THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Comic Discussion => QUESTIONABLE CONTENT => Topic started by: suizo on 04 Mar 2012, 18:32
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Hi there
I just made a release of an android application I wrote to view qc.
<link removed by mod>
the main reason I wrote the application is to have a better reading experience while reading qc on my smart phone. this is done, by splitting the strip in single frames...
any feedback is appreciated :-).
Cheers
Benjamin
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There's a business problem: Jeph gets ad revenue from the web site. He's been very unhappy about QC apps in the past.
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I know... that's why I post the application here... I wrote him an email a week ago asking if it's ok.. but never got an answer...
there are 2-3 other qc viewer's on the android market...
If he es against the application I'd remove it from the market! :)
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You may be more likely to get a reply if you send your enquiry as a message on his tumblr. Meanwhile, in the absence of an endorsement from Jeph, I have removed the link as being inappropriate on Jeph's own forum, at least.
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Can you think of a way to get the benefits for readers (and I really like the concept) and still get Jeph paid for his work?
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Depends - is the app accessing the website to get the comic? In that case, does it count as a "reader" in the ad count? Does it do it separately for each user (no problem), or once and then redistribute the comic (a problem for the ad counters)?
It seems that there may be a way to script it so that it would work, but you'd need to know how ProjectWonderful and the other advertisers counts hits views.
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I don't know whether Jeph gets paid for displaying the ads when the comic is displayed (in which case, scraping his web site will produce the clicks he needs), or, more likely I guess, for referred clicks through to the ad servers (in which case it will not).
With a bit of extra work the app could be made to do a click through to one of or each of the ads with the appropriate referer* header (thus doing better than most human viewers!), while not displaying them; this raises the interesting question of whether this is really cheating, and whether it would violate any terms of the Android Store...
(I'm presuming the app does the work, rather than having a back-end server.)
* sic - I growl a little every time I see this mis-spelling which has got fossilised into the protocol.
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It'a my understanding from working with Google Adsense that robo-clicks can get the host website in a lot of trouble.
Mobile apps can support advertising though; so maybe you could work with Jeff if he was interested?
Mobile apps are the new hit thing.
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Jeph is more likely to be interested than Jeff.
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Back on the Android app topic, this is what to avoid (http://chrishanel.tumblr.com/post/19196576643/spread-the-word-theft-is-theft) (linked from a message retweeted by Jeph).
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In view of Jeph's explicit response to the above below today's comic (http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2143), I am locking this thread. I realise that the OP is not looking to make money themself off Jeph's work, but as has been pointed out, there is the potential to affect Jeph's income none the less.
(I made a separate thread of the SatNav voices discussion.)