Is it giving credible, good information that critically thinking masses are consuming, that then leads to natural growth in the books? Or, is it giving out lousy information that gets eating up by the masses who are taking the apps information as gossip, who them all simultaneously go out and buy a book, at the same Time, creating an artificial, temporary bump in the book, until the next ‘alert’ comes along.
If these books that the app alerts about had any actual natural growth, interest, or value, the book wouldn’t be in dollar bins a year and a half after its release. And it certainly wouldn’t need an app to tell the community how important the book is to the old, or new, markets.
Not true. Software programs are tools. It’s a means to an end.
I do like it to quickly find issues of a series with a character or cover when I can’t recall it. It’s also helpful when I’m trying to find a particular issue by volume…sometimes shops have books organized in certain ways (series/volume/year) and it makes digging through king boxes faster/more efficient. I’d say that makes it a useful tool for me when thumbing through books.
So this is partially why I created the Oh That KCC thread…because one of my biggest gripes is that there is no way within the ap to provide feedback on whether the information may be incorrect, misleading or even for someone to validate it. At least our community can communicate amongst ourselves how we feel or why we know about these alerts when they pop up. And perhaps others, even those who lurk but never post, may see the value on coming here to CHU to validate KCC alerts to help make informed decisions one way or another.
Agreed on the WHY, and not WHERE, but you’re foolish if you think tools don’t help. There are hundreds of tools that help investors with the stock market. KCC, CovrPrice, Comic Book Realm, etc. are tools used in a similar sense. All of these tools used together, definitely show trends in the market.
That sounds like a very specific tool for a very specific job. Im just saying it had its uses, as others have also said. I didn’t say it was a state of the art tool either. More like a socket for a wrench…there are many sockets a wrench can accept. They all don’t do the same job, some are higher quality and do it better, or combined with another component give you an advantage.
Blaming KCC for making it easier for fools to part with their money or it’s ruining the hobby just seems to unproductive to me, though. Most don’t respond well to outright negativity. It’s here. It’s not going anywhere. Best to just educate people on how to use it, and what to be cautious about.
I’m not an advocate for KCC. That being said, have you even looked at the app at all? They actually do have a weekly Hot 10 list and Hot 10 runner up that show the high sales on specific issues. So yes, they have weekly info on trends. There are no apps out there (yet) that have any real time data.
And yes, @agentpoyo this is my biggest gripe as well:
All in all though, just like @D-Rog ,it is one of the tool in my tool box that I use on the regular and has helped. You do you though.
I don’t think the “comic spec” market is honestly big enough for such things to really tackle a “real time data” type of application. We who watch trends for comic values is small and far compared to say, day traders and such… I’m willing to bet readers still out number those who care about the value of comics and such.
I just finished doing a local auction, first one that I have done. trying to thin the collection for the big move and was pretty surprised to see which books sold and which did not, clearly no one really gives a shit about KCC here and are just buying what they want for their collections
This is the most rational take, IMO. KCC has its faults but it affects the market, and we all have to deal with that, whether one personally uses the app or not.
It was sort of a discussion about what causes certain modern comics to heat up type of conversation…and how KCC contributes vs. what is organic. So I felt like it was still within the bounds of the thread by its title.
