NEW NAME IS OFFICIAL

Following official announcement was issued at Comic-Con 2005, and later reported at Keenspot Forums:

“KEENSPOT INCREASING PROMOTIONAL BUDGET TO $25,000 ANNUALLY Keenspot plans to spend a minimum of $25,000 over the next year on paid promotion of our webcomics. An average of $500/month will be spent exclusively on web-based promotion outside the Keenspot network, while the rest will be spent on misc. promotion including convention appearances, print advertising, promotional giveaways, and more.

KEENSPOT TO HIRE FULL-TIME ADVERTISING SALESPERSON In order to further grow our ad revenues, Keenspot plans to hire a full-time advertising salesperson with experience in the online ad sales arena. We will be accepting applications for this position shortly.

KEENSPOT LOWERING ADVERTISING RATES FOR WEBCARTOONISTS TO $0.50 CPM Webcomic creators who choose to advertise their webcomic with a 728x90 banner on the Keenspot network will be charged only $0.50 CPM (50% off the $1 CPM minimum for non-webcomic advertisers), with a minimum purchase of 50,000 impressions ($25).

KEENSPOT ROLLS OUT GOOGLE ADSENSE, PAYS TO TRANSCRIBE EVERY ARCHIVED COMIC The option to include Keenspot-supplied Google Adsense text advertisements on their site is now available to our creators. We work with creators to implement the text ads using the most effective methods available. Keenspot plans to join the Premium Adsense service, which supplies a variety of Adsense advantages not available to clients receiving less than 20 million pageviews monthly. Keenspot also plans to pay to have the archives of every Keenspot comic transcribed in text form. This will not only allow each comic to be fully searchable, it will also allow Google Adsense to deliver more effective and targeted advertising on every page they appear.

D.J. COFFMAN JOINING KEENSYNDICATE THIS FALL Cartoonist D.J. Coffman, who successfully self-syndicated his comic strip GRAVITY to 50 newspapers in 2000, will be joining our print syndication service KeenSyndicate this fall in an executive capacity. He will head up the recruitment of new clients for the Keenspot Comics Page and other print syndication endeavors planned by Keenspot, contacting and meeting with editors across the country to spread the gospel of Keenspot to the print world.

KEENSPOT ACTIVELY DEVELOPING PROJECTS FOR TV AND FILM Keenspot has teamed with experienced entertainment industry managers Manus Entertainment and The Gotham Group. We are now developing various projects for TV and film based on Keenspot webcomics.

KEENSPOT PREMIUM TO OFFER SUBSCRIBERS DOWNLOADABLE PSP COMICS AND KEENTOONS Subscribers to the Keenspot PREMIUM service will soon be able to download Keenspot webcomics and KeenTOONS shorts for viewing on their PlayStation Portable (PSP).

IT’S OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: KEENSPACE TO BECOME COMIC GENESIS A long time ago, we chose to change the name of KeenSPACE (our free webhosting service for aspiring comic creators) in order to avoid the frequent brand confusion caused by the name's similarity to KeenSPOT. Though "ToonSPACE" was originally chosen as the new name, it received a negative response from users of the service. We took their opinions heavily into account, and after a number of user polls made a new final decision: KeenSPACE is now Comic Genesis, or ComicGen for short. The dictionary defines "genesis" as "the coming into being of something; the origin." We hope many wonderful new webcomics will come into being on Comic Genesis, as many did on KeenSPACE over the past five years.

TWO LUMPS JOINS KEENSPOT TWO LUMPS, the popular and acclaimed webcomic by J. Grant and Mel Hynes, has joined Keenspot.

EVIL JOSH AND BILLY IS NEW KEENTOONS SERIES John Berry's critically-acclaimed Flash cartoon series EVIL JOSH & BILLY, about two aspiring super-villians trying to survive everyday teenage life, has joined the KeenTOONS network and will begin running soon.”

Mixed amongst these interesting news bits (including more accessible advertising for webcomic advertisers and potentially interesting news about developing Keenspot’s comics into Film and TV series) is one that concerns us the most at the moment ... the name change of “Keenspace” to “Comic Genesis”. This is not a big secret, as the original name choice was followed by a large debate and voting rounds two months ago, as we reported earlier. This is just a clarification of the decision made two months ago on behalf of many (if not the majority of) Keenspacers. Direct consequences are that the owners of Keenspace sites are going to have to change “Keenspace” into “Comic Genesis” wherever the name appears on their site (particulary in links and in hosting notices at the bottom of the pages. Here is an explanation on how to do this in the most efficient manner. Of course, other webcomic creators and other site admins are affected as they will have to change any Keenspace links from the format “comicname.keenspace.com” to “comicname.comicgenesis.com” or “comicname.comicgen.com” (both URL’s are effective). However, old URL’s containing .keenspace.com will be still effective for a year.

A reminder: the whole name change was initiated by the decision to separate the brand of Keenspace from Keenspot’s, due to the confusion that the similarities of the two names caused. With the newly acquired (at least theoretical) control over ex-Keenspace brand, Keenspacers are now considering new community-related projects the likes of the earlier comic sampler; Such are Comic Genesis T-shirts or Comic Genesis posters. Design of the main page for Comic Genesis site is still in process and people are already familiar with the new the new atom logo designed by Joel Fagin.

As with what the “Keenspace monthly” will be called in future, we’re still indecisive.

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