March Madness 3/27/2011 - - - DIGITALIS
I just finished what I thought was going to be a short survey after receiving an email invitation from Marvel.com.
It asked many questions related to comics on the internet, digital comics and digital subscriptions, comics apps for smart phones, etc. Seems like Marvel is trying to plot their future direction and determine some trends so they can respond accordingly.
I think they are smart to do so, and appreciate the thoroughness of the survey - - which gets into many other areas of popular entertainment, entertainment habits, etc. I’d encourage anyone who cares about the future of this important medium to respond. I wanted to be sure that I could indicate my preference for print, and there were several responses that allowed me to do so. Even though I’ve warmed up to some of the other presentation formats for comics, nothing beats holding the book in your hand.
I tried to copy the link here from my email invite. It must be personally synced to my individual survey because it wouldn’t come up. I’m sure if you go to www.marvel.com you can find a link to participate.
Be prepared to spend 15-20 minutes answering this. Thanks if you do. I wouldn’t devote any space to this here if I didn’t think it was important. More comics companies should survey their market (and many do) to see how their product is perceived and what is preferred.
Marvel's digital comics service (the subscription service, not the app that lets you buy & download issues individually) will be available for free on Starbucks wi-fi starting April 23. I think this is a really smart way to reach out to a wider audience.
ReplyDeleteThat does sound cool. Let me make sure I understand this. I could go to a Starbucks with my laptop, order my coffee, etc. and then access their subscription to Marvel digital and read comics there for free? I'll plan to check that out in April. I'm intersted to see and hear how the Starbucks people promote this.
ReplyDeleteThat's my understanding, yeah. I haven't tried it, but they already offer a free in-store wi-fi service with Wall St. Journal, NY Times, USA Today, iTunes downloads, etc. and they're just adding Marvel's "Digital Comics Unlimited" service to it. Last time I checked DCU (unfortunate acronym), the issues were mostly at least six months old but it's still cool since new readers won't care about that.
ReplyDeleteYou have no idea how excited I was to find that out when I arrived at Starbucks one day the other week to see the alert.
ReplyDeleteSee, the thing is, when you go to Starbucks and get on the internet, you have to accept their terms, and after that you go to the Starbucks digital homepage, and they'll list featured stuff there. That's how I found out about it, and I imagine they'll be promoting it periodically.
I'm going to use it a lot, I basically live there anyway :P