ichi Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Imagine if Neowin had 5 million members and not enough money to actually pay for server power to accommodate them... where would Neowin be then? In an excelent position to sell for a huge profit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccuk Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 The comments you contribute to this forum ultimately have your name on them, and you gain fame or infamy as a result. However by the same logic some of you are posting in this thread, if you didn't post a comment in the forums, someone else would have, so you are expendable. That's what you guys are saying whenever you say "oh if a site started charging me or forcing me to view ads, I'd find another site". Works both ways... I would wager 90% of the people who post on these forums post nothing more than what is mostly throwaway comments of little value. You could probably get a team of blind chimps to post the same stuff in their place if they ever left.This issue is about quality not quantity. You want a site with great quality, with decent news coverage, with insightful editorials and hosted on a fast and responsive server? Well guess what, all of that costs money, and no my friend, at the end of the day a webmaster is not providing all this just so he or she can go to sleep at night with a warm feeling inside. I never said money is the primary motivation, what I said is that money is a key consideration. Tons of traffic with no income is not a viable proposition for a successful website. But please, don't let my logic get in the way of your arguments to satisfy your desire to get whatever you want without cost. I see it all the time when it comes to the piracy argument... people spinning all sorts of BS to justify their desire to download gigabytes of movies and music and games without contributing a cent to those who created that content. It's gotten so that the idiocy of it all makes me wonder if there are any intelligent or decent people who post on forums anymore, or is it just spoilt whiny brats who think everything should be handed to them on a platter? Either way I don't speak for Neowin or any other site, I'll just sit back and watch the web turn into a dump and know precisely how it got that way. But you constantly ignore my point that there are other ways of obtaining funding other than lambasting users with adverts which are a hole for exploits, contain irrelevant material, obscure the very content you want to read and at worse could cause disciplinary action if the content of those very adverts is unsuitable for work. Also stop with this RIAA propaganda about how everyone has no sense of value or worth, and steals everything because put bluntly it is bull. A tiny percentile pirate material the rest pay for it, otherwise how would many of these films magically break all previous box office records which were originally set when there was no terrible P2P piracy. Your arguments are flawed and laughable at best. Adverts which are shoved in peoples faces are the easy way out to make short quick cash, the problem is they annoy people. That is a fact. This creates an adverse reaction and causes you to lose users and thus income. Instead a long term solution is needed which is less obtrusive. Asking for help isn't begging by the way, just to address that childish mindless point you made with regards to wikipedia setting goals and asking for the community to donate. I say again, if you create something people want, they pay for it. Address that first, the rest will follow... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vice Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 No idea what you're talking about here. If you mean do I skip the ads on TV, no I watch them as they play. I don't record much TV, I generally watch DVD movies. And yes, I pay to buy those movies or rent them. I know, it's shocking isn't it, I'm one of the poor schmucks who actually pays for my entertainment, fancy that. People already have access to Web content for free unlike Games, Music & Film which you need to pay to gain access to. The only reason people block ads is because they are annoying. If they weren't annoying users wouldn't feel the need to block them as again they already have access to the content completely free of charge. It isn't like when people pirate other media as they never had free access to it to begin with. The two really cannot be compared for this fundamental reason. A good example of unobtrusive advertisement is in TV Shows and Movies with product placements. Instead of having some flashing banner telling you about some downloadable IM pack or free long distance they have actors using the latest computers, movie phones, drinks or food. What is so wrong about having unobtrusive ads that target the media you are actually reading. This is why people love Google ads so much they are text based and most of the time relevant to the pages content that you are viewing. Reading a story about Antivirus software and you get a Google ad for Norton or Kaspersky or NOD32. These are relevant. Asking me to join Adult Friend Finder because I'm looking for a Motherboard review is not. And it is also an Advertisement I would never click on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StealMySoda Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 I used to block ads on Neowin, however a few months ago (when I started visiting more frequently) I thought it was only fair to whitelist the site. I still have the intelitext ads disabled just because they annoy the **** out of me. However the ads at the top and the bottom of the pages don't affect me, so I leave them be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argi Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Facebook's ads are the only useful ads that I actually do want to read on the web - they're actually relevant (one was advertising this concert that I already had tickets for). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exotoxic Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 imo large websites should be treated like a business... You need a product or service to sell if you want to make money. Neowin for example doesnt have any products nor does it have a service worth paying for (since its not unique and all the info is available on other sites, with a few exceptions) some nice people might donate but its not a requirement, and neither is viewing the ads so you cant rely on donations and advertising alone. If websites started charging for access or make viewing ads mandatory then the user base would decrease and make it less likly that people would want to subscribe in the first place. Some sites like neowin might be able to survive this change due to a large dedicated user base. In short websites need a product or unique service to make a stable income. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Growled Member Posted June 23, 2009 Member Share Posted June 23, 2009 I use to block every ad in existence. Over time I learned a better way.....just stop going to those sites that annoy me. Now I never use any ad blocker. I can't remember the last time I clicked on an ad, though. I mostly just ignore them. However, a few of them are interesting enough that I do glance at them. I can understand people blocking ads that are on dialup or limited bandwidth. For everyone else I think it's a waste of time. The ads rarely hurt anything and it also helps keep the web sites free. Besides that, no adblocker is perfect and sometimes interesting content is blocked along with the ads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unconnected Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Adblock saves me from having to thinking about ignoring ads >_< I never ever click them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PT 13 Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 I couldn't care less... I have ad's on the website "I work" for (it's an online magazine) and let me tell you, if blocking the ads brings more people to the site, then please do that!! We just cant remove the ads because people are paying (not much) to have publicity there, or we are exchanging ads with other websites. But the point of the ads it to bring people to out website, if blocking them brings more people then sure :D go ahead :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starbuck84 Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 This article is the biggest piece of BS I've read so far. Sorry, but 70% loss due to AdBlock since it first hit the web? How about 'urlfilter.ini' for Opera? How about build-in image blockers across several browsers? Or the local host file as some here already mentioned? Heck, let's sue NoScript! As that can be used to block ads as well. I've got the main websites (which I visit regularly) white-listed or I buy an subscription, that only seems fair in my opinion. But if I open up a simple website just to get a little information with which they advertise but never show (you must subscribe to view this article, uhm what?), I don't want to see a big Flash ad about the Sims 3 or watch a movie which takes up all the screen space telling me there is a new Toyota in town. Don't get me wrong, ads are fine in my opinion, but they should stop with all this flash and movie nonsense, and if they don't get that, bye bye. Many other companies will take their place as ads are here to stay, imho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caerma Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Adblock saves me from having to thinking about ignoring ads >_< I never ever click them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee G. Veteran Posted June 23, 2009 Veteran Share Posted June 23, 2009 Adblock saves me from having to thinking about ignoring ads >_< I never ever click them Yeah, same for me. I have Neowin whitelisted though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted June 23, 2009 MVC Share Posted June 23, 2009 I don't have a problem with ads in general. I understand people are using these ads to fund their websites. The problem I have with Ads is the risk of infection. Like those stupid smiley ads that get uneducated users to click and install some piece of spyware / toolbar onto their machine. It's the ads that unsuspectingly infect a users machine just by having the ad displayed in their browsers. Frankly ads bring out my inner "Gibsonian response". They make me uneasy. So that's why I block them. That is also why I use a plug-in called "yespop". an extension that by default blocks ALL popups. Even the legit ones. You have to allow the ones you want on a per site bases (That or center click the link for the popup you want). To add to the point, almost every computer I service has "My Web Search" installed. It really boggles the mind. How do that many people have it installed and I've never even seen it the on internet? The difference is they see Ads and I don't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thealexweb Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 stupid smiley ads I fell for those when I saw younger :pinch: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_was_here Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 I will never block Internet adverts.All you people that do should be thankful people like me don't. Then let me say thank you :) I can only hope that the percentage of people who block ads remains low while the number of people who don't remains high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunarworks Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Why I love AdBlock: I no longer have to force-quit my browser because a badly-made Flash ad sends CPU usage to 100%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevember Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Why I love AdBlock: I no longer have to force-quit my browser because a badly-made Flash ad sends CPU usage to 100%. I work on the Internet, it is my job to do a lot of browsing, this includes all sorts of websites. Even porn video sites! To date since 1997 I have not been infected or had to force close a browser yet. Trust me between 10 and 12 hours a day on the Internet I do a lot of browsing, downloading. If you are sensible about what you do, if you have enough intelligence to know how to use program such as ad block you should have the intelligence to not need it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChainsaw Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 I hate those ads that expand 20 times bigger and/or with sounds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakem1 Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 The reality is that advertising only works on a certain type of person anyway. People who use adblock are unlikely to be that type of person. If the owner of a website decides that he wants to make some money off ads then he has to understand that those ads are likely to be ignored or blocked by a percentage of users. Once you've accepted that there's no point complaining about things like adblock. Unfortunately I'm old enough to remember when the web was becoming popular back in the early nineties. Back then most websites were created by people who were determined that it wouldn't be corrupted by business and corporations. Most websites, back then, weren't designed to make money and the majority of people wanted to keep it that way. The internet was about bringing information to the masses and that's only possible when the information is free. Websites that are trying to force ads down peoples throats need to remember that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkMan Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 A good example of unobtrusive advertisement is in TV Shows and Movies with product placements. Instead of having some flashing banner telling you about some downloadable IM pack or free long distance they have actors using the latest computers, movie phones, drinks or food. What is so wrong about having unobtrusive ads that target the media you are actually reading. so you want more intellitxt ads all over the site.... umm no thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
»X« Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Am I right in assuming that these ad's only get money if I were to click on them? Because I use ad-block for all websites. I've never clicked on an advert in my many many years on the internet and I never will. so it makes no difference to them. I'll keep mine on thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 so you want more intellitxt ads all over the site.... umm no thanks The message you quoted also says unobtrusive advertisement Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
protocol7 Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Am I right in assuming that these ad's only get money if I were to click on them?Because I use ad-block for all websites. I've never clicked on an advert in my many many years on the internet and I never will. so it makes no difference to them. I'll keep mine on thanks. When the page loads it loads the ads, which counts as a hit afaik. Not sure if extra revenue is gained if the ad is then clicked. But as jakem1 says, there was a time when content took priority over revenue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 When the page loads it loads the ads, which counts as a hit afaik. Not sure if extra revenue is gained if the ad is then clicked.But as jakem1 says, there was a time when content took priority over revenue. most ads are not payed per impression (or "hit" as you called it) but by how many clicks it receives Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dane Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 I hate those ads that expand 20 times bigger and/or with sounds. +1! Between those and those pop ups that are max size are bull****! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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