Advertisement question

[Tormod]

I would like to ask you folks what you think about reintroducing ads into the Hypography forums. Currently we use Googleads for our non-registered members, plus we serve one pop-under ad every 12 hours.

 

This is all fine and dandy but we need to increase our income because we will have to move to a dedicated server soon due to the vast increase in traffic. Also, the gallery and link collections will suck bandwidth at a much higher rate.

 

So could you please both vote in the poll, and also state your preferences.

 

Ads are a necessary evil but our aim is to keep Hypography a free-for-all site and that means we need to fund our activities one way or another.

[Tormod]

Note it is a multiple choice poll so you can choose several options.

 

If you vote for one of the services options, please state your preference as to what kind of services you would like to see advertised (books, student offers, magazines, gadgets, computers, software, etc).

[zadojla]

I voted for option 3, which is a service option. I wouldn't mind seeing ads for books, games, music, anything involving intellectual entertainment (e.g. but not ads for DVD's of "WWF Smackdown").

[pgrmdave]

Ditto zad's idea. I don't mind advertising, so long as it makes sense for the audience here.

[Fishteacher73]

I fully agree as well with zad. Ads would be more effective (generate more traffic and more revenues) and ads that are directed towards my interests are not really irritating and would not directly have a bad impact on the feel of Hypography..

[Biochemist]

I would like to ask you folks what you think about reintroducing ads into the Hypography forums.

I think this is a great site Tormod, and you ought to do whatever you think makes sense to keep it economically viable.

 

If you don't mind a couple of suggestions, I would like to offer a couple. I was the Chief Technology Officer of a consumer-oriented web start-up for a while, and the consumer issues are pretty important:

 

1) Lots of folks don't have broadband connections. It is usually advantageous to keep the adds small to minimize the display delay to dial-up folks.

2) Most adds don't appeal to most viewers. Keep them in a display location where the screen handling does not decay because users have to page past ads

3) It is probably less irritating to keep the ads relevant to basic science. If you want to do that, I suggest you draft a written policy about the nature of ads that you accept and/or reject. I could easily imagine that entites whose ads were rejected from this site could get irritated if your policy was not concrete.

 

Best of luck on the revenue side.

[Tormod]

Thanks BC, those are good comments. As should be obvious from the current site we have dropped graphic ads altogheter, apart from a small Amazon ad (which brings in nothing) and a DocFizzix ad which actually is a sponsorship deal (percentage off sales). On the old site we have more banners etc and while they do bring in money I would rather find more relevant ads than what we get from the typical networks.

 

The one pop-up that we serve to users is actually our second-best paid advertisement, although I must admit I dislike them. They alone pay for our hosting, though.

 

The text ads from Google are only displayed for non-members as of now. This will have to change eventually but like you point out the ads should not be a nuisance to the users. There is a fine balance between showing ads so that people notice them and click on them, and placing them somewhere where they are ignored...

 

The purpose of ads and sponsorships is not to turn Hypography into a cash machine, and I hope folks understand that. Each and every one of us who work with Hypography are doing it for free. If we can manage to raise more than we need to fund our running costs, I hope one day to be able to pay for more content, like syndicated news, for example. The better we can make Hypography for everyone, the more I think people will accept some ads here and there.

 

I appreciate the feedback - hope more people care to comment.

[Biochemist]

The purpose of ads and sponsorships is not to turn Hypography into a cash machine, and I hope folks understand that. Each and every one of us who work with Hypography are doing it for free.

Speaking as an ardent capitalist, I hope it does make money. Someone has to pay for the higher education of that cute little guy under your screen handle. I am happy to be part of that effort.

 

I would suggest that you place small ads (graphic or otherwise) in the right hand border beside the active forum displays. You could segregate the ads by forum category so that the relevance is high for a view (e.g., earth science-oriented ads under earth science, medical oriented ads for medicine, etc.) The number of views per ad falls, but the rate you can charge for a view or a click is higher.

[infamous]

Yes, ads for books and search engines would be of interest to me. I'm always interested in fresh information and new material gleaned from such sources.

[pgrmdave]

On the other forum I am active in, people can pay to put up a small banner on the site. It is about $15 a month, and usually it is a member of the forums who buys it. It is a good way to bring in money and still keep it feeling like a community.

[Tormod]

On the other forum I am active in, people can pay to put up a small banner on the site. It is about $15 a month, and usually it is a member of the forums who buys it. It is a good way to bring in money and still keep it feeling like a community.

 

This is a great idea and we will implement something along these lines. Thanks, Dave.

[Tormod]

For the record, you are probably seeing different types of ads all over the forums now. Don't panic - I am simply trying out different networks. I would appreciate some feedback on what you think of them - quality of links, quality of offers, placement in the forums etc.

[Tormod]

Feedback on the ads is very welcome... :xx:

[Dark Mind]

I personally don't mind the new ads at all, as I have never clicked on one in my entire life intentionally, I have found ignoring them to be very easy. I just hope it doesn't detur other potential members from joining, I know I have stopped visiting sites just because the number of pop-ups was ridiculous, every time you went to a different page you were bombarded with 4 new pop-ups. As long as this doesn't happen you will probably have me hanging around here until (GAHD forbid) Hypography ceases to exist.

[Tormod]

I have never clicked on one in my entire life intentionally, I have found ignoring them to be very easy.

 

See, that's the point here. If nobody ever clicks on any of the ads, Hypography will not make any money. The purpose of advertisement at Hypography is not to make me rich but to cover our running costs, prizes, software etc.

 

I need feedback on whether the ads are actually *useful* to our members or not. I have tried to make them as painless as possible - I have even ditched some well known networks because they threw a lot of garbage ads at us. I have tried to make the ads fit into the design. The popunders are a pain in the butt yet they are a necessary source of income at the moment. But you should see a maximum of 2 per day, which I think is reasonable.

 

A paid subscription solution is coming up, where a no-ads site will be available for those who wish to (and are able to) sponsor Hypography. But to keep the site free and open for all, which is the entire purpose of Hypography (!), a minimum of income is required. :xx:

[Dark Mind]

I realize this, but right now (this very moment) as I am responding to this "Quick reply" I'm looking at a "Who is this actress?

--- Answer to get a $100 FREE*!

--- O Ashley Olsen O Lindsay Lohan O Hilary Duff

--- *details ----- © 2004 AnyFreeGift.com"

 

The answer is obviously Lindsay Lohan but it's the little asterisk (*) that scares me in all of these ads. If Hypography got paid for every click of the ads I would go on a hunting spree viewing each advertisement that was put on here to keep this site alive and well. But somehow I doubt it works that easily.

 

By the way, the page navigation tool is still underneath this ad. I thought that was going to change, or did I misinterpret your intentions?

[niviene]

I know I don't post much, but I read a lot, and I really enjoy this site. I would certainly pay to not view the ads, or if simply clicking on ads brought in revenue, I would be a clicking fiend. I don't, however, like to deal with ads that don't do much for the site, anyway... in which case, I guess they wouldn't be there to begin with... what were we talking about again? *looks around in a daze*

 

My .16 of a bit....