webaddict
Off topic, but this reminded me of this petition:
http://www.libelreform.org/sign
Please, if you are not satisfied with the present state of things, sign it. If you are unaware, perhaps have a quick read, and see what you think? They have a report here,
http://www.libelreform.org/our-report
but do have a read around the net too. Simon has even come up with a pyramid scheme (for a good cause) in order to get 100 000 petitions. I have included his email below (verbatim). Please give this some consideration, thanks.
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Dear Friends,
I’ve had an idea – an unusual idea, but I think it might just work.
As you know, England’s chilling libel laws need to be reformed. One way to help achieve this is for 100,000 people to sign the petition for libel reform before the political parties write their manifestos for the election. We have 17,000 signatures, but we really need 100,000, and we need your help to get there.
My idea
My idea is simple: if everyone who has already signed up persuades just one more person each week to sign the petition then we will reach our goal within a month!
One person per week is all we need, but please spread the word as much as you can. In fact, if you persuade 10 people to sign up then email me (simon <<at>> simonsingh.net) and I promise to thank you by printing your name in my next book … which I will start writing as soon as I have put my own libel case behind me. I cannot say when this will be, but it is a very real promise. My only caveat is that I will limit this to the first thousand people who recruit ten supporters.
When persuading your friends remember to tell them:
(a) English libel laws have been condemned by the UN Human Rights Committee.
(b) These laws gag scientists, bloggers and journalists who want to discuss matters of genuine public interest (and public health!).
(c) Our laws give rise to libel tourism, whereby the rich and the powerful (Saudi billionaires, Russian oligarchs and overseas corporations) come to London to sue writers because English libel laws are so hostile to responsible journalism. (In fact, it is exactly because English libel laws have this global impact that we welcome signatories to the petition from around the world.)
(d) Vested interests can use their resources to bully and intimidate those who seek to question them. The cost of a libel trial in England is 100 times more expensive than the European average and typically runs to over £1 million.
(e) Three separate ongoing libel cases involve myself and two medical researchers raising concerns about three medical treatments. We face losing £1 million each. In future, why would anyone else raise similar concerns? If these health matters are not reported, then the public is put at risk.
My experience has been sobering. I’ve had to spend £100,000 to defend my writing and have put my life on hold for almost two years. However, the prospect of reforming our libel laws keeps me cheerful.
Thanks so much for your support. We’ve only got one shot at this – so I hope you can persuade 1 (or maybe 10) friends, family and colleagues to sign.
Massive thanks,
Simon
The Libel Reform Campaign is a coalition of English PEN, Index on Censorship and Sense About Science.
So far, 188 MPs have signed our Parliamentary Early Day Motion calling for libel reform and the Justice Secretary Jack Straw has formed a working party that the Libel Reform Coalition is represented on.
Please also considering donating to keep our campaign going: http://libelreform.indiemedium.com/lt.php?id=ZkQFWw8KBlcYDEg...
I lurk here, but got an account just to reply :) I will be speaking here wholly in the context of online flash games, as I can't and won't comment on picture sharing, community websites or any of that new-fangled social or "SpaceBook" aspect :)
What you've got here, (and you probably know it already), is a game portal. You are also what's known as a publisher. Portals host, filter, select and promote games and take a cut of the in-game ad revenues. In return, they provide traffic (eyeballs!).
I haven't heard of HeyZap before, so thanks for bringing them to my attention. I had a browse through their site, and saw some attractive offers, so if I can find more info on their system, I might be interested to use them some day... What caught my eyes was their very attractive developer share of a whopping 70% of the ad revenue! From what I can gather, publishers get 15% of the ad revenue. Is this correct? Perhaps you could also comment on the eCPM of their offerings -- how much are you receiving from the in-game ads compared to the traffic? I assume your traffic stats are daily numbers?
I am not sure why you were not keen on Google Ads, they've been quite popular among the portals that I have heard of. Google can now index Flash assets, so in-game text, tutorials, etc should get picked up. For more games, have you heard of: mochiads or CPMStar, or other portals like Kongregate, armorgames?
mochi: Developers get 50%, publishers 10%
Don't know about CPMStar (anyone?)
Kongregate: Developers get 25-50% (depending on features). No publisher affiliate system that I know of, they are after all a portal too.
When you say you haven't done anything recently, does that mean you don't update those games on your page? There are portal software out there (www.flashgamedistribution.com has a "portal in a box", download, click, and you're away [disclaimer: I haven't used it]) that automate the delivery and distribution of games from source. All you gotta do is play a suggested game, and approve/reject them from your front page. Sounds like a dream job for game crazy teenagers! (I'm not saying you're a teenager here of course.)
I am sharing this as a game developer who's been pondering the pros and cons of having my own portal. If you subscribe to the Long Tail hypothesis, then portals benefit from the long tail. However, I feel that the competition is intense, though I have no experience here. Most portals are starting to move into proprietary micro-transaction systems, but the revenue from this area is still relatively small. It is definitely a growth industry, and the key is always more traffic, though I wonder if it's possible to do better? I would appreciate any experience you may share from your end (if you do go further with this). :)
Here's something that might interest other readers. Remember that this guy develops games and runs a portal, so the portal section of his analysis is really only about 8% of the total.
http://mochiland.com/articles/developer-recap-badim-shares-t...
I should also mention flashgamelicense.com -- you might see Badim mentioning licensing deals in his blog. Lots of portal owners (I'm assuming you need to be a certain size first) sponsor games in order to be able provide their own branding and ads. Could be interesting to check out once you reach a certain size I guess...
I would appreciate any useful stats other readers may know about this new and exciting (for me) area!