Flash Comic Viewer

(Random note: To whomever is posting comments as "whisper", you are cracking me up! Keep the soliloquies coming.)

As promised, here's a post on why we're playing around with Flash.

To start with, we're not in cahoots with Adobe. I don't think anyone in our office knows anyone at Adobe. It just so happens that Adobe makes Flash and Flash is a widely used plug-in that does some very cool things. (By the way, if someone from Adobe does read this, my T-Shirt size is XL. wink-wink)

The Flash viewer is not meant to be THE, or even a, solution to stop people from distributing images without permission. Our earlier posts were a little fuzzy on that topic. We know you can take screen shots. We know you can clip the image in photo editing software. While we can't condone people doing things like that, we'd have to make the site just about unusable to prevent it.

Open source fans, we do love you! Our developers are part of the open source community and we wouldn't be here without them/you. We use the Apache web server, mod_perl and mysql as the back end that drives all of our sites and business. All of the developers run Linux as their standard coding environment. And yes, they couldn't see Garfield for a couple of days too.

Why Flash 8? Flash 8 is the only version of Flash with native .gif support. Our comic archives consist of about a bajillion .gif images. Converting all of those to .jpgs or even worse, .swf files, would be crazy for a number of reasons.

Why Flash at all? Well, we're trying out some new things.

For one, we're seeing if we can deliver daily comic strips from a DB into a Flash environment. Pulling images from our DB will save us from having to store gobs of information (comic images) on our servers and reduce load on those boxes. Yes, we could have built a mod_perl handler to do the same thing, but we're looking at Flash as more a way to display a single comic.

We also decided to give Flash a whirl because it provides us with some cool options down the road. Like what you ask?

• How about being able to expand the viewing area and zoom-in on the comic?
• We're also thinking about developing a comic viewer that would allow you to view comics from your desktop or any other off-site environment.
• How about reading a whole "books" worth of a comic and not having to flip through multiple web pages?

Flash gives us the opportunity to design a very cool and high-function interface for ideas like those and many more.

I hope that answers some of your questions about Flash on the site. Enjoy the weekend!

Derek

Comments

[colin]

Well, that's nice and cool that you're thinking ahead like that, but, like, I used to read about 20 comic strips here daily. I'm now down to 4, went looking elsewhere for my other fixes. If you go completely leaving us non-flash enabled browser user's out, I'll just forego them last 4 and find other comic sites to get my daily fix. On a daily basis, I tend to read a lot to idle time while I'm waiting for other computers running other programs to finish what they're doing, like right now. The number is somewhere about 100+ bookmarked comics I work my way through on a daily basis. Some of those bookmarks no longer exist in my bookmark file. They used to be in the ucomics folder.

[Anne Onimus]

Good to hear that you're concerned about your viewing audience. I'm one of those that missed Garfield because I use Linux, so it's good to see him back.

Now, what's with the targeted marketing? I really really really don't like having to input my age and sex to read the archives. I flush my cookies regularly, and I dislike even more entering my details every day. So much so that I'll forego the archive if you keep it up. Please, get rid of it. It makes everyone's viewing experience distasteful --- yes, even those who keep their cookies around.

[EY]

Well, I don't want to criticize your tech setup, since I don't know how it works, but I can't imagine how loading images from a database would be any faster than serving up static files, or how Flash evens fits into that equation. Especially on a site that revolves 99% around displaying comics. AJAX can do the multiple-image loading, and while it may not have a snazzy animated UI, why would you need one? The zoom feature might be cool, although unless you have high-quality versions of the comics, it probably wouldn't improve readability except for people with really bad vision.

Well in any case, thanks for explaining your reasoning. I'm OK with Flash personally -- even if it's a totally pointless use of 'flashy' technology -- as long as it works.

[Mikkel Paulson]

I must be different from most people. No matter how many times I get asked that question, I still won't give the information it asks for. Instead I delete the question mark and everything before it and continue on. I avoid giving out my personal information to people with no business having it at all costs and I can't justify making myself into any more of a statistic than I already am. Besides, I fail to see how the information would help you. You can and probably do track what each IP views, which gives you an idea of what comics are popular and what people that read one strip also read. Why would you need anything else? Taking demographic information to decide what new comics to add is nothing more than pandering to stereotypes, not that demographics at its best is much better.

And, my condolances of being given the job of blogging to a mob of angry commenters! Did toilet scrubbing duty fill up?

[Lil Ole Lady]

Ok, for me personally, this was just waaaaaaaaay more information than I needed to know. My needs (since your site is trying to address them)are: get up, get coffee, get online, laugh and spew my coffee via reading comics, clean up, and go to work. Please, don't get too elaborate or else I won't easily get my dose of daily humor!

[R Pyle]

Oh, I get it now. Using the DB to deliver the comics using flash will mean that we won't be able to use any of the standard ad blockers without disabling the comics as well. Damn clever. As for the zooming and the "books" and pushing content to phones, I continue to not care. I just want the daily comics over coffee. Get it? Simplicity, remember when we had that?

[jen]

R.Pyle - Nail. Hammer.

Well, with this info I guess I know all I need to know. Guess when I want to read Calvin & Hobbes (the only comic left that I haven't found an alternate source for) I'll curl up on my comfy couch and read it the old fashioned way.

GoComics - yeah, I'll just go.

[no]

No Flash no way! Flash is mainly used for evil purposes so just drop those plans or lose your audience. Simple choice.

[Concerned reader]

If the only reasons you are using flash is for the reasons you listed in this post, nothing is preventing you from continuing to display the html version as you are doing now. That way, evevyone will be happy.

[ReTech54]

Well this site now sucks like a 5 horsepower shopvac! Flash is S-L-O-W er than constipation in a cold outhouse (esp. over dialup), eats up way too much bandwidth and cache, and as mentioned, cannot prevent copying images at all. I'm down to maybe two comics here - and will go elesewhere when I can find them!

[Spot]

I'm sorry, but I don't like it. If something can be solved with basic technology, one should do that. I don't see the necessity or improvement potential of the flash viewer.
It loads delayed, saving some favorite strips is a hassle and in the beginning I couldn't see any comic at all, because my flash player didn't work correctly.

[Margot]

Well, I'm not as computer savvy as most of you seem to be, but I do know I hate the new site. For Better or For Worse hasn't changed in two weeks, and some strips I enjoy, like Calvin and Hobbes, just come up blank on some days. I liked it much better the way it was.

[Sec]

I like the daily calvin. I grab it with a simple script every morning, so it can be waiting in my mailbox when I get up. Luckily my script still works without any change. But then, if you break it I will simply stop reading it. Not because it is too hard to extract it from the flash, just because I'm too annoyed. If you don't want me as a reader, I will go away. It's not like this comic is irreplaceable in my life. It is you that need us as readers, not we that need you.

[FBOFW]

MARGOT, you can get the For Better Or For Worse daily strip in normal format every day from the author's official website: http://www.fbofw.com/strip_fix/

If anyone knows an alternative source for Calvin & Hobbes, let us know.

[whisper]

I am so out of here. It's called freedom of choice! And I choose to take my business elsewhere. You and your ads can bother somebody else. However, if you give me $10 or some split of the ad revenue, I will continue to read your comics. I have an account at the Grand Cayman International Banque #K789 H890 J234 H443. I hope you'll see the benefit in keeping me around.

[Glenn Loos-Austin]

"We know you can take screen shots. We know you can clip the image in photo editing software. While we can't condone people doing things like that, we'd have to make the site just about unusable to prevent it."

What on earth do you mean you can't condone that? There are hundreds of perfectly ethical and legal reasons to do this. Fair use is a fairly basic and protected right under both US and international law. Saying you can't condone it is like Target saying they don't condone their customers reselling used goods.

The best part is that you have made the site just about unusable for many people already, and now you're saying that DRM isn't even why you did it. If your goal in doing this is really to offer yourself cool new options, then why don't you just enable a flash-free option for all the people that would rather just read comics than bother with your cool features.

And don't get me wrong here, Flash is cool. I use it, I program it, and I love it. But as someone who does have Flash installed on every computer I own and use, the way your site is now using it is still annoying. Your explanation above, while interesting, definitely has a strong odor of post-facto spin control, and continues to stay on message: We're going full speed ahead with Flash, no matter what our customers want.

I don't know who's driving this decision internally at your company. Is it being driven, despite your protests to the contrary, by content holders' DRM concerns? Is it being driven by the desires of your techies to have cooler web toys to play with? Is it being driven by your advertisers desire to use more flash ads? I don't know. But from the bleachers, it really looks like its a decision driven by some sort of questionable internal factor, rather than a customer-facing desire to offer new content options.

[Travis Brewer]

Your installation of the Flash software has made it impossible for me to access the comics. Please cease and desist voluntarily, lest I pursue a court order.

[Travis Brewer]

For all those who dislike advertisments and other interference with viewing comics. Here is a way to stick it to the advertisers. Boycott the companies that advertise on gocomics.com. The companies will stop advertising to restore their cash flow, and to restore its cash flow, gocomics.com will have to reduce the amount of advertising on its website.

To end the boycott the following advertisement must stop
Pop-ups
tailored banner ads (i.e. ads from your personal information)
animated banner ads

If you are looking for an alternative site for some of your comics, Comics.com and The Houston Chronicle at Chron.com have most of these comics without the hassles.

[James]

"Your installation of the Flash software has made it impossible for me to access the comics. Please cease and desist voluntarily, lest I pursue a court order."

-- now THAT made me laugh.

Sue them for using flash. Yeah right.
Stupid idiots.

For me, the new site is far prefferable to ucomics. Ucomics had popups which are far more annoying than flash ads. And it had flash ads too, so worse all round. I found the old one slower to load as well.

@ age/sex question - who cares? like they said, its NON-IDENTIFIABLE information. all they know is someone at that ip is a certain age and of a certain sex. useless. how do they know if that ip is one home computer or 1000+ computers on a corporate network? The information is so useless i would be surpriised if they sotroe it, they just use it to (very slightly) customise the ads. Unless you came here to view the ads, why does it matter which ones they show?
The principle of privacy is all well and good, but if you really want to protect your identity you would be better off running your own mailserver and accessing the internet via an anonymous proxy located miles away; along with a variety of other more interesting methods of covering your tracks.
You are kicking up a huge fuss about nothing. The only reason to complain is the marginal iritation of haivng to fill out two boxes every time you clear your cache. if that really bothers you, when you clear your cache avoid deleting the gocomics one.

I appreciate the linux support, as over half of my computers run linux or unix and while i would never use any of them to browse the internet its very important to not exclude anyone from using your site.

However, all of this said, i would point gocomics staff at this quote from a news article on a recent google press release:
(Jonathan Rosenberg is the senior VP of google)

"As a result of the changing market dynamics introduced by the Internet, Rosenberg remarked, demographics are becoming less and less a factor in devising an appropriate advertising scheme. Its replacement, he said, is personalization. As a case in point, he cited an instance where he - a father - looked up prices for Barbie dolls on his own company's search engine. The fact that he is not a pre-adolescent girl or the mother of one, he explained, should not prevent him from seeing relevant results and advertising related to where he can find his own daughter a Barbie doll"

-- targetting your ads by age is the wrong approach. You know your viewers like comics, thats why they are here. You also know which comics they like. Thats far, far more specific marketing information, and would be a much better basis to target your adverts.

[Scott]

I think using Flash for delivering comics is an incredibly stupid move. As one of the network admins for my company, we block flash components at the firewall level and there are plenty of other companies out there that do the same. As an admin, I know my users are going to go out to sites like this, I'm okey with that. Granted, it's only comics, but you're shooting yourself in the foot by losing a large number of possible readers and revenue sources, over 100,000 from my company alone.

[AntiAdobe]

Flash is trash ... no more complex than that. You're ruining your site and creating problems for your viewers and customers. Comments and talkback are brimming with negative feedback about the whole Flash fiasco you're experimenting with. The features you plan to implement by leveraging Flash are pointless and will add no value whatsoever to the site experience.

Your users are demanding that this misguided effort at using Flash be put to an immediate end. But will you listen ? Will you accede to the wishes of your customers ? Will you do the smart thing, the right thing, and put an end to this whole distasteful Flash episode ?

I'm not holding my breath ... but I *AM* looking for other places to get my comics on-line.

[Kiwaiti]

Picking up a hint from a Blog comment, I finally found the calendar (yes, I'd seen the tab, but since clicking it didn't do anything, I ignored it), which happens to pop up, not at the top of the browser window, but at the top of the page (generally out of sight due to scrolling away from the screaming top banner ad), where it is quite safe from ever being usable, since moving the mouse cursor towards it means taking it off the tab, whereupon the calendar vanishes. What an unusability wonder (I'm using Netscape 7.1)!

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT [TM]...

James might not care, but whoever thinks that "demographic info" is no big deal, since it's "non-identifiable" should try this: Use a cookie-clean browser personality (with cookies enabled, of course) to do your regular comics browsing, then check the cookies again.

I partially enabled cookies in order to get past that annoying poll screen, and although it still doesn't work right, I already got about 40 (! no typo there!) different cookies from various domains, some of them clearly recognizable as belonging to cross-web browser tracing ad companies. These companies specialize upon cross-referencing seemingly unrelated surfing habits to generate user profiles (and supposedly using those to deliver ads we want to see, but I'm still waiting for that to happen), and if they can attach such labels as age and gender to their recognizable traces (maybe you also supplied your household income as "non-identifiable demographic info" on some otherwise unrelated site? they can easily deduce where you live from a multitude of location-related web sites, like those of your local cinema, pizza service or whatever), they can deduce very much about you.

Now if you think that's beside the point, since you don't provide the info to those data harvesters, but to GoComics, go back to the form and click the "Privacy Policy" link. You'll find out it's actually uclick.com, and the list of ad companies provided there (which they are in bed^W^W^Wcooperate with) reads like a who is who of, well, what was it again you said didn't happen?

I don't use this browser personality for much other than comics, but this is a nice reminder to clean out cookies once in a while.

[Who Cares]

For those struggling with using sites like this one where they force you to view "in your face" ads (the real reason for flash, etc) in order to view images you want, I'd suggest using the Opera browser. It allows disabling of GIF animation, audio in web pages, plugins like flash, javascript, java, cookies, pop-ups, etc etc, with just a punch of the F12 key and a click. You can almost as easily enable/disable frames, inline frames, 3rd-party vs. local cookies, redirection, referrer logging, etc etc, even ID the browser as being IE6.
No, I don't work for Opera, and it isn't perfect by any means, but it does make it easier to control web pages (and their ads) that seem to be set up to annoy you. For example, I see exactly zero 3rd-party ads on gocomics using Opera. If I want to read Calvin&Hobbes, I hit the F12 key and click "enable plugins". Then when I click on Calvin&Hobbes, it comes up fine (I have flash8)and still no 3rd-party ads. Then I hit F12, click "disable plugins", and flash is gone again. Darn convenient, and it's free at opera.com And yes, there is a linux version.

[mjw]

Please go back to the old system. I will not install Flash.

[Max]

That's cool but now the comis strips download very slowly. The new gocomics interface seems to be overloaded with that stuff =(