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ANN Reader Survey


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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 4:48 pm Reply with quote
Bold up the NEWS portion of your logo. Make it bolder than the rest. Wink
I come here because to me ANN does what it says on the tin. A network of information and news about anime and manga and the odd vocaloid or two. It would be a shame, in my opinion, if it were to change that formula just for the sake of change. I have to agree though if you are looking for a section to trim to reduce costs, the streaming section would be a good place to start as there are others out there to go to who are more dedicated to just that.
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potatochobit



Joined: 26 Aug 2009
Posts: 1373
Location: TEXAS
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 4:55 pm Reply with quote
oreimo on ANN was the net service episodes 13+
those are not available on crunchyroll, no need to compare the sites

I could not enter that I buy .25 manga per month
and I did not see 'collects' dakimakura as an option
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Sky_Renzokuken



Joined: 03 Jan 2012
Posts: 22
Location: Seattle, WA
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 5:10 pm Reply with quote
I always look foward to ANNcast on my day off work. Right turn only. Jason Thompson. Love all these keep up the good work.
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Mad_Scientist
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Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Posts: 3011
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 5:14 pm Reply with quote
Gwydion wrote:
Yeah, I had to give a "0" for "monthly anime purchases" as for me it's more like 2 or 3 a year, and that's no where near the 12 that would have been assumed had I put "1".


I'm in a similar situation, they I haven't filled out the survey yet. I suppose it's too late to alter the survey to allow fractions, or change it to annual anime purchases?
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 10417
Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:08 pm Reply with quote
I'm not sure WTF happened here. but I'm thankful that Lynzee quoted Mesonoxian Eve's answer, I want to read the negative opinions. They're very helpful.

To address them:

Quote:
I feel ANN is struggling to stay relevant, and I'm wondering how long it'll be before there's a message saying "It was fun! Toodles!"


Don't worry, we aren't going anywhere. But staying relevant is something that's constantly on our mind. Every site has to continue to adapt to its readers and the market.

Quote:

Years ago, this site was the place to go for anime information. Its encyclopedia was invaluable, and bolstered with support from reviews and fan opinions. Now, because it sat idle, I find Wikipedia more useful. The site gives much more information, and the encyclopedia can no longer keep up.


The Anime Encyclopedia and Wikipedia are very different beasts, but your opinion is very valid. I think our Encyclopedia has a lot of benefits versus Wikipedia, but I recognize that it's got quite alot of shortcomings too. We're working on addressing some of those shortcomings, and we're also looking at new features that other websites don't have.

Work on the Encyc may have seemed very stagnant for a long time, but it's been continuing behind the scenes, and I'm constantly pushing for us to start rolling stuff out.

Quote:
I'd like to use ANN's streaming services, but the layout to the site makes it an arduous quest. In addition, the site's in no position to exclude subscriber accounts from having to view the ads. I will never support a streaming model which forces me to watch ads while paying.


Unfortunately we're not going to be able to be the streaming service for you. We tried streaming, we learned alot, and we've decided that it definitely isn't for us. We love the feature, but we hate the business. We do plan on revamping our video section this year, we're going to improve the aggregating of streams from Crunchyroll, Funimation and other sites (but we have no control over their ads for now... maybe we can work something out with them in the future) and we may start creating more original video content again. But licensing... Sad

Like I said, I love streaming anime, and I think ANN is the perfect site to offer the service. When I think of the "Perfect ANN," it's a site that streams more anime than Crunchyroll. The problem is the business model, it would take millions of dollars, and the returns just wouldn't be worth it. Crunchyroll is now profitable (good for them!), but I stand by the opinion I publicly expressed last year, streaming anime only makes sense as a business if you're also earning revenue off the sale of physical media and merchandise related to that anime (or you're a mainstream streaming service including anime as part of a catalog, but not relying on it to cover your operating expenses)


Quote:

I understand the revenue needed to accomplish major change is an issue, but therein lies the problem. In all these years, has ANN's subscriber base ever exceeded 500 members? I believe it was Dan who stated there were less than 400 active subscribers.
Subscribers account for less than 1% of our gross revenue. Right now, it's more a service we offer to our biggest fans, than an actual revenue source. We'd love to improve the subscription options to make it something a lot of people would want to pay for, but TBH, aside from gimping the non-subscriber version (something I don't want to ever do), I can't think of anyway to make the subscription any more attractive.

Quote:
This is why my answer is "No", as difficult as it was to write this.


Thanks, your input is appreciated.

-t
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 10417
Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:09 pm Reply with quote
Gwydion wrote:
Yeah, I had to give a "0" for "monthly anime purchases" as for me it's more like 2 or 3 a year, and that's no where near the 12 that would have been assumed had I put "1".

Mad_Scientist wrote:

I'm in a similar situation, they I haven't filled out the survey yet. I suppose it's too late to alter the survey to allow fractions, or change it to annual anime purchases?


If you buy 0-5 a year, mark down "0" If you buy 6-12 a year, mark down "1".

It's too late to change it as the results would then become invalid. Next time I ask this question I'll ask "per year"

-t
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Mad_Scientist
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Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Posts: 3011
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:21 pm Reply with quote
Thanks for the response Tempest, I'll do that.

Also, Fandompost.com was not listed as a choice for one of the anime sites I visit at least once a week, so I thought I'd mention it here. It's my third most visited anime site, after ANN and crunchyroll.
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 10417
Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:41 pm Reply with quote
Mad_Scientist wrote:
Also, Fandompost.com was not listed as a choice for one of the anime sites I visit at least once a week, so I thought I'd mention it here.


Yeah, I completely forgot about them, but they ranked pretty high in the favorites list.

I was actually quiet happy to see Fandom post up there.

-t
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 10417
Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:45 pm Reply with quote
octopodpie wrote:

The part of your opinion I agree with is that the site's general layout to get to certain destinations could be revisited and streamlined. I think that would be a useful update.


Actively working on it!

Subscribers already saw some of the beta work, but a new layout based on feedback will be coming out very soon.

I really liked what I saw last night.

-t
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egoist



Joined: 20 Jun 2008
Posts: 7762
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:48 pm Reply with quote
So many no's and so little ticks.
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Calathan
Subscriber



Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 9110
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:24 pm Reply with quote
Whenever a poll asks how many anime DVDs/Blu-rays I buy, I'm never sure if my answer should be the number of products I buy or the number of DVDs/Blu-ray disks contained in those purchases. I bought 37 anime products in the last year, so I answered 3 per month, but in terms of the actual number of DVDs/Blu-rays contained in those products, it would certainly be over 100 total (so maybe 8-10 disks per month).

I'm very happy with Anime News Network and said on the poll that I think you are doing a good job. However, since Tempest seems interested in anything negative we have to say about ANN, I'll mention here the things that I think you could do better.

First, ANN's streaming video just doesn't work well for me. In fact, it has so consistently worked poorly for me that I do not even attempt to stream video from ANN anymore. Videos very regularly freeze or crash for me. I attempted to watch a trailer just now to see if there was any improvement. The trailer played for 9 seconds, then froze for a minute or two (and froze my whole computer along with it), then started playing again. Most of the time it was playing, there was circle spinning in the middle (which I assume means it is loading, except the whole video had loaded by then). I don't know if the problems with ANN's streaming videos are due to my computer or something on your end, but Crunchyroll, Hulu, and Youtube all work fine for me. Note though that streaming video is not what I particularly want from ANN (i.e. it isn't the reason why I use the site), and I would prefer my subscription money to be used on other things, but I thought I should mention that the streaming video doesn't work properly for me.

Second, I love ANN's Encyclopedia and use it all the time. However, I've complained a few times about how slowly the queue of new submissions to the encyclopedia gets processed. Many things have been in the queue for years without being processed. In addition, I wish the error reports could be processed quicker (though the problem isn't as bad as with the submitted anime queue). I've made several error reports that I thought were very obvious but have not been processed for years. I assume that the encyclopedia is not really a source of much revenue for you, and I understand that it might not be financially viable for you to pay anyone to work on the submitted anime and error reports. However, if I could choose any way for my subscription money to be used, I would want you to use it to pay someone to process those submitted anime and error reports.

Anyway, those are the only things I have a complaint about (and the second complaint is more along the lines of something that I think is great and wish more work could be done on because of how great I think it is). Overall I think ANN is doing a great job.
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chrisc1978



Joined: 31 May 2008
Posts: 363
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:26 pm Reply with quote
I want to protest because theanimenetwork.com was not in the anime website list.

Last edited by chrisc1978 on Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Prede



Joined: 17 Sep 2009
Posts: 388
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:27 pm Reply with quote
Generally I am more then happy with ANN and its reporting on stories, so I voted for that. My one complaint involves stories like this . Ok so supposedly Media Blasters did not get back to you guys. Ok how long did you wait? In what way did you contact them? Did Media Blasters later get back to ANN about it and you guys didn't update the story? I feel you guys do this all the time, you never keep up when a company doesn't respond to your requests for comments. I understand Media Blaster's themselves later posted on their facebook about it, and you guys reported that. But this isn't the only time this has happened... So ok you don't have to tell us everything about what you did when you contacted them, but I feel you guys just ask once then ignore it, and don't update these stories.

Just my 2 cents. Otherwise I love this site and how it reports stories. My only other complaint is Justin Sevakis needs to write more reviews =P . I miss reading his buried treasure articles.
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penguintruth



Joined: 08 Dec 2004
Posts: 8452
Location: Penguinopolis
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:42 pm Reply with quote
Well, first off, anyone who thinks Wikipedia's more useful than the ANN Encyclopedia/Database for information on anime is just ridiculous. Though Wikipedia does provide more information as summaries and the like (more thorough summaries, character profiles, and the like), ANN gives you all sorts of specifics, like directors, key artists, character designers, a better rundown of voice actors and their roles, and has far more titles in the database.

As somebody who does an anime blog, knowing who voices what character and who produced what, who composed the music and what label it's under, these things are all enormously useful, when you know how to use it right. It's a remarkable collection of information. Of course, I do use other sites to get some kind of backup, but the ANN Encylopedia is a huge help in providing a more professional, researched touch to any critique or tribute.

That said, I do get a little annoyed with how broad ANN has become. I understand that the "interest" stories aren't intended to be real headliners, but sometimes it just feels like filler material. I realize that gaming and anime fandom have big crossover value, but all the gaming news can be irritating. I know, I should just filter it out in my head. Nobody's forcing me to read it. I'm trying. It's just that when I'm cruising for ANN updates and I think it might be some really cool anime announcement and see a story about a flashmob reenacting the opening of SMB3, I get a twinge of disappointment.

The only other thing is, ANN sure could use an extra reviewer. Somebody... somebody with guts, who expresses his powerful thoughts and well-formed opinions without compuntion. Perhaps a pillar of the fan community. Wink
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stararnold



Joined: 22 Sep 2007
Posts: 227
Location: LaSalle, Quebec, Canada
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 8:08 pm Reply with quote
Certain parts of the survey (namely the questions about DVD purchase, manga purchase, and preferred means to acccess anime) were not easy for me to answer as it's not much months per year I buy anime DVDs or manga, and I while I like supporting both DVD purchase and free legal streaming because I believe in acccessing anime the ethical way, I find myself forced to select one in the question of preferred means to accces anime, and I ended selecting "free legal streaming" because I don't get to buy DVDs as often as I hoped to so I try to find time to watch legally the anime I want to see online, other or not I'll get to buy DVD copies of them later on.

As for other questions, they were easy to ask, even the one about what I like to or want to collect as there are several kinds I like collecting and will like to collect, but that all depends on favorite anime the merchandises are based on.
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