Journal

Mention at Penny Arcade…

38 Comments

Y’all might be interested in reading this:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2005-04-15#braying

It pretty much speaks for itself. And before you ask, the answer is “yes, I gave Tycho permission to reprint my email.”

Now I just need it to get picked up by CNN. 🙂

–Howard

38 thoughts on “Mention at Penny Arcade…”

  1. …your email intrigues me.

    I’m beginning to wonder whether I should be putting a spin-off on Keenspot at all.

      2. The more research I’m doing, the more I’m seeing the only ‘pro’ is that I don’t have to pay for webhosting. I may email you. Or if you have AIM, let me know.

        2. I used to host domains and websites for people as far back as ’97 primarily because it was impossible to get cheap DNS or webhosting that didn’t involve tripod and I just couldn’t stand to see friends do that sort of thing. Seems like the same sort of thing these days with keenspot – Yes, they make it easy to get going and sometimes that is all an artist needs, but with a little know-how and effort you’re far, far better off without. =/

      3. I poked a little around your site (long time fan, btw) and it looks like the it’s built off-line since I don’t see any content generator tags nor does Apache spit out much on it’s 404s to betray anything more than an html slinger. Is that indeed what you’re doing? I figured you were still using some content management package.

        The reason I ask is I’m an HTML::Mason junkie (sort of like PHP for Perl) and love writing those kinds of things (yeah, sick hobby). My projects thus far have been relatively low traffic (few thousand hits/mo. max) and I’d like to get another real-world perspective on how well whatever you’re doing works. I talked up a storm with Philip from Goats a couple Comic-Cons ago since they also use Mason, but I’d appreciate anything you can offer.

        My day-job involves configuration management architecture and image development for a tech. company in San Diego, so while writing backends for this sort of stuff may not really be easy per se, it is a little more well defined. =)

        1. You need to talk to about it. He’s coded up a very, very shiny engine for content management, and because it spits out static html it’ll work with ANY webhost. And it’s fast. My entire archives can be refreshed in less than a minute from the word “go.”

          –Howard

      2. Heh. I didn’t get it until an hour later….

        (I think I have a confession that needs making in your mojo thread, related to why I am fried.)

  3. From now on I am going to click on every one of those “Ads By Google” ads each day I read your strip.

    I think I might even be the first person to try and start over from day one and retroactively click on everything up to this point. 🙂

    Loxley

    1. Please don’t. Google has these fancy algaerhythms for separating the spurious from the serious clicks. The last thing I want is for my click-throughs to go waaaaay up suddenly, and for them to think I’m telling people to click on ads.

      Which I’m not.

      The only circumstances under which you should click on an ad are when you’re honestly interested in what’s being advertised.

      2. Ah….

        However, who are we to say we AREN’T interested in something until we’ve checked it out completely? 🙂

  4. ::picks jaw up off of floor::

    I will keep this in mind if my site ever, ever turns into something more then a hobby site run for mine and my family’s personal benefit..

    And it might. I’ve been getting requests for gallery space for picture hosting…

  6. I am designing a website for a travel cooperative and I just got off the phone with one of the founding members about using Google Ads. I’ve been trying to look for amount of revenue generated in reference to clicks without actually signing up, so I can report that amout to him. He’s a very cautious person, but a very successful businessman.

    I don’t know if it’s because of my current migraine, but I can’t find the revenue information on the AdSense site myself. If you wouldn’t mind helping me to get or point me to this information, I would appreciate it. My email is mamaslyth at gmail dot com.

    Thanks.

    1. The best way to get good data is to sign up and run some tests. My Terms of Service with Google preclude me sharing click-through numbers, or anything statistically significant.

      Sorry!

      –Howard

      1. I was afraid that. Thanks, anyway. I was able to give my client a rough estimate through some investigation and deduction.

        It really won’t matter in his case, because this is a side venture for him and he has more than enough investments that he could live a life of ease, if he so chose to. He just likes being busy.

        Me, on the other hand, am getting a percentage of the site revenue, so it’s more in my interest to push for stuff like this. I’ll give him what I have and hope for the best.

        Thanks again for the reply.

    1. Well, there’s this axe, you see? It’s gotten dull, and it belongs to Tycho, and he’s grinding it.

      Okay, seriously: Tycho and Gabe both have issues with Keenspot. They don’t like the way that Keenspot, in their eyes, makes lots of money while Keenspot cartoonists do not. I was led to understand that in the early days of Keenspot they were invited to come aboard, they said no, and they’ve never looked back. I could be wrong, though.

      And now I’ll get myself in REALLY hot water and say that I think Scott Kurtz feels the same way. He wants to see cartoonists succeed, and he doesn’t think Keenspot is a good path for that. Thus, when anybody asks, he’ll be kind of outspoken.

      And he has an axe too, or so I’ve been led to understand.

      Me, I just want to make a living at this. The publicity is nice, and I share the belief that most good cartoonists should be able to make more than they currently make (whether they’re KeenSpotters, Drunk Ducks, or Modern Tales, or Dumbrellans, or indies, or whatever), and that the Google Adsense information is worth putting into the community toward that goal.

      –Howard

      1. Keenspot is at a transitional state where it’s a great boon for meager comics, but it doesn’t absolutely benefit those who reach a certain degree of popularity. It’s with those popular ones that I can see Tycho’s argument having some merit.
        There’s a lot of other KS strips (like mine) who’re comfortable where they are, though.
        I dunno’. It just seems like when Tycho, Kurtz, etc. make these comments, it hurts the strips they’re trying to defend against the tyranny of KS.
        Thanks guys. Making KS unpopular helps me a lot. \:)

        This is probably an exaggeration and my biscuits aren’t terribly burned over it. Just seems funny (not Ha Ha funny) to me.

        1. Oh, hey.

          I had to go sniffing around to figure out who you were – and now that I know, your original comment makes much more sense.

          Negative publicity among our reading public does little harm. Maybe one person in 100 will say “I refuse to read Keenspot strips because of blah blah blah.” Most folks will or won’t read your strip because of how it makes them feel when they read it — regardless of what somebody else said about the company that hosts it.

          That said… if Keenspot can’t figure out how to be a continual benefit to strips who HAVE reached this “certain degree of popularity,” then over time it will lose them. That will negatively impact Keenspot’s ability to benefit smaller comics. If Kurtz’, Tycho’s, or even MY newsposts result in increased dissatisfaction among the “big name” strips at Keenspot, then yes, those comments will have direct negative impact on you.

          I was crushed when Greg Dean left Keenspot. I felt betrayed. And I know now exactly how HE was feeling when he left. I feel bad for the folks whose strips won’t benefit from my presence (boy do I sound high and mighty now!) but for business reasons I HAVE to move on.

          Funny Farm is a good comic strip. I think it could have lots more readers with good promotion, and the “automatic” promotion you get at Keenspot probably isn’t good enough. But if you’re comfortable with the size of your audience and the size of your paychecks, there’s no reason to stress over it.

          –Howard

          1. I’m waiting to see what Keenspot does to retain those who get to ‘that certain degree of popularity.’

  9. The google ads are indeed much better. In all the time I’ve been reading keenspace and keenspot comics (which is a lot, and not just to boost my own stats!) I think I’ve only once had my interest piqued enough to click on one of the ads. And half the time clicking the ads can be downright dangerous for your computer, though Gav does he best to try and get rid of those.
    Google ads are a much different story. Ads targetted to the same kind of stuff I’m looking at are much better. Heck, I was just attracted by an advert by a book about the theory of everything.

    1. If you have the mad skillz for self-hosting and automation, you’re better off doing it yourself. If you go to Keenspace you get zip, zilch, nada for money. At least with self-hosting and Google ads you’ll see a few bucks.

      And those few bucks will inspire you to Get Busy on marketing your strip yourself.

      1. I see. Also, I’ve heard something to the effect that bandwidth costs will not normally exceed the income made by a independently-hosted site unless it sees numbers like MT or PA. Do the Google ads ameliorate this somewhat?

        In another frame of mind: congrats on what is essentially a PA plug. 😉

        1. Ech, that probably sounds convoluted. What I mean to ask is: is the revenue you rake in from Google hits alone less than enough, enough or more than enough to defray your cost of hosting?

          2. That’s for certain.

            Heck, I run the server for the Kingdom of An Tir in the SCA. We’ve got a dedicated 2GHz celeron with a terabyte of traffic per month for $89/mo USD. Cheap like borscht.

      2. Though you do have to past the 50,000 pageviews threshold first. Also a little known fact is that you can have google ads on your keenspace site. The keenspace ToS does allow you have other ads on your site as well as the keenspace ads.
        The only iffy part is googles ToS. Though since keenspaces ads aren’t content targetted and are images as opposed to text ads, it may be allowable.

        1. Good point. 50,000 page-views per month is something like 1/50th of what I’m currently doing. At those levels, Google Adsense revenue vs Keenspace revenue will be the difference between a Big Mac combo meal, and a Big Mac without the fries and the drink.

          Still, I stand by my earlier point: HAVING a couple of bucks each month allows you to SEE how much you could make if you had more readers, and that will inspire you to GET those readers.

          –Howard

Comments are closed.