- Joined
- Jan 29, 2018
- Messages
- 1,348
It's been a wild ride, folks! It's a bit hard to believe that MangaDex has been around for a whole year but we're still here and still growing! Despite the many challenges we've seen that comes with a site that is exploding in popularity, we've always been able to rise to the occasion. It's all thanks to our readers and supporters that we've come this far. We hope you'll take care of us this upcoming year as well.
Most all of staff wanted to say something to everyone. Holo wanted to give some insight into the current state of MD and give a glimpse of the future! The rest of us followed up with a few words on what MD has meant to us. We'll also be announcing the winner of the Mega Contest. This is going to be a super long post so I hope everyone will bear with us.
Next, we'd like to take a moment to announce the winner of the Mega Contest, @NobunagaOda! It was pretty hard to choose between designs as it was a pretty crowded field of winners. Ultimately, My Neighbor MangaDex (as staff has so named it) won!
Click the spoiler to check out the winning image!
Several staff members complained that they could only cast one vote! I will be contacting the winner within a couple of days to award them their prizes which include:
$40 in Amazon gift cards, courtesy of @Zephyrus and @Holo
A mousepad courtesy of @Holo
A t-shirt with the winning design on it, courtesy of @Holo
A triple A game title courtesy of @Lymus
I'd like to thank everyone who participated and put in time and effort in this contest. We appreciate each and every one of you! It means a lot to staff that so many of you enjoy the community enough to take time out of your busy schedules to participate in these contests. And don't worry, I've already got something great cooked up for February. =)
On a related note, the response to our poll regarding whether or not MD should sell merch has been much more positive than we expected. We will be contacting artists at some point in the future to discuss featuring their work in our merchandise. Unfortunately, I can't say when that might be as we are still discussing details. Just keep a look out!
Next, let's hear a few words from our staff members:
@Holo - Overlord
@Ixlone - Admin
@rdn - Developer
@Teasday - Developer
@Lymus - Moderator
@Robo - Moderator
@Zephyrus - Moderator
@Electromaster - Moderator
@Plykiya - Public Relations
@Henny - Public Relations
Lastly, I'd like to take a moment and once again stress how thankful the MD team is to you, our audience. Whether you be a scanlator, a site supporter, or a reader, your participation and support is what makes us great and propels us to new heights of popularity! 2019 is going to be our year. Count on it!
Most all of staff wanted to say something to everyone. Holo wanted to give some insight into the current state of MD and give a glimpse of the future! The rest of us followed up with a few words on what MD has meant to us. We'll also be announcing the winner of the Mega Contest. This is going to be a super long post so I hope everyone will bear with us.
Next, we'd like to take a moment to announce the winner of the Mega Contest, @NobunagaOda! It was pretty hard to choose between designs as it was a pretty crowded field of winners. Ultimately, My Neighbor MangaDex (as staff has so named it) won!
Click the spoiler to check out the winning image!
Several staff members complained that they could only cast one vote! I will be contacting the winner within a couple of days to award them their prizes which include:
$40 in Amazon gift cards, courtesy of @Zephyrus and @Holo
A mousepad courtesy of @Holo
A t-shirt with the winning design on it, courtesy of @Holo
A triple A game title courtesy of @Lymus
I'd like to thank everyone who participated and put in time and effort in this contest. We appreciate each and every one of you! It means a lot to staff that so many of you enjoy the community enough to take time out of your busy schedules to participate in these contests. And don't worry, I've already got something great cooked up for February. =)
On a related note, the response to our poll regarding whether or not MD should sell merch has been much more positive than we expected. We will be contacting artists at some point in the future to discuss featuring their work in our merchandise. Unfortunately, I can't say when that might be as we are still discussing details. Just keep a look out!
Next, let's hear a few words from our staff members:
@Holo - Overlord
On January 7th 2018, Grumpy announced that Batoto was going to be closing permanently on January 18th 2018. Ixlone told me that I should make a replacement, and on January 11th, I started working on MangaDex, using AniDex's code as starting point.
On this day, exactly 1 year ago, I launched MangaDex v1 to the public. Remember those days? The explosion of users meant that the server could never keep up. You would have to load a chapter, go and make a coffee, then come back for it to finish loading. v2 was rolled out in March, with a more powerful server, which meant that you didn't have to wait 10 seconds to load a chapter at peak times. Our userbase continued growing though, and sure enough, the server was upgraded once again with the roll out of v3 in August. Growth has been steady since then, but another massive increase in users occurred over the Christmas holidays (a 20% increase, see stats below), resulting in yet another server upgrade.
As you can see, we currently have 2.2 million monthly visitors. Right now, Google Analytics reports over 4,000 users online at peak times, sometimes as high as 4,500. But these numbers do not take into account people who use adblock (about 70% of our users do use adblock), so the real number is probably closer to 14,000 users online at peak times, and 7.5 million users monthly visitors.
More powerful servers correspond to a higher running cost for MangaDex. Luckily, thanks to our generous userbase, this has not been a problem, and I have been able to keep my initial promise of not using ads. In the coming year, we may explore additional methods of fundraising, like selling merchandise. Based on the other thread to gauge interest, it looks feasible!
So anyway, a year later, we're still alive and kicking. What do we have planned for v4?
- The limited API that the site currently uses will be rewritten into a proper API.
- This will allow the development of an app for Android and iOS, which is one of the most requested features that we currently do not have.
- Allowing users to download a limited number of chapters a day (without relying on third party scripts).
- More integration with mangadex.com - a custom reader plugin for group blogs which would use the MD image servers.
- The site will be comprehensively translated into all the languages that we support (there's a lot more room for growth in non-English territories).
- Reviews and recommendations
One last thing: as we rely more on social media for growth (our google links have mostly been removed), please support us by following us on Twitter and liking us on our Facebook!
Enjoy your mangoes!
@Ixlone - Admin
@rdn - Developer
Came for the mango, stayed for the memes.
Busy as ever improving MD and breaking things, in this exact order. Many great things are to come, so stay tuned.
Bonus meme:
@Teasday - Developer
I think it was not even a week later from when I decided to start doing a bit of scanlation as a hobby to Batoto announcing they were going to close down. To make sure I had a future place to post my stuff on, I started helping out with MangaDex in whatever ways I could. Somehow I'm now working on the site instead of uploading for it, lol. Thanks for all the critique, help and support you've given us.
The best web-based reader software in the whole business as well as various other features and improvements comingas always! Some of it maybe even this year! :^)
@Lymus - Moderator
@Robo - Moderator
@Zephyrus - Moderator
@Electromaster - Moderator
@Plykiya - Public Relations
@Henny - Public Relations
Lastly, I'd like to take a moment and once again stress how thankful the MD team is to you, our audience. Whether you be a scanlator, a site supporter, or a reader, your participation and support is what makes us great and propels us to new heights of popularity! 2019 is going to be our year. Count on it!
