Creators Syndicate is launching a new comic service called “RevUp” for online newspapers. The comics are embedded on the paper’s web site with an ad supplied by Creators. The paper keeps any advertising revenue off that page minus the one ad served up by Creators.
The service also includes social features such as ratings, comments, email to a friend.
The service is free to use for newspapers.
So, KFS offers a low-cost way to put strips on your web site, and Creators counters by offering them as what in TV we used to call a trade-out. (Back in the mid-70s, there were a fair number of syndicated shows that were, in fact, trades — you got them for free, they had some commercials that came with them but you got some open positions for your own. It was generally B-level quality but that’s better than a C, D or F.)
Now, as an editor at a small paper with a pinched budget, I find this appealing. But as a fan of cartooning, I have to ask where the hell the revenue comes in? Because counting clicks is not going to generate a lot of cash — certainly not enough that it will go back to the cartoonists in any perceptible amount.
(And, as an editor, I’m wondering if the ads that come with it are all going to be “government rebate” scams, dubious weight-loss products and animated girls dancing over their new foreclosure-producing mortgage rates. Not sure I want to add those kinds of crappy rip-offs to my web site.)
I can’t think of a single thing to add to the above post. Very well put.
I guess the good news is that different markets are being tried. I agree this doesn’t look too promising though. I think the whole “newspaper on the web” is a Barney Fife maneuver anyway. Perhaps it’s an attempt not the go the way of the steam engine (in denial about diesel until too late). Time will tell.