Daily Comix Remider

Honor · Post by **Honor** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 4:00 am

Ok... Does anything like this exist yet? (and if not, anyone want to help develop it?)

I just added a lot of links to the portal page on my site to make it easier for me to read my webcomics... And it got me thinking. (very dangerous when I do that...)

I need a site where I can add all the web comics I like to a list, and be sent an email every day with reminders or direct links to the ones that have updated. Maybe there would be a checklist when you sign up, and maybe you could add comics that aren't on the list (then they would be).

I think you could easily get enough subscribers to such a free service to make the ad revenues worthwhile.

You could make it so that the authors/artists sent a standard email to the server when they updated, or design a special bot to check twice a day...

Artists could use it to promote comics... And it could promote automatically, as well. Say it classified each comic on several axis and suggested one or two comics with each email... one paid (or non paid) promotion, and one matched to your established tastes...

Does it already exist? Anyone want to join the team and make it exist?

Toawa · Post by **Toawa** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:18 am

Include an option to email the comics themselves and you might just have something. Getting an email with links doesn't quite have the same effect as getting them with the images there, ready to view. Of course, it means a lot of inbox space used, but that's their problem.

With full agreement of the artists, of course...

Unfortunately, it might involve the use of HTML email, which is evil, so I'm not sure I could support it.

Squidflakes · Post by **Squidflakes** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 10:10 am

an RSS feed to a "favorite comics" blog might be kind of neat.

Cuteswan · Post by **Cuteswan** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 11:12 am

The problem with e-mailing the comics themselves is that you'd miss out on all the news and (more importantly) the advertising on the comic site. Years ago, I used to have a page to pull in daily comics (very simplistic) but the sites started adding stuff to the strips' filenames to keep me from being able to use it anymore -- they wanted me to visit and "pay" for seeing it (and the advertisers want it that way).

Now, just an update RSS or last-updated indicator is a good idea... I wonder if Trillian would add support for it so that I'd get a notification and link whenever a subscribed comic was changed. Then I'd know exactly when Sexy Losers was updated.

Tellner · Post by **Tellner** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 12:35 pm

squidflakes wrote:an RSS feed to a "favorite comics" blog might be kind of neat.

*spawns uncotrollably*

Moo Cow · Post by **Moo Cow** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 8:18 pm

My option isn't there... good idea but i wouldn't use it. I have a big section in my favorites bookmark where i have my comics sorted by when they typically update and i just go when appropriate without really having to think about it.

~Sara

Kite-san · Post by **Kite-san** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 10:25 pm

it'll send you individual emails with individual links about individual updates. jsut give it a link and an addy to send to

http://www.changedetection.com

Dragoness · Post by **Dragoness** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 3:38 am

It is an awesome idea from the user's standpoint. I myself would love such a thing.

However, if the comics are being pulled directly from the comic's server to the email, you're using that server's bandwidth, which costs the artist (or their host) money. The only real way right now for them to get money is to sell advertising space which requires you to go to their site to see them, or to sell merchandise which would never move unless readers went to the site to get their fix and were "spammed" with: Oh hey! I just updated the catalog! New shirts! etc, plus ads for the merchandise, etc. Out of sight out of mind, and all that.

So really, no comic writer out to make money (even just enough to cover expenses) would agree to let you do that. At least not for free. (And the idea of making it a payservice without it being redistributed for free is a whole 'nother bucket o fish.)

And if you distribute these comics without permission, it's theft of intellectual property and bandwith stealing, neither of which are very nice.

...

Longwindedness aside, though, I do agree with you. It'd be neat.

Honor · Post by **Honor** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 12:32 pm

Dragoness: No, I agree fully... Including the comics themselves in the email would be unrealistic from a bandwidth point of view, a well as being unsupportive to the comicc and their artists. The service would doubtless have to include a note about that in FAQ for people who will always ask "why not just send me the comics?" but I think it's obviously important to support the artists by going to their site and at least looking at the ads.

Kite: Thank you

That's actually pretty close to what I had in mind... I think a system specifically designed for comics fans still might have a niche, though... Particularly if some community functions, the ads for new comics, and "suggestions" for comics that seem to match interests were included in the functionality. Maybe even just having all your daily comics included in one or two daily emails would make it worth while?

Sara: *grins* That's exactly the solution I'm trying to get away from... I'm notoriously bad about organizing my "favorites" folders. And, I can never keep straight what updates when. If I was a bit more organized, I'd be using your way

So... Anybody think they can program this?

Moo Cow · Post by **Moo Cow** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 5:29 pm

Ahhh, gocha.

Yah, organization helps/.

No idea how to program, sorry.

~Sara

Dragoness · Post by **Dragoness** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:15 pm

Well, to program "this," what do you mean exactly?

It should be a rediculously simple thing to write code that tracks the date. The user says "I like Ghastly's Ghastly Comic and it updates on Sundays!" So they type in Ghastly's Ghastly Comic for the the title, http://www.ghastlycomic.com for the address, and checks only Sunday out of a week of checkboxes. Then every time the user runs the program on a Sunday, Ghastly's is one of the comic links it regurgitates.

Is that what you wanted?

That's cake. I could probably do it in a couple days if school wasn't kicking my ass. It would be ugly as hell though... I code, not design.

Hell, I could probably do it in Javascript so the links would be in your explorer of choice and be all clicky and stuff.

The only problem would be keeping track of comics that don't update on a scheduled basis. It could probably be done with Keen comics, just check and see if there's an archive page in existance for any comics since the last time you checked, something like that... but for nonstandard sites I wouldn't have a clue.

But a basic one I could do. Lemme know if that's what you're talking about - I may make that my final project in C++ instead of some other thing, and port it over to Javascript for linky goodness once the thing's been graded.

Honor · Post by **Honor** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 3:19 am

Ooooh! Cool

If you want to even consider it, we could email a bit, and I could draw out my idea in more detail... Then you could decide if it's at all realistic. I have a couple other ideas that need a programmer and could make your class project (evetually) pay you in filthy lucre, too, if you want a choice

My basic concept for this one is thus:

- The "customer" registers, checking off comics from a list and/or adds the ones not on the list, and selecting some preferences... Like what time of day and how many times a day/week/month they want to be emailed, etc. During this process, the customer might also rate each comic on a number of paremeters like genre, theme, etc... The conglomeration of these user ratings and the artist's own rating help categorize comics for the recomendation process.
- An account is established with a username and password (so they can edit preferences later) and a cookie / script / database entry / custom script is created to do the heavy lifting.
- On the appointed schedule, the bot checks the appropriate pages, looking for changes from the last version (like I assume the link above does it). For every one that changes, it adds the appropriate link to the email it's generating.
- It also checks it's list of suggestable comics (those which match the ratings and/or categories of the comics the customer reads, but aren't subscribed to by the customer) and chooses one to include a link from. It also indludes a breif synopsis/teaser for this comic.
- It also checks the paid advertiser list and selects a likely suspect from that list to include a link and description for as well. With both of these "suggested" comics, there will be a link to add them to the customer's list.
- It then ads an ad or two from a commercial ad server, like googlesense ads.
- Then, it checks a "special" content listing for any items that this customer hasn't gotten yet, and incluudes them to the top of the email. These would be newsletter-ish stuff like notes about service updates, news, artist profiles/interviews, humor, or whatever we might have.
- Then it generates and sends the email.

There would probably be alterations... We might, for instance, get commission or gift art to include in the emails, particularly around holidays... we might get "coupon links" from partnering with someone like Barnes & Noble or Borders (like a percentage off coupon for a manga purchase in-store or something).

Don't worry about the prettification of the site... That's my speciality. It's the programming I'm not smart enough for.

So what do you think?

Jackalope · Post by **Jackalope** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 4:51 am

Color me clueless, but can't this be done with an RSS feed, just like blog aggregators do? You'd have to have the various comic artists put their pages onto an RSS feed, but then anyone on the user end can use their favorite RSS reader to grab updates. RSS feed handlers exist as plugins for the various web browsers, for PDAs, and as stand-alone programs for various platforms.

I don't use RSS or Atom much, but I know enough to think it might be the right tool to do what you want...

Honor · Post by **Honor** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:54 pm

jackalope wrote:...can't this be done with an RSS feed, just like blog aggregators do?...

The short answer is "I haven't the slightest or most foggy idea."

The fact that I have almost completely no idea what RSS really is or how it works would tend to push me toward the answer that this cannot be the only way to impliment a wide reaching solution... The fact that it's been mentioned a few times in this thread, though, would tend to push me toward the idea that no complete solution could be created without the consideration and possible implimentation of RSS into the solution set.

So... I guess the correct answer is, "RSS should be one of the available options." or something along those lines, right?

If the artists have to actively play along, I think that will be a further limiting factor... There will always be some who won't want to or feel they are able to.

For this to work as near universally as possible, there has to be a way to look for updates that, while it welcomes further cooperation, requires no more significant cooperation of the artist than simply posting updates.

Dragoness · Post by **Dragoness** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 1:03 am

Good lord.

That was far beyond what I had in mind. I was thinking of smacking together something basic for folks to use, and you're thinking something... marketable!

It's doable. A bit beyond my capabilities at this point, to do alone anyway, but I could probably gather some folks who could do it. Hell, sounds more like a project a bunch of us could get credits for.

Only thing I wouldn't be so sure of is, again, how to automate checking the various comics for updates. But someone ought to have a clue how.

I'll make a post about it on the school forums, see what kind of interest I can get, what kind of a skillset I can get.

I'll let ya know.

Honor · Post by **Honor** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 2:54 am

*smiles* Thank you.

That's more than I could reasonably ask for. It'd have to be a shared venture, 'cause I don't have the money to bankroll it... All that means, of course, that nobody's probably going to get rich off of it... But it could be a very cool project, I think, and if those involved could make a little bit for the work, all the better.

MaryxTyphus · Post by **MaryxTyphus** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:57 am

I dunno, from one standpoint it'd be pretty neat but what if you hadn't had the time to check your mail in oh say a couple months? Then you'd be flooded with *UPDATE* *UPDATE* *UPDATE* as soon as you finally check it. Sure it's the same thing with regular Spam but I for one wouldn't like even more junk clogging my e-mail when I can just go back and read the last one I was reading and read from there. Course that's just a matter of opinion so It's a really neat idea but I wouldn't use it.

You should've had that as an Option

Kite-san · Post by **Kite-san** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 7:34 am

lots of forums have a "won't re-notify about a thread until you visit it" bit of code in there, should be doable ot include.

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Daily Comix Remider

would you use a service like this?

Daily Comix Remider