King Digital was launched by King Features Syndicate in October 2007 to bring the company’s syndicated content to the Web. King Features Syndicate is a print and online syndication company owned by Hearst Corporation that distributes comics, entertainment and lifestyle columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to more than 5,000 newspapers around the world.
Assembly Highlights:
Hearst was looking for a new mechanism to increase customer engagement online with it's 1,800 comic brands to increase licensing arrangements. The existing mechanism was static, drove little interaction and limited ad revenue for its partners.
Since the launch of the application widget, Hearst has profited from:
- 94% increase in traffic on comics section
- 4:53 minutes average engaged session time
- 86% increase in ad inventory on comics section
- 11.1 page views per unique visitor on Comics Kingdom
The Challenge
Content service providers like King Digital are looking for ways to increase revenues by syndicating content online. To outpace its competition, King Digital worked with Optaros to assemble a turnkey solution for publishers to drive revenue by syndicating comics to online news sites. King Digital was up against limited resources and tight schedules, aiming to deliver a solution to its first customer, The Albany Times Union’s TimesUnion.com, in an eight-week timeframe.
Optaros used its assembly methodology (OptAM) to build Comics Kingdom for King Digital, which is a revenue-generating syndication application widget that can be distributed anywhere on the web. The application embeds over 1,800 comic strips within a news site, preserving its look and feel while seamlessly linking back to the King Digital server where the application resides. The assembly includes an integrated ad server that allows King Digital to embed ads within the comics section and the publisher to do the same within the frame of their Web site. Administrative features, analytics and advertising management systems allow King Digital to maintain and service Comics Kingdom for its clients.
The Assembly
Optaros devised a novel approach that uses Javascript call to dynamically manipulate the document object model (DOM) of an external Web page. Content stored in JSON libraries on the originating system is presented as though it is part of the page, although it is called from a different server. A viewer appears within the Web page, linking back to a library of syndicated content, while the remainder of the page remains intact and under the control of the site owner.
The Results
The Results The Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union launched Comics KingdomTM in January 2008 (http://timesunion. com/comics/), taking advantage of Web 2.0 features to offer its comics readers an interactive experience while simulating viewing comics in print publications. Since its launch, TimesUnion.com has profited from:
- 94% increase in traffic on comics section
- 4:53 minutes average engaged session time
- 86% increase in ad inventory on comics section
- 11.1 page views per unique visitor on Comics Kingdom