What is the Keenspot business model that makes it so legitimate and poised to take advantage of the changing environment.

From what I can see, it's the same business model of about every other online content site.

Quality Online Comics!? I say leave them to the artsy-fartsy! What we need is more profitable Online Comics! In other words -- we need more fart jokes!

[img]/resources/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

This has been a satirical comment designed to take up space and nothing more.

Jamie


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Clan of the Cats
http://clanofthecats.com

"Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat."
- Mark Twain

As far as I can tell, Keenspot uses a traditional banner ad revenue model.

High profile sites that relied upon similar models, such as Suck (supposedly the first on-line magazine) and Salon have either failed, or are failing. (Salon has since switched to a subscription model...and still seems to be taking on water.)

Has Keenspot been able, thus far, to keep going based entirely upon ad revenue?

I'm curious as to how people see web comics surviving in the future...I know there's a new poll on Talk About Comics asking whether or not you would pay for comics. Is that really the revenue of the future?

Personally, I think that in the late 90's, our fascination with the internet grossly inflated its commercial worth. There is a value to business on the web...I just think that the current "slump" is more indicitive of that value.

One of the big factors in the internet economy of the future, will be telecommunications consolidation. As media giants start to swallow up ISPs, I think we'll witness a mutation in the basic structure of the internet.

If you are a subscriber to AOL, you might find that all Time-Warner sites can be accessed for a small monthly fee, but other sites will be by subscription only. (Similar to Pay channels for cable tv.)

While this will certainly damage the internet at large, this forced subscription model could prove to be a boon to smaller, independent web sites, such as Keenspot.

Thoughts? (Or am I high as a kite?)

-bryant paul johnson
Tragi-Comix

The reason Sinfest and PVP are successful are because they are good comics. People are stupid, but they aren't *that* stupid! [img]/resources/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

The future of career-building comics? Merchandise, man. Merchandise. You think Charles M. Schulz was one of the richest guys around solely because of the numbers of newspapers Peanuts was in?

(Of course, his level [or any level] of success requires a certain level of reader loyalty first. You can't attract bees with vinegar.)

--David www.itswalky.com

Just popping in to answer some burning questions...

Scott:

>Yeah. It doesn't make sense that his >numbers would drop. But extreme tracking
>is working great for me, so I figured it
>wasn't a problem with extreme tracking.

Extreme is generally a great uniques counter, but it's not in this case, and I'll explain why. As we all probably know, BigPanda.net has been offline for about two months. You'll notice that Sinfest's Extreme counter unique numbers dropped by about 5-10,000 uniques a day the moment that BigPanda.net ceased to exist, and it's not because BigPanda was sending him that much traffic (BP.net only got about 2-3,000 uniques a day total).

It appears that the BigPanda.net javascript dropdown code that Tatsuya has in the HTML directly below his strip (view the HTML source and you'll see it) is keeping the rest of the page from loading for an extended period of time, so a good chunk of his readership isn't loading the Extreme tracker (which is, of course, at the very bottom of his homepage). Extreme may say he has about 15,000 daily readers, but according to our internal stats it's more like 25-30,000.

Bryant:

>As far as I can tell, Keenspot uses a >traditional banner ad revenue model.

No, our business model is actually virtually identical to Mr. Kurtz and PvP. We publish comic books (ROOMIES! #1 on sale this Wednesday!), we're producing toys (ELF LIFE Sprite toy prototype photo in ROOMIES! #1 comic book on sale this Wedneaday!), we syndicate content (just got L&F INVESTIGATIONS into a popular crime magazine), we sell premium online subscriptions (does Mr. Kurtz do this yet?), and... we sell advertising on our sites (banner ads and more). Scott Kurtz is our role model.

We're not perfect, obviously, but we're not idiots either. We're not taking anything lying down, and we ain't going no where.

Live long and prosper.

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Chris Crosby
Co-CEO, Keenspot Entertainment ( http://www.keenspot.com )
Cartoonist, SUPEROSITY ( http://www.superosity.com )

Chris, I wasn't trying to infer that you guys didn't know what you were doing. Obviously, given that many other successful (in terms of visitor numbers) sites were closing, I figured that you were doing something unique.

I've noticed sites such as Salon and the New York Times On-line have started to use more invasive forms of advertising. (Flash ads that actually momentarily obscure the page's content for the later, and entire page ads for the former.)

When I said it looked like you were using a traditional banner ad model, I was thinking in terms of the on site advertising. (And of course, being oblivious to the more subtle means of money making done in the background.)

Anyway, sorry for the unintentional dis.

-bryant paul johnson
Tragi-Comix

(a.) then why the hell does Sinfest still have PandaCode? [img]/resources/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

(b.) how can we as cartoonists support the creation of a new, non-partisan site to fill the PandaVoid?

(c.) scotty, i was just playing "positive spin-meister" - think of me as Glorious Godfrey to your Granny Goodness. [img]/resources/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

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http://www.clango.org

Okay. Thank you THAT makes perfect sense. That explains it. Wow. I should have seen that.




That's not exactly true.



The question is, are those revenue sources currently generating more monthly income then your costs?

On a side note, Congratulations to Lost and Found Investigations and Matt Milligan. Nothing could make me happier than to hear that Matt's work has made print.

Matt, don't give a cent of the money you earn from that print gig to Keenspot. That's your comic strip, you do all the work and you should reap all the benefits.

WHOO HOO MATT!!!!

I don't think Sinfest's page has changed one small detail since I first saw it years ago. He has that much traffic when he doesn't participate in it much at all. THAT'S a great strip. [img]/resources/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

(Some people jump up and down and left and right to no avail! Then again, maybe the mystique of Tat is what keeps people coming back. Heh heh.)

And on the other topic, Keenspot is around because it operates financially like I do. No deficit spending. Those other sites that went crawling back to their mothers were doing so because they spent their millions of investment bucks with no return. Ha ha.

No debt, no worry.

And besides, we work rain or shine.

--David
Yay, yes, Roomies #1 is out Wednesday! www.itswalky.com aka Roomies!

Bryant:

No dis taken, thanks.

That Crazy Diesel Sweeties Guy:

>(a.) then why the hell does Sinfest still
>have PandaCode?

I dunno, I E-Mailed Tatsuya about it. Maybe he's still holding out hope that Big Panda will someday return. Or, like me, he's kind of lazy.

(Did I answer this earlier? I'm getting deja vu.)

>(b.) how can we as cartoonists support the
>creation of a new, non-partisan site to
>fill the PandaVoid?

Like anything good, someone with the know-how has gotta actually sit down and put it together. I'd love to see another BigPanda-type site. Especially if it updates regularly. Keenspot wanted to do one really early on, but we were way too busy and it wasn't a top priority. That continues to be the case.

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Chris Crosby
Co-CEO, Keenspot Entertainment ( http://www.keenspot.com )
Cartoonist, SUPEROSITY ( http://www.superosity.com )