summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/data/notes/sponsored-links
blob: c31001d22b9f0da2dddfc53db70dfb0185172c6d (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
Advertisements

Last modified: 2011-01
Status: Long-term plans / nothing implemented yet


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
- Himeyashop / Erogeshop
  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?
- DLSite English
  Seems to have an affiliate system, haven't really looked at it yet
  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
- Eroge-Europe.com
  Seems to have an affiliate system, haven't really looked at it yet
  Does not store JAN/UPC/catalog numbers
- PaletWeb
  Has no affiliate system
  Does have JAN codes for a few titles, but inconsistent
- 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


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.

I would greatly prefer option #1, but since that's not very practical option
#3 (the VGMdb-like solution) is probably the best.