Project Wonderful advertising

[reinder]

I'm interested in running ads served by Project Wonderful, a potentially nifty ad service run by Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics and Oh No Robot. It seems to be doing well, though so far I've only seen ads for other webcomics served through the network. Its approach appears to be the polar opposite to Speechbubble's, working in a way that favours smaller advertisers.
Could PW be added to the provisional approved ad networks list?

BTW the Talk About Comics Blog is devoting quite a bit of space lately to new players in the online advertising industry, and it looks more and more like the practices that made the last generation of online advertisers so distasteful are going the way of the dinosaur. Except that no kids will ever think popup ads are awesome death machines.

[Xepher]

Well go with "conditional approval" again this time, as they are such a new service. Looking through the site, I don't see any policy about what sorts of ads they allow/disallow either. I assume it's just those button-style ads they show in terms of format, but as for content... judging from their attitude I think they'll be sane about it, but if ads for porn sites or sex toys start popping up, that wouldn't be good.

So yeah, give it a try for now, and let me know how it works out.

[reinder]

I can refuse porn ads*) on a case-by-case basis from within their system**). Shouldn't be a problem.

*) Or any other ads I don't like.
**) Or I should say, I will be able to do so, once I get an invite to set up ad space on my site. I have no idea how long that will take.

[fesworks]

Sounds interesting. I might do this... maybe...

Also, Reinder, sorry you fell out of the Lazy Grind

[reinder]

's all right. I chose to, because at 13 hours a page, I'd ruin myself if I continued. Better to have some time off to steadily work on new pages.

[fesworks]

whoa! 13 hours per page?!?! Is that just drawing or is that including brainstorming and coming up with a script for that strip?... though I'd think that your story seems to be written out way ahead of time... I should really time myself to see how long mine takes... but man 13 hours? whoa.

[reinder]

That's just from the moment I tear off a Bristol sheet till the moment it is posted in the update queue. Yes, it surprised me too; before my long break, pages took 8 to 10 hours, max. I've never been fast, but now I've got slower. Writing, including the many rewrites, is not included.

Wanna time yourself while working on a ROCR guest comic? I'm still looking for a few good guests...

[fesworks]

I won't be able to do a Fan art for YOUR comic until I read the archive to get a better understanding of the characters and overall plot... and I have not had many free hours asside to read the archives of a 10+ year webcomic ... Friken Freefall took me 10+ hours at 30 seconds per strip. I'm sure yours would be 45 seconds.

just looked at your archive... can;t tell how many strips you actually have... but I'm thinkintg it may take me 3 days.

... maybe I'll just read your last two stories....


Actually, the only other comic I did Fan Art for without reading the archive was Freedom Fries... which was inspired by a MB event at the Cornstalkers, but I think it worked enough to be a "random" comic for inbetween my arcs.... but then I realized that it could possibly work with a JACK cameo as well, as I had recently obtained permission to use Jack as a Cameo... so I may have a mini 3-5 strip arc

once I get some time I'll read some of your archives. But I was thinking I should do some fan art for you.

Actually, now that I think of it, If I can make it work out in time, and squeeze it in... could I possibly use Kel as a Cameo (if I can make the strip work out that is). The boys are going to the swimming area after their hike, and there are not a whole lotta places that would use your characters in a proper fashion (given the time difference). But I just got the the idea to have Kel sun bathing nude (as I have seen several strips involving nudity already in yours I'd figured thsi would work), and then have Ranger Bob come up to her and tell her its not a nude beach, and then she'd say that she see plenty of Anthros around not wearing clothes..... I dunno something like that... I usually don't finallize a strip plot until i draw it :p

Unsure If I can pull it off to work within the strip plans I've set, But if I can hopefully work it out right, It would be the first time that i'd have slight nudity in my comic... oh wait... there was that shower scene with Dave... nothin below the belt though

*shakes head*

anyway, could I have permission to try that? (strip would hopefully go up on Wednesday or Friday). I mean if you'd rather not have the character cameo in such a comic (for whatever reason(s)), that's understandable no biggie

[reinder]

Cameo? No problemo.

[fesworks]

[Xepher]

On the topic of Project Wonderful... Wow! They came out of nowhere, and I'm seeing those ads all over the internet already. Dang they took off fast.

[reinder]

Yep. And that's with several potential ad hosts still in the queue, like myself.
I advertise through PW as well, giving myself $ 10 a week to play with (and by the way, I was surprised to find that the US dollar had dropped back to E 0.72, making these ads extra-cheap for me), and I've got good value out of some of them. A buck here and there was enough to revive my visitor numbers, which had sagged a bit since switching to guest reruns. I was particularly lucky to bag the skyscraper ad at Talkaboutcomics, just when Joey Manley was telling the readers of the blog there to take a good look at the ad space. I paid nothing for that for the first twelve hours or so, and it brought in several dozen visitors. Also, having people come in from a wide range of places has pushed the referral spammers out of my daily referral top 10s. That alone is worth the $0.20, because it's good for my blood pressure.

So while there are things that can be improved (for one thing, the service sends out far too much email), I'm happy with it as an advertiser and think recommend that people with a lesser-known comic should get on board and bid on ads, especially the ones that are now going for $0.20 or less.

[fesworks]

Set up an account to check it out... Hmm, seems that I can only sell adspace by invitation only... i was hoping to see how one edits what kind of ads they want... i'd basically only want webcomic ads, that or art sites.

well, I suppose I should make some new ad banners and check it out that way.

[reinder]

Yep, I'm still waiting for my invitation.

I think the system is that hosts can set their control panel to approve advertisers individually, automatically re-approve advertisers who have been approved before, or just leave it wide open. There may also be a "block this ad" button to reject ads on sight in case of the wide-open invitation.
So far, I don't think there are many advertisers that aren't webcomics or art sites. That will change over time, as it should, but for now, it shouldn't be necessary to impose it as a restriction.

[fesworks]

well, its not so much I want to make money off of this, I just want to earn the money to then buy ads :p

I've spent a lot in ads to start an audience.... but I still don't have that many viewers.

I need to make totally new ads for all sizes because my style has changed since the last time I made an ad.... Well actually, I did make a new ad for ZOINKS! magazine. They had a 2-for-1 special that i jumped on.

But I have a few cameos to work on right now, PLUS I am reworking the text graphics on my site too . But I really wanna try this out! its sounds exciting and people are talking about it all over the webcomic cummunity (as far as I'm seeing).