Comments on: The Truth About The Financial Crisis

By: sssnakecharmer

sssnakecharmer — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:59:44 +0000

Hi, there, speaking of the true face of the crisis, i discovered this little blog which explains many other hidden things which are also related to the “who is behind the crisis” matter, you will make connections and see how…although I guess you already know:)
I put the link here…

By: liuxas

liuxas — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:44:55 +0000

thats the first time i didn’t like it.. :( i think you should have a nice punch line in every episode

By: Salvatore Iovene

Salvatore Iovene — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:01:44 +0000

@m@hdeTo :-) They’re run with CPD (cost per day), so clicks don’t matter. But pageviews will raise the price (it’s auction based).

By: m@hdeTo

m@hdeTo — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:05:07 +0000

@Ali you are such a spoil sport :P – clicking all the ad-links now :P

By: Salvatore Iovene

Salvatore Iovene — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:49:46 +0000

Well he’s right about the ASCII smiles :)

By: Jean Azzopardi

Jean Azzopardi — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:57:11 +0000

Oh stop grumbling Ali, and enjoy the free content!

By: Ali Gunduz

Ali Gunduz — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:24:31 +0000

Okay one more thing to grumble about before returning to my old enthusiastic self: The auto smiles! Why? I think the target audience, such as yours truly, would be quite content with the good old fashioned ASCII smiles.

To an even slightly experienced eye, ASCII smiles convey much more content than these image smileys IMAO.

: – )

By: Ali Gunduz

Ali Gunduz — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:16:40 +0000

@Salvatore
Thank you for responding my criticism. I think I understand position and, having this understanding, I can tolerate the ads on your RSS feeds. I hope also you understand that, however small it is, this tolerance from the reader is a also a compromise. So, in the end, we reach to a settlement after measuring our gains and losses.

I only wished that you have communicated your decision to include ads inside the feeds with your readership beforehand. I am aware that we are talking a about a comparatively tiny issue here, but I, for myself, see an importance in the manners this kind of concerns are handled, particularly because I take your craft seriously. Afterall, there needs to be a symbiosis between the author and the reader for an independent webcomic to succeed, and, if we don’t keep a basic level of manners, what else standard do we have?

To be honest, I was decisive to stop following your otherwise-fine comics series at the next feed with an ad in it. And now that you have communicated your reasoning, I again feel very much “at home” here. :-) Please keep maintaining a personal relation with the readers, since they seem to be your biggest asset…until a big publishing house picks you up at least :)

Looking forward to read the next episode.

Oh, and since I’m all in the mood to give messages: Long live GNU!

By: Salvatore Iovene

Salvatore Iovene — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:51:29 +0000

@Ali, let me address your concerns. Actually a lot of people put ads in the RSS: in my most recent feeds, I’m just looking at Digg, Slashdot, CodingHorror. Some comics, from the top of my mind, are Dilbert and Circle vs Square. I don’t find it an unusual practice, that is.

Now let me give you some numbers. Geek Hero is small, really small. My ads haven’t made me 10$ in a month yet. When I publish a new strip, I get 1000-1500 RSS subscribers to view it. Only 20 or so regulars always comment, generating pageviews that are profitable because of the ads on the site. Then I get people from google, or some links, or people that otherwise find out about the comic, and if they like it, they will read the all archive, making about 130 pageviews. In a regular publishing day, I have 4500 pageviews. About 3000 otherwise.

Not putting ads in the RSS means giving up a large number of ad impressions, and since I get so little traffic, those are necessary to *try* (and, for now, fail) to cover the site expenses.

Maybe one day…

By: Ali Gunduz

Ali Gunduz — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:41:54 +0000

@Michael
I am not against the whole concept of ads (at least not this instance.) My complaint is specifically about the RSS-feed.

It’s good online manners and decency not to place ads on the RSS feeds. I am subscribed to a good number RSS feeds around the web and this site’s were the first ones I saw with ads. I use RSS feeds to get informed about the new comics releases and visit this website with all its ads anyway, because I think the user input (i.e. the comments) is as important (and funny and even sometimes insightful) as the author-generated content itself. Therefore, I find it very nonsensical that the author disregards basic manners for his content generators (i.e. users.)