Critique My Site: ComicSeeker.com

[richnerd]

Great site. What about adding a grade filter, so people who only buy NM's. for instance, don't have to waid through dolgoff's fr/pr issues.

 

Yea but by who's NM would it sort by?

 

 

Mile high's, of course .... is there any better representative of spot on NM grading out there? I think not...

Now thats some funny

[MCMiles]

Great idea. I agree that it needs more filters. Grade, Age, CGC, pedigree etc.

Fantastic though, thanks for sharing it.

[innocuous]

very cool site. Aside from grades to shoot for, All I can think to add would be to see ALL the hits at once so we can compare them. I know thats a tall order since as it stands, we get a window in a window of each site, not the distilled data we searched for... but, whatever. Very useful!

 

Thanks. I would love to show the results Google style. That's about 2 months of development work, instead of the 2 weeks I put in. (And, beyond my skills.)

 

As for grades, that is next on the list after all the clean-up and optimization I want to do.

 

Thanks for all the great comments everyone. I was holding my breath thinking I was going to be the new laughingstock. Now I'm inspired to keep it going.

[Aman619]

no way! Its the next logical step in internet comics buying.... search everywhere at once in one place. Bravo.

[FlamingCarrot]

Nice site. Just one problem.

 

 

 

 

Needs more cowbell.

 

[Aman619]

what doesnt????

[innocuous]

I added a few more sites and "de-linked' the ones that weren't working. Sorry, but I also added one of those Google ad bars, I need to pay for my server somehow.

 

In another day or so I'll launch the site and make the search available on the homepage.

 

I'm going to create a page of links to other dealers that I can't search. I found a list in the silver and gold forum, so, if you're there, I'll list you.

[chrisco37]

Wow! Outstanding! Keep up the excellent work.

 

As others have said, some more search perameters would be great. Still, very nice.

 

Welcome to the Boards.

[Comicdey]

very cool

[-cryptkeeper-]

wow great job,

i'll use it

[Earl Davis]

Superb

[innocuous]

I just added a newsletter subscription and a couple more sites to search.

 

I'll probably launch tomorrow. Thanks again for the great comments.

 

Does anyone have a contact at Scoop? I subscribe to their newsletter and would like them to publish a little blurb about the site. Thanks.

[Shield]

I think I killed it. I did a search here for "Pep comics" and everything worked, until I got to the "CGC lookup" portion. Then it went into some infinite loop where it repeatedly loaded the web page.

Just thought I'd let you know.

 

Shawn

[comicwiz]

1. Help me (and you) find the books you crave

2. Promote my ebay sales (assuming I get traffic to the site)

 

I have so many quesitons:

- Has this been done before

- Is it useful for you

- What would you do differently

- How can I improve it

- How do I promote it

-

 

 

I developed several variations of a comic search engine. The first one dated back to Dec 2005. One of them was launched on these boards.

 

It did things a little differently, and at the end, had a substantial amount of sites within the search range. When I say differently, I had the ComicLinks, Heritage, eBay, and select other auction/consignment sites. I structured the search ranges by different categories, and the search capabilities went beyond the books being offered through comic sites, and well into thousands of classified advertisement sites, spanning the entire North American continent.

 

The project transformed itself into FetchComics. The only difference is with FetchComics, there is no public access to the search software. The only way you have access to perform searches is by creating email alerts. In other words if you're looking for a Zap Comix 1, the -script will automatically conduct a search each day for you, and return results to your specified email address.

 

The motivation for developing these "collectible" search technologies was mostly related to this idea of using them as a way to experiement with search technologies, and I have sinced moved into a completely different direction with the technologies I've developed. The comic search project was a way for me to hone my skills, and give something back to the collecting community. I didn't really expect to derive revenue from these projects, as comic collectors and shop owners are a fairly fickle crowd. If you do consider deriving revenue from advertising, I would strongly suggest using a more unobtrusive method such as text ads. This is a method I'm currently using in a number of different projects, and one that benefits both the collector and the advertiser without it being frustrating to the end user.

 

As far as promoting it is concerned, you've already started on a good note by posting it here. Scoop would be a good idea. Also, try getting the folks at CGC to add it to their newsletter.

 

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via PM, or through the address on my profile.

 

And best of luck with your project!

[nearmint]

Shawn, maybe you could...um...stay away from my site?

[Shield]

But you don't even have a search engine! Just some overpriced Nedors!

[nearmint]

But you don't even have a search engine! Just some overpriced Nedors!

 

[innocuous]

...

The project transformed itself into FetchComics. The only difference is with FetchComics, there is no public access to the search software. The only way you have access to perform searches is by creating email alerts. In other words if you're looking for a Zap Comix 1, the -script will automatically conduct a search each day for you, and return results to your specified email address.

 

This is really cool. Thanks for sharing. For those hard--to-find books, this is probably the best solution out there. Are you planning to offer the service for free? I think you would get a lot of takers there which would give traffic to your other products.

 

Thanks for the other advice re: ads and promotions. I'll make some changes based on your comments.

[comicwiz]

...

The project transformed itself into FetchComics. The only difference is with FetchComics, there is no public access to the search software. The only way you have access to perform searches is by creating email alerts. In other words if you're looking for a Zap Comix 1, the -script will automatically conduct a search each day for you, and return results to your specified email address.

 

This is really cool. Thanks for sharing. For those hard--to-find books, this is probably the best solution out there. Are you planning to offer the service for free? I think you would get a lot of takers there which would give traffic to your other products.

 

Thanks for the other advice re: ads and promotions. I'll make some changes based on your comments.

 

Thanks for the kind words!

 

Its too early to say whether this is something I'd like to make available on a public platform. There is a great deal of time and development that went into the technology. It's also not cheap to host the infrastructure that drives it. As it stands, its pretty affordable, and I think its useful enough to justify the cost.

 

For instance, I've recently rescripted the search engine to parse results in rss and xml. Below is an example that displays the results for a search on "comic collections" across multiple categories (US and Canada) in xml and rss, and in a "combo" ticker format (hover over the link to pause the ticker):

 

[sterlingcomics]

I've also pondered how to solve this problem of finding books across a large number of sites. Some sites have a notification service, but it runs only once a day (if ever) and I still miss some books from other lucky collector/sniper. In addition to some very specific search/parsing technology that comicwiz mentions, I thought about a method of creating web services that comic web sites could utilize to notify and communicate new and changing information so collectors could literally get the latest up to the minute information regarding inventory availability.

 

As comicwiz mentions, it doesn't take long to get the head dizzy from the possibilities, but at least you guys have working solutions. I'm still in the early phases of exploring this. Unfortunately, doing something like this would require a common vehicle used by participating vendors, which is intrusive. Searching through web sites is difficult and tedious. Perhaps the solution is somewhere in the middle.