Nice Revamp.

Aremis · Posted: Wed May 05, 2004 4:43 pm Post subject:

And by the way - I already posted a link to a hosting company that would save you money on Server and Bandwidth costs.

I dont know if you are running your own server --- But that is the most expensive way, although the quickest and easiest way to do things.
Alowing hositng through a proffesional company would definetly alleviate a lot of the costs.

if yu want to email me personally and let me know what kind of bandwidth you are using on a monthly basis, I could pass it by Zynet and see what he can offer in terms of a fee.

Just a thought...Maybe then you could save money on a small level.

And at the risk of soundng unpopular...
Why pay Moderators anything? I know that sounds harsh...But just a question...I have been a moderator for Apple for 4 years now. they dont offer anything other than the fact you hear things before everyone else. And if I didnt want to do it for free anymore, there are hundreds ready right behind me willing to do it for free.

Not sure if you pay them all...or all the time for that matter...but I wouldnt pay them. But again...My two cents...Just sending ideas, and keeping good vibes.
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sandmarine · Posted: Wed May 05, 2004 8:05 pm Post subject:

"I wouldn't pay the moderators"?? heh heh, unpopular would the nicest word moderators would think of that

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DTHUREGRIF · Site Admin Joined: Jun 05, 2001 Posts: 462

Thanks, Aremis, but we've got pretty much the best hosting deal we can get.

SysAdmin · Site Admin Joined: Apr 12, 2004 Posts: 78

Especially with a cabinet full of equipment.

Ariah81 · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 5:44 am Post subject:

A very interesting discussion (under a misleading title;))

Actually, I must add just a few words concerning onlinecomics.net and their way of hosting the pay-per-page comics. I admit that I do have a comic there and that some people do pay to read. Not great money, but great satisfaction. You can actually SEE that people are willing to pay 15 cents per page of the thing You did. Very motivating.

But the big plus of that is that the onlinecomics host the pages themselves. I don't have to upload them to my server.

Still, I run a free comic and plan another one, totally free of charge. It's not that i'm chasing money (again: what money?)

The idea Modern Tales do, like hosting a comic, free to read on daily basis, only the archives are accessible after buying a subscription, seems interesting. The comic creator has to buy a server space from the host, than he or she will get money accordingly to the number of people willing to read the archives. Risky for the creator but not for the host, as the money for the space is paid. Year after year.

Oh, just a few words from me. Kind of a newbe at the forum.
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Aremis · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 6:19 am Post subject:

Now that is an idea that strikes a good chord. Read an issue, a few days or a week or something posted, but once it hits the archives, you need a membership, but yet the hosting company (Say for instance Animotions) gets paid either way, even if you dont have a viewership.

Now that is something I life. It allows the artist to make his own decision on wheteher he wants to try and make money, if he does, then its up to him to promote it and get the people in, but yet the server team makes money either way.

That is a good idea.

But then, no one cares what I say now lol =)

And hey - Sandmarine - I dont worry if Im unpopular with forum hosts. Considering this is the first time I have personally heard of one being paid on any sight (Not that it is the only one...just the first time I myself have heard of such a thing), if they find me unpopular, too bad for them =)

Cause Im a hell of a sweet guy lol
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Ariah81 · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 6:45 am Post subject:

I'm glad You liked the idea, Aremis. It has one drawback for me: not having a credit card and not being able to make a PayPal account (no accounts for my country, sorry), I cannot buy the space I'd like.

If I could, i'd be offering my comic on Modern Tales;)
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Calypso · Forum Newbie Joined: Jan 10, 2003 Posts: 8 Location: NYC

Sharby · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 8:42 am Post subject: Re: Nice Revamp.

Fine I'll throw in my feeble opinion too....

The "PayPerView" as I'm going to call it would definitely have to be revamped, like Orca stated most of our images are character based, unless we pay Marvel and DC a kick back, and that cost would be just about as much as the legal suit would be.

But I do like the archive bit, once archived you can pay to view or download it as a zip file pdf whatever. The host is recouping some money off the renting of the server space, but then again when the hosts space is maxed out that'll be additional cost for them to acquire more storage, which means if people are PPVing, renting the space, things start to grow....that'll be additional bandwidth cost... ????

What about (in addition to any PPV) site services....Animotions t-shirts or mousepads, mousepads with an individuals image printed on them, large format printouts of their images, stuff of that nature. (sorry my bro-inlaw is in the t-shirt mpad business).

Don't worry Aremis... I still like you, of course it could be that whole "Alice" thing I don't know... :wink:

sandmarine · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 11:38 am Post subject:

I still like Aremis too, so don't worry, bro!

I knew my friend Ariah was going to hit the nail in the head... that sounds like an excellent idea, I just would like to know what Sysadmin thinks of that regarding the technical part.

and Sharby's merchandising idea sounds cool too... I was thinking of making t-shirts with some characters of my comics through cafepress.com, but they are really limited (only white t-shirts?) and the cut for the vendor is really low (you make a like 1 dollar out of a 20 dollar shirt).

If there was a way for animotions to sell merchandise directly (without resourcing to cafepress), then that would be sweet.. but probably, on-demand t-shirt and mousepad printing is too expensive. I mean, printing 1000 t-shirts with the face of one of my characters should be pretty cheap as a unit, but printing just 1 is for sure gonna be expensive as hell.

Probably Sharby can enlighten us a bit more about this.
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Aremis · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 11:45 am Post subject: Re: Nice Revamp.

I like the idea of the Mousepad, T-Shirt idea, along with archiving. But you're right, and I didnt think of it, if it takes off, heavier bandwidth problems, more storage space needed, once again it gets into the higher cost of things. Good point.

What about Porn? lol.
Actually, what about the idea of a calendar? A contest for the best images, thirteen month calendar, image per page, can also be used for advertising for the Animotions team, as well as a great keepsake to be bought by people.

I know Rosity did the calendar thing, but dont know if it went off well or not.

What about partnering? Sharing costs, space, bandwidth with another company, even if it's not really related to the same topic, but that wants to save money? I do the same for all my movie projects, by partnering with other film companies, to save on booking shooting locations in the city (Major cost there...damn city officials...), renting cameras, lighting rigs, even sharing use of and payment of certain staff, like grips, ect.
It has cut my production budget from a 6 figure per project down to a 5 figure per project, and keeps my investors happy happy happy.

Just another idea from the badmouthing muskateer.
Hate me or love me...you cant ignore me.

sandmarine · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 11:56 am Post subject:

Alright, we won't ignore you.

Hey, don't wanna go so offtopic here, can't you just shoot in the city and that's it? I saw Lost in Translation and I think that Sofia Coppola and company just went to Shibuya and shot there right in the spot, without asking any sort of permissions, only watching around in case they saw the cops coming.

Then again i might be wrong... and then again probably that can go on only in japan.

Anyway, still waiting for Sysadmin's take on Ariah's idea.
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SysAdmin · Site Admin Joined: Apr 12, 2004 Posts: 78

There is no technical problem creating a pay archive. And as long as all the content is original, there is no legal problem.

The problem is human behavior, if I understand the proposal correctly. The most common behavior we observe here is -- come by on the weeked to download the freebies and leave.

So, if issue 1 is free until issue 2 comes out, and issue 1 goes in the archives, it will already have been copied and there is never any reason to pay for the archives.

Or am I not understanding the proposal?

sandmarine · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 12:42 pm Post subject:

Ok, that's why I was waiting on sysadmin's take on the idea, because even though I still think the idea is great, I knew there was something about it I could not pinpoint, and sysadmin did.

Sysadmin, I think you got the proposal right, we just hadn't seen the human behaviour factor.

I didn't think of that: what if people starts reading the comic for free on week 1, they continue reading for free on week 2, and so on and so on. There won't be any earnings with those people because they'll never need the archives... only new users who discover the comics on issue #25 will PROBABLY want to read the archives...

but, what happens if johnd goes in the forums and say "hey, I just found ComicX #25 and I really like it blahblahblahblah".... then some "sharing soul" PMs him and say "hey, I have saved all the previous issues and have them in my geocities site, go check them out".

I know that the same pattern could be applied with pay-per-page comics, with one difference:

on the "free comics, paid archive", you never paid for the page you saved anyway, because you got it on the week it was free... therefore, sharing sounds more logical. On the pay-per-page system, you actually had to pay a subscription/fee to view the page. It's gonna be harder that out of your heart you give other people something for free when you actually had to pay for it.

I hadn't seen all this... I guess that's what discussions are for, though

But what about the merchandising idea... does that sounds like a good idea or not really?
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SysAdmin · Site Admin Joined: Apr 12, 2004 Posts: 78

Neither Diane nor I are expert on selling hard goods. The usual problem is buying inventory, and we don't want to do that. After the store and the comix section are done, I may have time to look into supporting hard goods sales.

If anyone here knows the ins and outs of selling hard goods on-demand, let me know. I know there have to be companies that support that kind of sales model, but we just have no idea who they are.