 | |
| Original author(s) | Ryan North |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 2006 |
| Operating system | Cross-platform (web-based application) |
| Type | Online advertising |
Project Wonderful was an advertising service created by programmer and webcomic author Ryan North in late 2006. [1] Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, the service supported thousands of webcomics and blogs with auctioned online advertisements, until it was shut down in 2018.
In early 2006, Ryan North was talking with a friend about how they severely disliked existing online advertisement services such as Google ads and AdSense, because advertisements on those platforms are priced based on user clicks or displays, and "the Internet isn't really designed to keep track of who clicked where, when, and who viewed what page when." Project Wonderful launched 8 months later. [2] Rather than paying for clicks, Project Wonderful allowed websites to auction advertisement space. Advertisers were able to bid on a particular ad block on a particular website and, as long as their bid was the highest, they got to decide what is shown on it. Being invite-only, Project Wonderful initially only had a few dozen advertisers participating in the "perpetual auction" of ad space, though this number grew rapidly. [3]
Project Wonderful was built on open source software, coupled with MySQL databases and an Apache front-end. [2] The service was designed specifically for cartoonists, but in turn worked well for any independent website. Implementing new features into Project Wonderful took up most of North's time in the years following its initial release, together with his webcomic Dinosaur Comics . [4]
Many webcomics, including Awkward Zombie , Loading Artist , Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal , Questionable Content , Qwantz , MS Paint Adventures, Sinfest , and A Softer World used Project Wonderful as an advertising service. [5] The service was used on platforms such as ComicSpace and Graphic Smash immediately after launch. [1] Shaenon Garrity worked on implementing Project Wonderful on the subscription service Modern Tales in 2007. [6] At its peak, Project Wonderful had around 10,000 publishers, of which over 5,000 were webcomics, and about 10 times that many advertisers. [7]
On June 11, 2018, Project Wonderful announced that it would be shutting down on August 1, 2018. North noted the rise of large social media platforms such as Facebook keeping readers within their systems as a cause for the diminishing of the blogosphere. As fewer users visit dozens or hundreds of different websites a day, supporting independent websites with advertisements became more difficult. [5] [8]
Modern Tales was a webcomics publisher active from 2002 to 2012, best known for being one of the first profitable subscription models for digital content. Joey Manley was the website's publisher and original editor. The site featured a roster of approximately 30 professional webcomic artists. Shaenon Garrity, one of the site's original artists, took over as the publication's editor in 2006. Other Modern Tales artists included Gene Luen Yang, James Kochalka, Dorothy Gambrell, Harvey Pekar and Will Eisner.
Joey Manley was an American LGBT fiction author, web designer, and webcomics publisher. Manley wrote the successful LGBT novel The Death of Donna-May Dean in 1992. He moved to San Francisco in 2000 in order to work in web design. Manley was the founder and publisher of the Modern Tales family of webcomics websites, which included Modern Tales, Serializer, Girlamatic, Webcomics Nation, and others. Manley is considered one of the "founding pioneers" of the webcomic movement for creating a then-revolutionary subscription model.
Serializer.net was a webcomic subscription service and artist collective published by Joey Manley and edited by Tom Hart and Eric Millikin that existed from 2002 to 2013. Designed to showcase artistic alternative webcomics using the unique nature of the medium, the works on Serializer.net were described by critics as "high art" and "avant-garde". The project became mostly inactive in 2007 and closed alongside Manley's other websites in 2013.
Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These advertisements are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google. They can generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis. Google beta-tested a cost-per-action service, but discontinued it in October 2008 in favor of a DoubleClick offering. In Q1 2014, Google earned US$3.4 billion, or 22% of total revenue, through Google AdSense. AdSense is a participant in the AdChoices program, so AdSense ads typically include the triangle-shaped AdChoices icon. This program also operates on HTTP cookies. In 2021, over 38.3 million websites use AdSense.
Google Ads is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, and videos to web users. It can place ads in the results of search engines like Google Search, mobile apps, videos, and on non-search websites. Services are offered under a pay-per-click (PPC) pricing model.
Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher when the ad is clicked.
Shaenon K. Garrity is an American webcomic creator and science-fiction author best known for her webcomics Narbonic and Skin Horse. She collaborated with various artists to write webcomics for the Modern Tales-family of webcomic subscription services in the early 2000s, and write columns for various comics journals. Since 2003, Garrity has done freelance editing for Viz Media on various manga translations.
An online advertising network or ad network is a company that connects advertisers to websites that want to host advertisements. The key function of an ad network is an aggregation of ad supply from publishers and matching it with the advertiser's demand. The phrase "ad network" by itself is media-neutral in the sense that there can be a "Television Ad Network" or a "Print Ad Network", but is increasingly used to mean "online ad network" as the effect of aggregation of publisher ad space and sale to advertisers is most commonly seen in the online space. The fundamental difference between traditional media ad networks and online ad networks is that online ad networks use a central ad server to deliver advertisements to consumers, which enables targeting, tracking and reporting of impressions in ways not possible with analog media alternatives.
Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising that uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. Online advertising includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising, and mobile advertising. Advertisements are increasingly being delivered via automated software systems operating across multiple websites, media services and platforms, known as programmatic advertising.
Ryan North is a Canadian writer and computer programmer.
Webcomics Nation was a webcomic hosting and automation service launched on July 29, 2005 by Joey Manley. Unlike Manley's previous webcomic sites, Webcomics Nation was based on user-generated content and relied on online advertisement revenue, which increased in viability in the second half of the 2000s. Webcomics Nation quickly became Manley's most financially successful website, and encouraged him to turn his Modern Tales sites partially free as well. Webcomics Nation began merging into Josh Roberts' ComicSpace in 2007, but this process took longer than hoped and Webcomics Nation eventually closed down in 2013.
Girlamatic was a webcomic subscription service launched by Joey Manley and Lea Hernandez in March 2003. It was the third online magazine Manley established as part of his Modern Tales family of websites. Girlamatic was created as a place where both female artists and readers could feel comfortable and featured a diverse mix of genres. When the site launched, the most recent webcomic pages and strips were free, and the website's archives were available by subscription. The editorial role was held by Hernandez from 2003 until 2006, when it was taken over by Arcana Jayne-creator Lisa Jonté, one of the site's original artists. In 2009, Girlamatic was relaunched as a free digital magazine, this time edited by Spades-creator Diana McQueen. The archives of the webcomics that ran on Girlamatic remained freely available until the website was discontinued in 2013.
Microsoft Advertising is an online advertising platform developed by Microsoft, where advertisers bid to display brief ads, service offers, product listings and videos to web users. It provides pay per click advertising on search engines Bing, Yahoo! and DuckDuckGo, as well as on other websites, mobile apps, and videos.
Zedo is a US and India-based advertising technology company that provides several online advertising products and services to Internet publishers, advertisers, and agencies. The company was founded in 1999 by Roy de Souza.
Targeted advertising is a form of advertising, including online advertising, that is directed towards an audience with certain traits, based on the product or person the advertiser is promoting.
Google Ad Manager is an ad exchange platform introduced by Google on June 27, 2018. It combines the features of two former services from Google's DoubleClick subsidiary, DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX). Google Ad Manager initially used a second-price auction format, before announcing that it would be replaced with a first-price auction format in March 2019. Google Ad Manager is the free version of this online ad management software and it is recommended for small businesses. Google Ad Manager 360 is the paid version. Google Ad Manager does not require a minimum amount of impressions on individual active ads, but it does have a limit of 200 million impressions per month. Google Ad Manager manages inventory for advertisers, publishers and ad servers. Advertisers are able to manage their inventory of ad creative, publishers are able to manage their ad space inventory, and ad servers can use the platform to determine which ad to serve and where to serve it. Additionally, Google Ad Manager can use data collected from ad performance and ad space performance to make suggested optimizations to the user. These optimizations suggest what the user could change to better reach the goals they have set for a particular campaign.
Notable events of 2003 in webcomics.
The business of webcomics involves creators earning a living through their webcomic, often using a variety of revenue channels. Those channels may include selling merchandise such as t-shirts, jackets, sweatpants, hats, pins, stickers, and toys, based on their work. Some also choose to sell print versions or compilations of their webcomics. Many webcomic creators make use of online advertisements on their websites, and possibly even product placement deals with larger companies. Crowdfunding through websites such as Kickstarter and Patreon are also popular choices for sources of potential income.
Advertising revenue is the monetary income that individuals and businesses earn from displaying paid advertisements on their websites, social media channels, or other platforms surrounding their internet-based content. In September 2018, the U.S Internet advertising market was estimated to be worth $111 billion, with market share being held mostly between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. These companies earn revenue through online advertising but also have initiated pathways for individual users and social media influencers to earn an income. Individuals and businesses can earn advertising revenue through advertising networks such as Google AdSense, YouTube monetization, or Outbrain.
ComicSpace was an online social network and webcomic hosting service created and managed by Josh Roberts and Joey Manley between 2006 and 2012. The website was inspired by MySpace and was intended as a place where writers, artists, publishers, and fans could interact and share their work. Though ComicSpace was highly successful upon launch, it never fully took off. Roberts and Manley expanded the scope of the project with the help of investment firm E-Line Ventures in 2007, and Manley began merging his existing websites into ComicSpace, starting with Webcomics Nation. By 2012, interest in ComicSpace had waned, and Roberts and Manley abandoned the project.