Comic Genesis Forums

I'm confused and I don't know where to go, so I'll just post in this place and hope some helpful soul comes by.

What's the relationship between Keenspot and Keenspace? Is Keenspot for the really really -- erm -- leet comics and Keenspace is for everyone else? What criteria determine Keenspotliness? What's up?

And whassabi?

?~AoD

Keenspot: Rich artists

Keenspace: Starving artists

Anybody can get a keenspace account, but as for Keenspot... I'm not sure how that works, but Keenspotters are the comics with huge readerships. Kind of like how in California there is the CSU and UC public college systems. The CSU system isn't very hard to get into, and there are tons more sites, while the UC system is the pretigious ones that people need good stats to get into.

specifically, keenspoters get paid.

Keenspace is a service provided by the same people which provides free hosting for webcomics, in exchange for ad space. Keenspacers (us) do not get paid, however many keenspotters were once keenspacers and got promoted.

Spot is invitation only, and you pay for your own bandwith. Space is free and usually don't turn people down.

In 'Space, no one can hear you scream.

- Joel Fagin

yeahduff wrote:Spot is invitation only, and you pay for your own bandwith. Space is free and usually don't turn people down.

They have to pay for their own bandwith? I didn't know that.

I wonder what RPG World's bandwith costs are.

On the topic of paying, there was something I was wondering...

Around last december something appeared in my siteadmin info section, basically it was a table showing the projected cost to host and projected ad revenue of my site for the past two months (total profit of 50 cents), but I have never seen it update past November. Is there anyway to see that info, because I find myself intensely curious.

I thought they could offset the costs of bandwitdth and such with adds. But maybe I'm just pulling that out of Highlander space.

As I understand it, that's what happens. I don't know how much help Spot gives them with running it, because I for one would have no idea.

I don't think the 'Spotters pay for their own bandwidth. Maritza Campos changed her archives to black and white strips to reduce bandwidth because CRFH was in the red with Keenspot. She said, and I quote...

Maritza Campos wrote:...I can't leech off the Keenspot guys who have been so nice to me.

- Joel Fagin

Or maybe I just don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

yeahduff wrote:Or maybe I just don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

Ground state of the human condition.

- Joel Fagin

Yes, KeenSpot artists don't pay for their bandwidth.

They do kind of. The whole getting paid over 50,000 page views thing only kicks in when you're in the black. Like those charts of potential profit we have on siteadmin, they only get a share of the profit (ad revenue - cost of bandwidth). If their bandwidth is too high compared to ad revenue, no money.
So they do kinda pay for it, but if they're in the red they still don't have to pay for the extra bandwidth they're using, so it's still in essence free.

RPin wrote:Yes, KeenSpot artists don't pay for their bandwidth.

Aren't you not sure they're not getting bandwidth without paying? =P

'Spotters aren't getting rich, they just have a percieved (earned or not, it's there) air of superiority over 'spacers.

It's kind of like every John Hughes film you've ever seen in your life; with the "richies" on one side of the tracks, and the rest of us just hanging out with Duckie.

Plus, they don't pay for their bandwidth. Where's the incentive in that?

Warren wrote:Spare Change On the 'Space for years. Still not Spotted. You do the math.

... although Warren might be a tad biased.

rkolter wrote:

Warren wrote:Spare Change On the 'Space for years. Still not Spotted. You do the math.

... although Warren might be a tad biased.

[innocent] Meeeeeeeeeeeee?????[/innocent]

As stated previously.

KeenSPOT is an invitation only system. This makes it rather clique-like and they generally tend to block the promotion of NOKD (not our kind, dear) comics reguardless of the quality of the strip and its popularity. The artists on Keenspot get a share of the profits their site generates. Not all Keenspot comics are popular, some have very low readerships. Keenspot comics do benefit from a huge promotional engine and on average the readership of a comic that gets spotted doubles or even triples in their first week.

KeenSPACE is a free host. Anyone can get an account. As such Keenspace is flooded with comics there are thousands of us here. As with everything (Keenspot included) 98% of Keenspace is pure crap. But where Keenspot has less than 100 comics Keenspace has over 10000. That means we produce crap on volume. Saddly, when you become a Keenspace artist the stink of this crap sticks to you and you'll get little or no respect for your work outside Keenspace. To become a popular comic on Keenspace is a struggle (unless you get to do a project with one of the creators of Penny Arcade, eh Sortelli? ). It takes a certain degree of talent and hard work to rise above the muck.

Keenspot makes its revinue primarily by selling ad banners, but also through merchandising, print comics, and subscription services.

Keenspace makes it's revinue strictly through selling ad banners. Excess banner slots are used for the free promotion of Keenspot comics (this is why readership grows so quickly when a comic gets spotted). Keenspace is ranked around the 5000th most visited website on the internet. That's a hell of an accomplishment and very powerful promotional tool which is Keen's main interest in keeping Space around. It's also profitable in terms of adviews.

As mentioned Keenspot artists get a share of the profits their comics generate, Keenspace artists do not. Keen industries has long used the lure of potential profit sharing to keep successful artists from leaving space. At one time the user agreement stated there would be profit sharing for those comics who drew over 50K pageviews per month. When the lie of this was pointed out the user agreement still posted the potential for profit sharing but in the <strikeout> font instead thus giving people signing up for Keenspace accounts the impression that profit sharing was only temporarily suspended. Eventually the Great Crash of '04 destroyed the old user agreement completely and the new user agreement does not contain the same deceptive passage. Granted, in a recent interview on Comixpedia one of the Keen Execs, Gav, hinted that maybe, possibly, sometime in the future perhaps Keen might consider examining the likelyhood of granting Keenspace comics profitsharing. This is something Chris Crosby has previously stated for quite some time now but no real visable effort to impliment such a system has ever made itself evident. I mean why bother actually sharing the profits with your comics that produce the adviews when you can just hint that maybe, someday you might possibly perhaps consider the possibility of sharing the profits with them. That will probably keep a few of the popular comics from going independent and costing Keen adviews.

That's pretty much it.

I'm still confused... Do these two have any relation between each other, I mean in the business sense? Is it a coincidence that they both start with "keensp", or were they both created by the same person...?