The Howio of Wowio: Our Profit, Your Privacy
I've been getting some questions about Wowio. How does it work? Is readers' privacy secure? How is it that readers pay nothing but Gisele and I make money?
Wowio exists because advertisers are always looking for new ways to reach customers. The ads are embedded in the e-books Wowio sells-- downloadable PDFs, generally designed for the screen. Wowio's clients include companies like Verizon and Electronic Arts.
Wowio compensates creators 50 cents per unique download. If you download our first e-book over and over and over again... stop doing that, because Gisele and I won't make any more than fifty cents. But if you download all 14 Penny and Aggie e-books (nine available at this writing, the rest coming soon), Gisele and I make $7. And if two people do that, we make $14. As it is, Gisele and I have made over $1,000 with Wowio in less than a week, most of it with just four books.
And now for the big question: how does Wowio tell that you're unique? For the answer, I phoned the company president and CTO, William Lidwell:
"If there was a magical, universally-agreed-upon standard for determining that, we'd be all over it. In fact, that might be my next project, given the challenges we've had with this one."
At present, Wowio asks for one of three different kinds of information: a "non-anonymous" e-mail address (my Gmail account is no good, because I could have fifty of those), a scan of some ID like a driver's license, library card or passport (interesting but a lot of work for a signup) or a credit card number (what I ended up using).
It's this feature that has triggered some small controversy. Webcomics blogger extraordinaire Gary Tyrrell admits, "There's no way in hell that I'd ever transmit either [CC numbers or IDs] to somebody offering me something for free. Why yes, I am a cynical sumbitch, thank you."
But I'm not sure why Gary thinks a company that asks for a credit card number, or alternatives, and no money is less trustworthy than a company that asks for a credit card number and money. When my identity was stolen, it was due to a transaction made in an Orlando restaurant. There is always risk in exchanging information, online or off-- and many companies don't have founders saying things like this:
"We don't store identifying information, and there is no way for anyone at this company to break individual information out of aggregate. Some people have even sent us driver's licenses with certain information blocked out-- we accept those."
How, then, does Wowio continue to verify that the same individuals aren't signing up multiple times? Lidwell's answer was partly confidential, but the gist is that they use well-worn techniques from other online vendors who do ask for money, and err on the side of user security.
Ultimately, it's your call whether you believe Lidwell's words. My own beliefs are that a writer of books on management and design doesn't put his reputation on the line lightly, and that Verizon and Electronic Arts are not in the habit of tying their brands to scandals-in-the-making. When I signed up for Wowio to download the Sore Thumbs collections, I typed in my credit card info without a second thought.
Wowio exists because advertisers are always looking for new ways to reach customers. The ads are embedded in the e-books Wowio sells-- downloadable PDFs, generally designed for the screen. Wowio's clients include companies like Verizon and Electronic Arts.
Wowio compensates creators 50 cents per unique download. If you download our first e-book over and over and over again... stop doing that, because Gisele and I won't make any more than fifty cents. But if you download all 14 Penny and Aggie e-books (nine available at this writing, the rest coming soon), Gisele and I make $7. And if two people do that, we make $14. As it is, Gisele and I have made over $1,000 with Wowio in less than a week, most of it with just four books.
And now for the big question: how does Wowio tell that you're unique? For the answer, I phoned the company president and CTO, William Lidwell:
"If there was a magical, universally-agreed-upon standard for determining that, we'd be all over it. In fact, that might be my next project, given the challenges we've had with this one."
At present, Wowio asks for one of three different kinds of information: a "non-anonymous" e-mail address (my Gmail account is no good, because I could have fifty of those), a scan of some ID like a driver's license, library card or passport (interesting but a lot of work for a signup) or a credit card number (what I ended up using).
It's this feature that has triggered some small controversy. Webcomics blogger extraordinaire Gary Tyrrell admits, "There's no way in hell that I'd ever transmit either [CC numbers or IDs] to somebody offering me something for free. Why yes, I am a cynical sumbitch, thank you."
But I'm not sure why Gary thinks a company that asks for a credit card number, or alternatives, and no money is less trustworthy than a company that asks for a credit card number and money. When my identity was stolen, it was due to a transaction made in an Orlando restaurant. There is always risk in exchanging information, online or off-- and many companies don't have founders saying things like this:
"We don't store identifying information, and there is no way for anyone at this company to break individual information out of aggregate. Some people have even sent us driver's licenses with certain information blocked out-- we accept those."
How, then, does Wowio continue to verify that the same individuals aren't signing up multiple times? Lidwell's answer was partly confidential, but the gist is that they use well-worn techniques from other online vendors who do ask for money, and err on the side of user security.
Ultimately, it's your call whether you believe Lidwell's words. My own beliefs are that a writer of books on management and design doesn't put his reputation on the line lightly, and that Verizon and Electronic Arts are not in the habit of tying their brands to scandals-in-the-making. When I signed up for Wowio to download the Sore Thumbs collections, I typed in my credit card info without a second thought.
Labels: Webcomics
Posted at
11:15 AM
9 Comments:
Thank you for the update, Mr. Campbell. I plan on linking this when I write up a secantial review for a comic using Wowio, unless you'd prefer me not to.
Rob H., Tangents Reviews
One issue with Wowio that sinks it for me right now - for copyright reasons it's unavailable for readers outside the USA. They say they're aiming to make all their books available worldwide "in the long run", and they're still pretty new so I know they deserve patience on this - but it does mean that for the moment, a small piece of the webcomic world stops dead at the US border.
Yes, that is true, Tim, and I don't like that either.
From their Privacy info:
"Your personal information is shared with sponsors and other clients and partners of WOWIO in aggregate only. No personal identifying information is available to clients or partners."
That still sits poorly with me. I don't like the idea of my personal info beind "shared." Hell, for all I know my email will be sold to spamming lists. I want more guarantees about who my info will and won't be given to. A lot of the privacy information seems like it needs to be tightened up before I'd consider trusting them.
Randy, that's exactly what the existing text says does not happen. The key words are "in aggregate only." "In aggregate only" means that no individual information-- no credit-card numbers, no e-mail addresses, no library cards-- is shared.
What is shared are things like demographic information and yearly income: "the audience for this work appears to be 75% female and 50% in their twenties." Aggregate info, not individual info.
But how do they get demographic information or yearly income from your email address or credit card? Or is there more that they ask you for once you give them the identifying information?
Yes, exactly. To sign up, I had to answer questions in a brief poll.
"When my identity was stolen, it was due to a transaction made in an Orlando restaurant."
My identity hasn't been stolen, but money has been stolen from my credit cards recently and that's happened at a fast food place, never online.
I have to admit that when I first saw Wowio I clicked away; especially because I didn't see anything there I really wanted. No way was I giving out something so precious to me.
When the Penny and Aggie books became available, I salivated... and I started looking around at their site to see what exactly was going on.
I ultimately decided to go with it, but it's still an iffy thing. I don't normally give out any personal information online. It's a risk. I prefer anonymity.
I think as it grows--especially through having pieces like Marry Me and Penny and Aggie--and people become familiar with it there'll be more of a market, not less. I'm leery of most online vendors, but trust Amazon. Why? A big name means that they are in the spotlight. It means if they screw you over then they have something to lose (their name).
(of course, I just used my work e-mail to sign up for wowio... rather than a credit card or anything else that seemed too much for me)
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