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Advertisements
Last modified: 2011-04-10
Status: Implemented / Implementation may differ from these notes
Idea: (semi-)large "Buy now" / "Download now" button on VN pages, linking
either to the product on a webshop or displaying a dropdown list with
available releases with links to webshops.
A link to a webshop only appears if it has at least one release of the VN on
their site, and the link always points directly to the product page, not to
the search function or the homepage.
A webshop link is internally linked to a release in the database, so we have
all kinds of information including whether it's a download or package, and in
what language it is.
Preferably, the link also indicates the price and whether it is in stock.
Possible parties interested in advertising:
- J-List
Has an affiliate system that includes direct links
doesn't store JAN/UPC/catalog numbers
- Play-asia
Has an affiliate system that includes direct links
stores JAN, UPC, and catalog numbers
- DLSite English
Has an affiliate system that includes direct links
Most releases don't even have a JAN code or catalog number
- MangaGamer
Rather specific "shop", but could count as one.
Has no affiliate system, but is planning to add one, as announced in
http://mangagamer.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/holidays-passing/
Releases don't have catalog numbers or EAN codes
- PaletWeb
Has no affiliate system
Does have JAN codes for a few titles, but inconsistent
Rather messy website... finding/updating links will be a chore
- CDJapan
Doesn't have that many VNs from what I've browsed, but still several
Has an affiliate system (seems to include direct links)
Has catalog numbers for most (all?) releases
- Hendane!
Does not seem to have many VNs (3 or 4?)
Has no affiliate system
Does not have JAN or catalog numbers
- Himeyashop / Erogeshop (out of business?)
Has no affiliate system but has shown interest in link exchanges in the past
Does not store JAN/UPC/catalog numbers
"Temporarily" closed, so probably not a good time to ask for ads?
- Eroge-Europe.com (out of business?)
Seems to have an affiliate system, haven't really looked at it yet
Does not store JAN/UPC/catalog numbers
So who is going to update all those links?
Three possibilities:
1. Automatically
By matching JAN/EAN/UPC or catalog numbers from our database with the
information on the webshop, and fetching the information necessary for the
links.
Since Play-asia is the only one storing that kind of information, this
will be rather specific. We can't really expect all other parties to
update their system, and for DLSite and MangaGamer it would involve
creating (official) catalog numbers for each entry - which would be easy
for MG, but certainly not for DLSite.
Even if a shop stores it, we'd need fast and up-to-date access to it. We
have several thousand JAN codes in the database. If we want to make sure
our information is accurate and up-to-date we'd have to check for the
availability of each release each day. Doing this will most likely require
the other party to update their site with an API providing this
information. I somehow doubt they would...
2. Let the advertiser add and update the info
Add an admin interface to the site allowing advertisers to add links to
their shop to release entries - also allowing them to indicate the price
and stock availability.
Since advertisers benefit from these links, we can assume that, if they
agree to do this, they will keep the info up-to-date.
However, for some reason I don't think many advertisers would want to
invest that much time in advertising on a single site.
Instead of the advertiser itself, it would also be possible to look for a
dedicated user to do this for them. Though somehow I doubt we'd find
someone like that, and I don't feel like doing that myself.
3. Let our users add and update the info
Add webshop links to release entries. Since the price and stock
availability tend to change over time and our dear users are either pretty
slow on the uptake or too lazy to update VNDB, we can forget about any
other information besides the links. :-(
It might, however, be possible to automatically fetch the price and stock
information anyway since we have the URLs, but in that case the webshop
should either allow us to crawl quite a lot or provide an alternative
method.
Since the list of webshops we link to is not a static one - shops can be
added or removed after a while - we can expect these links to be edited
quite often, which could make a mess with the edit histories.
Alternatively, we could do it VGMdb-like: allow users to simply manage
links where the release is sold, regardless of whether they are
advertising on VNDB or not. This would still make it possible to
special-case advertisers and give them special treatment or fetch
additional information.
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