers don't have a problem sponsoring THE O'REILLY FACTOR or THE WEST WING. However, I know for a fact that they WOULD have a problem sponsoring said programs if either of them featured a graphic depiction of Jesus Christ having sexual relations. (And that sadly explains why there aren't banner ads on your KeenSPACE site anymore.)

Incompitence is one thing, and it is forgivable to a certain extent, however what we see happening here is downright willful ignorance. They know what the problem is, they know what to do about it. They're sticking their fingers in their ears and singing "lalalalalaaaa I can't hear you" in hopes that by ignoring the problem it will somehow magically go away on it's own.

Some of us at Keenspot do want to make changes, and changes are happening, but they're happening at a snail's pace because a group of people (and very, very busy people, at that) have to decide to make those changes, as opposed to just one person.

Seriously, is it any wonder MT is swallowing up the Keenspace talent pool, especially since Keen is reluctant to admit any talent lies there to begin with.

You exclude the fact that the majority of strips invited to KeenSPOT in the past three years were on (gasp!) KeenSPACE originally. And I, for one, try to read every KeenSPACE strip I can in hopes of spotting the next 'SPOT superstar. (Yesterday I was looking at random 'SPACE strips from the Guide and happened to see one that was doing a SUPEROSITY parody strip that day, of all things.)

Anyways, yes, I can sense Chris Crosby must be getting very fed up about this complaints.

I'm not fed up with the complaints, but I am frustrated that we cannot act on them faster.

I agree with everything Ghastly says, but in the end, it's Crosby company, and who am I to tell him how he should run it?

KeenSPOT is run by four people, each with equal power.

Someone on this thread (Chris maybe -- it's a long thread) mentioned that webcomics traffic generally may have slowed over the past couple of months.

Not me, our traffic is on the upswing.

MT, a subscription-based site, will never be as popular as Keenspot, which is all free. I don't think I'd get any argument there. But it does seem that their traffic is generally going down, while ours is hovering steady, just below (and sometimes peeking above) the top 100,000 sites mark. We've done particularly well this month, actually.

I don't put any stock in Alexa's numbers, especially when it comes to tracking the traffic of Keenspot.com, and especially especially in comparison to moderntales.com's traffic. 90+% of our readers do not visit keenspot.com, and the URLs of most KeenSPOT comics do not include keenspot.com in them, which means that that gigantic mass of readers is not tracked by Alexa as "keenspot.com visitors." (This is the reason that KeenSPACE.com ranks so much higher on Alexa than KeenSPOT.com. Every 'SPACE strip has keenspace.com in their URL.) To compare keenspot.com's traffic to moderntales.com's is fairly pointless because Modern Tales readers MUST visit moderntales.com in order to read MT comics.

Long live Keen! Long live MT! Both businesses are solid, and the success of one does not interfere with the success of the other. Like I've said elsewhere, it's not "Coke vs. Pepsi" so much as it's "Coke vs. Milk" -- we're sort of the same, but we're not, and you'd never want one when you're in the mood for the other.

Ditto.

out of curiosity, I typed in a series of names using googlism, including Chris Crosby. Several were nice. Some were not. This one was the most amusing:

chris crosby is still calling me a dyke from the 5th grade

I have never called anyone a dyke in my life. I assume they're talking about the Chris Crosby who is related to Bing Crosby and who I'm confused with sometimes.

[War]

I have never called anyone a dyke in my life. I assume they're talking about the Chris Crosby who is related to Bing Crosby and who I'm confused with sometimes.

You're not related? Awww. Another childhood dream shattered.

(Yesterday I was looking at random 'SPACE strips from the Guide and happened to see one that was doing a SUPEROSITY parody strip that day, of all things.)

Heh, another person attracted by that semi-naked banner. Someone remind me to do one like that one of these days.[/quote]

[TheGoobla]

Advertisers don't have a problem sponsoring THE O'REILLY FACTOR or THE WEST WING. However, I know for a fact that they WOULD have a problem sponsoring said programs if either of them featured a graphic depiction of Jesus Christ having sexual relations. (And that sadly explains why there aren't banner ads on your KeenSPACE site anymore.)

Sadly? I find it hilarious. Oh right, you and the whole "I do this for a living" thing.

Some of us at Keenspot do want to make changes, and changes are happening, but they're happening at a snail's pace because a group of people (and very, very busy people, at that) have to decide to make those changes, as opposed to just one person.

"That's what happens when you try to get things done by committee. Everything gets all cluttered and confused, and goes along very slowly. Conversely, if things are done by an individual, it comes along far more quickly and effectively, and in the end, is either far more pleasurable for all involved, or only serves to fulfill the needs of the individual at the expense of others."

~ S. Coady, on masturbation vs. intercourse

[BD]

No when the issue is "Sexy Losers might offend too many people because it's pornography" then bringing up LWIBH is a very valid argument. Crosby et al have yet to provide a good answer on that one. Shit, bringing up "Sore Thumbs" is a very valid argument. Chris's new comic gets greenlighted for Spot when it's nature is designed to piss off about 50% of the American population. The conservative right that Crosby is so worried about offending with adult humour comics doesn't seem to be an issue when it comes to left leaning political comics.

Advertisers don't have a problem sponsoring THE O'REILLY FACTOR or THE WEST WING. However, I know for a fact that they WOULD have a problem sponsoring said programs if either of them featured a graphic depiction of Jesus Christ having sexual relations. (And that sadly explains why there aren't banner ads on your KeenSPACE site anymore.)
[/qoute]

Chris, your arguement seems sound and is well thought out, but there is a fatal flaw to it. This flaw I speak of are those J-list ads that run on a high frequency on all of Keenspot's sites, public sites that we assume have no need for an age warning. Chris, these ads are usually borderline pornographic, and I've seen them cross that line more than once, with the anime girls displayed on them fondling each other and exposing their nipples. So are these the same advertisers who would have a problem sponsoring comics like Ghastly or Sexy Losers?

Now, I understand you may not have a lot of control over what ads run on Keenspot, I'm just pointing out Keen is being sponsored by a company that unarguably sells highly adult material. The arguement that your sponsors wouldn't support comics like Ghastly when one of them sells material far, FAR more adult than anything I've seen on Ghastly, well, you see what I'm saying.

[RPin]

Kisai's suggestion still seems to be the best one.

We need a way to sort our comics according to the content, so advertisers can choose best which sites are going to display their banners.

[Terotrous]

No when the issue is "Sexy Losers might offend too many people because it's pornography" then bringing up LWIBH is a very valid argument. Crosby et al have yet to provide a good answer on that one. Shit, bringing up "Sore Thumbs" is a very valid argument. Chris's new comic gets greenlighted for Spot when it's nature is designed to piss off about 50% of the American population. The conservative right that Crosby is so worried about offending with adult humour comics doesn't seem to be an issue when it comes to left leaning political comics.

Advertisers don't have a problem sponsoring THE O'REILLY FACTOR or THE WEST WING. However, I know for a fact that they WOULD have a problem sponsoring said programs if either of them featured a graphic depiction of Jesus Christ having sexual relations. (And that sadly explains why there aren't banner ads on your KeenSPACE site anymore.)

This is the worst argument I've ever heard. Let's break it down:

- Advertisers don't want to advertise on Ghastly's site? Why not?
- Because they're afraid people will look at Ghastly's site, be offended by it, and then associate them with the offending material and never buy their products again.
- First of all, this requires that someone who is easily offended is going through Ghastly's archives. Unlikely. Secondly, this person has to make the connection between the content on the page and the advertisement found therein, probably for some university or something.
- I'll be extremely liberal and say that 1% of Ghastly's visitors might fall into this pattern.
- And this only matters if they originally would have been interested in that product or service anyway.

Doesn't seem like life-threatening odds to me. Especially as compared to the number of people who hate banners and won't ever click on them. I also have a hard time believing that this is the most offensive thing ever to be on keenspace.

[Chris Crosby]

Heh, another person attracted by that semi-naked banner. Someone remind me to do one like that one of these days

I don't know what that means.

Chris, your arguement seems sound and is well thought out, but there is a fatal flaw to it. This flaw I speak of are those J-list ads that run on a high frequency on all of Keenspot's sites, public sites that we assume have no need for an age warning. Chris, these ads are usually borderline pornographic, and I've seen them cross that line more than once, with the anime girls displayed on them fondling each other and exposing their nipples. So are these the same advertisers who would have a problem sponsoring comics like Ghastly or Sexy Losers?

No, those would be the advertisers who DON'T feature ads with anime girls fondling each other or exposing nipples. (Though it should be noted that I'VE never seen either of those things in the J-LIST ads that WE run. I think if we were running ads like that we would've gotten a lot of complaints by this point, both from readers and cartoonists. Advertisers tend to pay more attention to the content they advertise on than to the content of the other ads appearing alongside them.)

The arguement that your sponsors wouldn't support comics like Ghastly when one of them sells material far, FAR more adult than anything I've seen on Ghastly, well, you see what I'm saying.

Yes, but that doesn't mean anything unless ALL of our advertisers were selling adult material. The vast majority aren't. Just J-LIST, as far as I know. And they account for a small portion of our ad revenue.

This is the worst argument I've ever heard... Let's break it down...
- First of all, this requires that someone who is easily offended is going through Ghastly's archives. Unlikely.

Unlikely, but TRUE! IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED! One of our biggest advertisers (if not our biggest, I don't have those stats handy) somehow saw GHASTLY's Jesus-has-sex comic and immediately threatened to cancel its entire account with KeenSPOT if we did not remove their ads from GHASTLY's site by 5:30pm EST that day. We complied, as the loss of that ad revenue would be a MAJOR blow to the company. That is why GHASTLY has no ads on his site.

I also have a hard time believing that this is the most offensive thing ever to be on keenspace.

This is one point I agree with you on. We have no way of knowing, because it's nigh-impossible to read 6,084 comics, none of which have been approved by any editorial entity. This is the reason I've always had big misgivings about running any paid advertising on KeenSPACE at all.

That's been a necessity in the past in order to pay our server bills in times of trouble, but after the GHASTLY situation happened, I proposed to the Keen Four that we remove ALL paid ads from 'SPACE sites and just run in-house advertising. We're still debating the matter internally. It would be a large loss of revenue, as 'SPACE generates about 20 million pageviews monthly, but I still support the idea.

My proposal to the group included the idea that we be more actively vigilant as a policy in promoting 'SPACE sites to KeenSPOT. Doing just that would trim KeenSPACE pageviews down to 5-10 million pageviews monthly. The Top 25 'SPACE sites account for about 40% of 'SPACE's total pageviews, most of them are of a high enough quality (though I hate to use that term, subjective as it is) to get a 'SPOT invitation, and only 7 of them are rated "NC-17."

We need a way to sort our comics according to the content, so advertisers can choose best which sites are going to display their banners.

Darren also suggested this internally, and it would be a great thing if it could be done. Is Kisai working on this? Is it possible that the content and age rating programming that's gone into the Guide be used for it?

[Brockway]

No, those would be the advertisers who DON'T feature ads with anime girls fondling each other or exposing nipples. (Though it should be noted that I'VE never seen either of those things in the J-LIST ads that WE run. I think if we were running ads like that we would've gotten a lot of complaints by this point, both from readers and cartoonists. Advertisers tend to pay more attention to the content they advertise on than to the content of the other ads appearing alongside them.)

This was on LWIBH.

[TheGoobla]

Heh, another person attracted by that semi-naked banner. Someone remind me to do one like that one of these days

I don't know what that means.

We'll tell you when you're older, dear.

[Terotrous]

This is the worst argument I've ever heard... Let's break it down...
- First of all, this requires that someone who is easily offended is going through Ghastly's archives. Unlikely.

Unlikely, but TRUE! IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED! One of our biggest advertisers (if not our biggest, I don't have those stats handy) somehow saw GHASTLY's Jesus-has-sex comic and immediately threatened to cancel its entire account with KeenSPOT if we did not remove their ads from GHASTLY's site by 5:30pm EST that day. We complied, as the loss of that ad revenue would be a MAJOR blow to the company. That is why GHASTLY has no ads on his site.

I know it happened. I was talking about the descision of the advertiser to pull the ads.

I also have a hard time believing that this is the most offensive thing ever to be on keenspace.

This is one point I agree with you on. We have no way of knowing, because it's nigh-impossible to read 6,084 comics, none of which have been approved by any editorial entity. This is the reason I've always had big misgivings about running any paid advertising on KeenSPACE at all.

That's been a necessity in the past in order to pay our server bills in times of trouble, but after the GHASTLY situation happened, I proposed to the Keen Four that we remove ALL paid ads from 'SPACE sites and just run in-house advertising. We're still debating the matter internally. It would be a large loss of revenue, as 'SPACE generates about 20 million pageviews monthly, but I still support the idea.

I'd reccomend against that. Banner ads don't work. It's amazing people will pay to have them be run at all. I'd just sit back and take their money.

We need a way to sort our comics according to the content, so advertisers can choose best which sites are going to display their banners.

Darren also suggested this internally, and it would be a great thing if it could be done. Is Kisai working on this? Is it possible that the content and age rating programming that's gone into the Guide be used for it?

If you wanted a quick solution, just make a ***adult_advertising*** tag that runs the ads that you want on the adult sites.

[Chris Crosby]

This was on LWIBH.

Ah, I stand corrected (there's a lot of things to look at in that ad). I believe that's an ad we gave each strip an opt-out option on and are running primarily on adult-aimed 'SPOT strips (like LWIBH!).

I know it happened. I was talking about the descision of the advertiser to pull the ads.

Oh, I see. Well, if only every advertiser had exactly the same thought process as Terotrous, life would be a bed of roses. Unfortunately, there are business realities to deal with.

[BD]

No, those would be the advertisers who DON'T feature ads with anime girls fondling each other or exposing nipples. (Though it should be noted that I'VE never seen either of those things in the J-LIST ads that WE run. I think if we were running ads like that we would've gotten a lot of complaints by this point, both from readers and cartoonists. Advertisers tend to pay more attention to the content they advertise on than to the content of the other ads appearing alongside them.)

This was on LWIBH.

Thanks, I was about to put this up myself.

Chris, I've seen this ad running on several 'Spot sites on a pretty high rotation. I'm honestly surprised no one's complained about the J-list ads yet, but it's probably a good thing they haven't(Just to set the record, I'm not offended by the ad, it just seems to be some fairly explicit content for an ad running on public websites).

The exposed nipple one I haven't seen in awhile, but it did run on the Keenspot sites, trust me.

Anywho, J-list aside, I understand you've got to keep the majority of your sponsors happy. If one of the companies preassured you to take their ads off Ghastly, well, sometimes you do have to sacrafice a toe to save the foot. My point was one of your sponsors was running ads on your sites that could be potentially offensive, so it just struck me as a double standard at the time. I appreciate you explaining your position.

[Ghastly]

However, I know for a fact that they WOULD have a problem sponsoring said programs if either of them featured a graphic depiction of Jesus Christ having sexual relations. (And that sadly explains why there aren't banner ads on your KeenSPACE site anymore.)

So you yanked the ads off my site, but not off Fat Jesus? Sheeesh!

Incidently, it wasn't Jesus graphically depicted having sexual relations, it was Chick-Boy's idealised Aryan vision of Jesus.

Man. With all the tentacled loving, shemale shinanigans, and homoerotica on my site it's the picture of a long-haired blonde guy with a beard having missionary position sex that makes Keen yank the ads.

So how many complaints did you get? I got none. Granted the week before I did get one, and only one, and a mild one at that.

Instead of yanking the ads of all the pages why not just yank the ads off of that one?