OK, this is going too far (Ad Placement)

[IIIBradIII]

Doesn't anyone use Proxomitron around here? It removes that ad entirely.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: IIIBradIII
Doesn't anyone use Proxomitron around here? It removes that ad entirely.

i do

 

[Lord Evermore]

Oh, I would never say they SHOULD blame it on mozilla, it just happens a lot. I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't use code that doesn't work in reality, whether it's standard or not. Considering mozilla IS highly standards compliant, you'd think that'd be the one to code for and assume that IE would show it right too.

 

[AvesPKS]

Define irony: advertising a link to a coupon site on a website that does not allow the posting of coupon codes...

 

[Krugger]

Originally posted by: AvesPKS
Define irony: advertising a link to a coupon site on a website that does not allow the posting of coupon codes...

actually that makes perfect sense. you can't get the codes from the forum, so when you need the coupons, you see the ad, you go to the coupon site.
the ads still suck, my visits have dropped significantly.

 

[RDMustang1]

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb

Originally posted by: apoppin
Things sure quieted down around here . . .

About time.

... then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing." - William Shakespeare

It seems we can "live" with the ads . . . and Google can learn the hard way that those tiny ads on the left are easily ignored . . . what I'm worried about is "what's next" . . . flashing pop-ups related to what we are typing?

:Q

No, never. Pop-ups are much worse than an ad on the left-hand side of your window.

That's your opinion.. I would rather have a popup than the bar on the left..

I'll admit, ads are needed but the reason I chose anandtech was for a feeling I had while browsing.. It felt very professional and worthy... The new banner makes Anandtech look like a cheap geochitties knock-off and I must say my interest in the site is dwindling... does this really matter to Anand? probably not since he will still make $ off of the website..

I'll tell ya what, make the site non-profit (any $ received from the site goes into site costs - NOT into paychecks for employees including Anand himself) and I'll gladly subscribe.. And please don't tell me it costs time and money to write reviews and moderate the forum (don't know if this is done, but either way) because many of us don't read your reviews and it is easy to find quality people who want to moderate for free. I come here to find hot deals and the very rare off topic post. The only real cost for the forum is the software and the bandwidth (I'm sure the server has been paid for many times over)... I know ads don't pay what they used to but they still pay plenty..

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: RDMustang1

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb

Originally posted by: apoppin
Things sure quieted down around here . . .

About time.

... then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing." - William Shakespeare

It seems we can "live" with the ads . . . and Google can learn the hard way that those tiny ads on the left are easily ignored . . . what I'm worried about is "what's next" . . . flashing pop-ups related to what we are typing?

:Q

No, never. Pop-ups are much worse than an ad on the left-hand side of your window.

That's your opinion.. I would rather have a popup than the bar on the left..

I'll admit, ads are needed but the reason I chose anandtech was for a feeling I had while browsing.. It felt very professional and worthy... The new banner makes Anandtech look like a cheap geochitties knock-off and I must say my interest in the site is dwindling... does this really matter to Anand? probably not since he will still make $ off of the website..

I'll tell ya what, make the site non-profit (any $ received from the site goes into site costs - NOT into paychecks for employees including Anand himself) and I'll gladly subscribe.. And please don't tell me it costs time and money to write reviews and moderate the forum (don't know if this is done, but either way) because many of us don't read your reviews and it is easy to find quality people who want to moderate for free. I come here to find hot deals and the very rare off topic post. The only real cost for the forum is the software and the bandwidth (I'm sure the server has been paid for many times over)... I know ads don't pay what they used to but they still pay plenty..

They have to bring in money, that's a given. Even if everyone volunteers their time to run the site, servers, software and bandwidth cost money. What irritates me is that Anand is ignoring the very people that helped to make this site what it is. Sure, he provided the content. But without readers/page hits, this site would have never evolved. But he's not dumb. He knows that there are more and more people accessing the internet everyday and he'll get a share of that. So what if he loses/alienates a few people here and there. The numbers don't lie. And in this day and age, that's what it's all about.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Geez you're still talking about it?

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Geez you're still talking about it?

You have a mind like a steel trap. Nothing gets by you.

 

[woodie1]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Geez you're still talking about it?

You have a mind like a steel trap. Nothing gets by you.

One of many....LOLROTF

 

[First]

Originally posted by: RDMustang1
IThat's your opinion.. I would rather have a popup than the bar on the left..

You are in the minority, but I understand your position of course.

Originally posted by: RDMustang1
I'll admit, ads are needed but the reason I chose anandtech was for a feeling I had while browsing.. It felt very professional and worthy... The new banner makes Anandtech look like a cheap geochitties knock-off and I must say my interest in the site is dwindling... does this really matter to Anand? probably not since he will still make $ off of the website..

Our net profits running the forums amount to virtually nothing. However that doesn't mean we don't understand that the forums are vital to the growth of AnandTech, both in readership and in providing meaningful content to the community, so we do care about your opinions. I too wish non-subscribers could view the forums without the ad on the left, but it just didn't pan out the way we would have liked it.

Originally posted by: RDMustang1And please don't tell me it costs time and money to write reviews and moderate the forum (don't know if this is done, but either way).

And who told you this lie?

Originally posted by: RDMustang1because many of us don't read your reviews.

Exactly, you are one of many forum users that make us nothing, yet we still maintain these profitless forums for the readers benefit (though apparently you're not a reader) but mostly for the community at large. Personally I love Hot Deals, I think it's absolutely great, but you do realize it costs considerable money (bandwidth isn't free) to run that section, yes? Then you also realize that you are one of many users that makes it difficult for us to turn a profit (actually, breakeven) on the forums, but of course we understand your position and we don't want you to subscribe or read our reviews if you don't feel like it. I just hope you understand that we'll have to post ads on the forums (on the left too, sorry) to keep them going.

Originally posted by: RDMustang1
I'll tell ya what, make the site non-profit (any $ received from the site goes into site costs - NOT into paychecks for employees including Anand himself) and I'll gladly subscribe..

We're constantly putting money back into the site. Take a look at our yearly server upgrades as just one example; these upgrades are by no means cheap considering our huge readership. Also, take a look at the greatly increased content and frequency of our motherboard reviews over the last year versus any other time in AnandTech history. Take a look at our new sections in the form of monitor/LCD reviews, optical storage, cases, price guides/realtime pricing engine, etc. In addition, we will be launching several new sections this summer that will contain a new review weekly. By the end of the summer you should see a review everyday. All of this requires time and effort, and I?m sorry but these things cost money.

There are also a lot of things going on behind the scenes to improve the content of the reviews and the forums that we can't tell you about yet. At this very moment we're in the middle of incredible expansion, it's simply dizzying.

The AnandTech front page and forums as it stands now will look like a joke in a few years.

 

[Lord Evermore]

But, inevitably, whatever they're changed too will be considered a joke by some.

I think the verification that there's pretty much no profit from the forums is enough to make me accept ads more than I do now. Not that I really had a problem with them before except that I don't like animated ads because they hurt my eyes. Still not enough incentive to subscribe, but I can't complain that the site has to pay for my usage.

Maybe the Hot Deals and trade and ATOT forums should get extra ads, since they generate the most traffic.

 

[First]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
But, inevitably, whatever they're changed too will be considered a joke by some.

I think the verification that there's pretty much no profit from the forums is enough to make me accept ads more than I do now. Not that I really had a problem with them before except that I don't like animated ads because they hurt my eyes. Still not enough incentive to subscribe, but I can't complain that the site has to pay for my usage.

Maybe the Hot Deals and trade and ATOT forums should get extra ads, since they generate the most traffic.

I totally understand your reasoning for not subscribing. Some people simply don't want to spend any money, even if it isn't alot. I'm not exactly rolling in dough myself, so I am wary about any cash I spend. Of course since I use these forums for so many things, and it's incredibly helpful and enlightening, I'd probably subscribe. But other people are different and that's fine.

Increased ATHD/ATOT banner ads sounds like a good idea btw.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb
Increased ATHD/ATOT banner ads sounds like a good idea btw.

That's a fine idea... since I never go in either one.

 

[Hossenfeffer]

You know, I shudder to say it, but I'd rather there be some sort of ads all the way down the page rather than that blank strip. It's the strip that most grates on me.

I'm still confused why another banner can't be shown up top. Gives it the visibility and then I can look past it. It wouldn't affect the rest of the page.

 

[friedpie]

When they first added the ads to the left everything still fit onto my 800x600 screen. I didn't have to scroll from side to side. Now it's all mucked up, the page is wider than my screen so I am having to scroll from side to side. What a serious pain in the butt.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Nobody's ever answered why the google ad can't go on top along with the current ads (that I saw). Might just be a preference against cluttering it, or maybe google doesn't allow their ads to be aggregated with others like that.

More ads along the left would be nice, at least to fill up a bit more. However it would be hard for them to make the ads fill up the bar for everyone, while also not causing the page to scroll more for other people. The variable number of posts or thread titles you can view, along with the variable post length would make the amount of available ad space vary. They can't even really make it just pull extra ads to fill up the space remaining by checking how long a post is and how many posts the users list, because that doesn't take screen resolution into account.

The primary reason I don't subscribe is that I've reduced my activity here a lot, especially in the most high traffic forums (I don't visit the 3 most active). I've started posting quite a bit the past several months, but nothing like years past, and most of it is answering questions (and complaining of course). Sure I like to feel superior for my knowledge, , but I don't really want to pay to get to do it. The only feature that subscribing gives me is more reliable fast access, which may or may not be noticeable depending on routing to the site from me and which I don't necessarily need since the free service was sped up again and is enough to handle my usage. The rest of the features are completely undesired.

I think spamming the Hot Deals, FS/FT and OT people with an ad in every post is a good idea. And reduce the ads in the less travelled forums so the traffic might slightly increase. Or even better, make the big forums accessible only by subscribers; it is after all very nearly a business in itself, like how people make careers out of auction sites.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
(long post, with reasonably good explanation of why variable-length ads won't work)

I think spamming the Hot Deals, FS/FT and OT people with an ad in every post is a good idea. And reduce the ads in the less travelled forums so the traffic might slightly increase. Or even better, make the big forums accessible only by subscribers; it is after all very nearly a business in itself, like how people make careers out of auction sites.

While the first is a very good idea, the latter [isn't, IMHO, and] won't be changed in that way (at least that's what the admins have said before).

 

[Lord Evermore]

Well Evan liked it, and they like him, so maybe he can pretend it wasn't my idea.

 

[Rand]

Well 6 weeks on and people are still complaining about the ads.

And now since I have nothing else to say I'll quite Oldsmoboat as what he said applied perfectly to this site and 99.00% of things in this world:

They have to bring in money, that's a given. Even if everyone volunteers their time to run the site, servers, software and bandwidth cost money. What irritates me is that Anand is ignoring the very people that helped to make this site what it is. Sure, he provided the content. But without readers/page hits, this site would have never evolved. But he's not dumb. He knows that there are more and more people accessing the internet everyday and he'll get a share of that. So what if he loses/alienates a few people here and there. The numbers don't lie. And in this day and age, that's what it's all about.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Six months? It's only been 6 weeks since this thread started.

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Six months? It's only been 6 weeks since this thread started.

Typo
Fixed now.

 

[Format C:]

Perhaps if Anand refused to pay the salaries of totally braindead idiots that can only come up with stupid lameassed ideas then there wouldn't be such a need to increase revenue in order to pay the salaries of totally braindead idiots that can only come up with stupid lameassed ideas and AnandTech would be the site it once was instead of being a site that once was AnandTech.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Which ones are the lameass ideas?

 

[DanJ]

A handful of words: "Proxomitron custom HTML web page filters"