The "pop up" in the main forum is going a bit far!

[JB Cases]

I think it telling and funny that some people thought that the ad was for Predator.

Honestly if someone didn't mention that it was for Lucasi cues I wouldn't have known because it goes by so quick.

Whether we like it or can live with it or not - it's ineffective in it's present form and if I were paying for it then I wouldn't be happy about it.

I just know that there are better ways for advertisers to interact with and leverage the core base of users here than splashing ads around.

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

You bring up a number of points here, some of which I agree with and admit are valid. However, there are a few I wanted to address that I do not agree with. Please read my comments below.

I saw it a dozen times without knowing whose ad it was. That ain't effective advertising. I also know nobody but a total moron is paying a huge price for a few second ad on a niche internet site. We can't sell TV advertising. That is why pool can't make it as a sport.

I agree, this particular ad was poorly made. The print is too small and there's no follow-up. An ad such as this should always be followed with a fixed banner so that the user can process the information and make a later decision to click on it. However, I don't believe that all billiard related advertising is bad. No, it won't work well on television but THIS IS a niche market and that is PRECISELY what advertisers seek. If I owned a billiard company, this would be the first place I would want to advertise online.

No, I don't know what AZB got for that ad. I do know what fees were on some other sites of similar size and my own site. Having a little common sense and having spent a few hundred thousand out of my own pocket on advertising over the years I have a pretty good idea that it was very little if anything.

No, we don't know what azb got for it nor do we know the ad's effectiveness. It wasn't our business deal. For all we know, azb got more revenue than they ever received for an ad and this cue company saw an unprecedented spike in business.

I know the click through rate was extremely poor. So far people are taken by surprise by a splash ad. Then they have to read it and decide to click through, all in a few seconds. Didn't get it that time? How many that automatically clear cookies are going to log off the internet and log back on just to click through? How many are going to be sitting there mouse in their twitching hand waiting to pounce on the splash ad when it appears the next day?

No, you don't know the click-thru rate was poor. You THINK the click-thru rate was poor. There's a good chance you're right. It was a poorly done ad but that's specific to this particular ad, not ALL splash ads. In general, splash ads have a much higher click-thru rate than anything else.

I'm not an expert on web advertising. On the other hand I'll bet that I have invested in more forms of advertising than you ever have, including the web. Wanna bet? There are damned few forms of advertising I haven't tried in over forty years in various businesses. Mobil Oil used one of my promotions as an example of a highly successful idea in their training video that they showed at least nationwide. I can also cite many examples of more conventional advertising investments that didn't pay off for me.

Hu

The point of my previous post was not to turn this into a d***-measuring contest. I wanted to convey to you that this wasn't our business deal and that we're only making assumptions. Admittedly, I don't deal in television commercials or billboards or taxi bumpers. My business is online advertising and as far as measurements go, I'm the ten-footer. I've worked for the largest online advertising agency in the world and currently manage orders for over two dozen websites, all of which exceed a million pageviews a month, some in excess of 30 million.

Websites need to generate their revenue from some place and advertising is a very popular solution - it sure beats membership fees. I've been in online forums for over 10 years now and what we have today is spectacular compared to the rsb days. We have live streaming, can post photos, have private mail, blog spaces, live chat... This stuff ain't free and this stuff is just the beginning of what is possible.

For pool players, for me at least, the internet is the greatest thing that ever happened. So what if we never go mainstream? We have our niche. We have OUR place. Who knows? This site might one day be as polished and as diverse as any sports channel. That's not going to happen on a small budget.

 

[selftaut]

I am sorry, do you know the financials of AZB? Also did you miss the part where I mentioned all the other expenses?

If you know all the server costs accurately then lay them out here and I guarantee you within a week we will have donations enough to pay them.

What are those "other costs" from the hosting company or "server" company as you put it? Normally a "server" company builds the servers and sells them a hosting company which uses those servers to host the accounts of it's customers. But I understood what you meant, just wanted to clarify it for the readers.

So what are those other costs? I mean I don't know much about it since I have only had one dedicated server account in my life that I spent $150 a month on for two years. I didn't have any other related server costs as best I can remember.

I really am clueless here and welcome your education. My limited experience includes building and maintaining my own websites since 1996, doing all the work to get the hosting accounts, maintaining the backend, building two separate database driven web-hosted applications from scratch and currently running five websites, one of which is a forum like this one. However, despite all that I freely admit that I am a rank amateur in the field of web design and maintenance.

So please tell us all the attendant bandwidth costs and I promise you that the AZ community will rally to pay them.

You do know them right?

So what do you do when a DDOS attack comes? you can handle that yourself and not have the server company involved at $$ an hour?

What does your security cost you per month so you don't get hacked? or you just don't have any? A top security program is in the 30k range.

Thats where we can start.

 

[JB Cases]

I think your a little off base on what's going on here in the real world. The World Wide Web is a collection of domain names. These domain names are able to be bought by anyone. Once a person buys a domain name, they can do whatever they want with it. They bought it, it's theirs. They pay for the domain name, they pay for someone to host it, they may pay someone to design it, they may pay someone to administer it, they may pay for applications, such as a license for Vbulletin so they can have a forum.

A person may go to google and want to search for Billiards. Google can do whatever they want with their site, If I click on on a link called AZBilliards, when I go there, they can do whatever they want on their site. I"m just a visitor. They're paying for everything, I"m just a freeloader that hasn't paid for a damn thing.

Now, most web site owners want to get many people to visit their site for whatever reason, so they will try and make their site user friendly, someplace that someone will come back to. But, really we don't have the right to tell them what they can and can't do with their site. We can decide if we want to go there again or not, but really that's all we can do.

So your statement of


is just not realistic. You can only get "invaded" if you decide to click on a link to go to someone else's website. Someone's website that they paid for, to put whatever they wanted on their website.

AZB is trying to find ways to offset the cost of running a popular website. Jerry was kind enough to ask for people's input, because they want as many users as possible, to go to their website. The more traffic they have, the more advertisers will pay them to put their ad up in hopes that people see it and buy something from them.

We can't tell Mike or Jerry what they should do with their site, we can, as users, tell them what irritates us and would be ineffective advertising. We can tell them what may drive us away from their site. They will probably weigh the users comments with what makes financial sense and try to provide the best experience for everyone, because they care about the users here. They also care not to take a bath in red ink, so we can read our pool forums.

Popular websites cost a lot of money and time, to start up and to maintain, and the costs escalate the more popular the site becomes.

So always keep in mind, it is the web site owners site, he will do with it as he pleases, he is the one that pays for it and spends countless hours maintaining it, and us that have given not one dime to him, have no right to tell him how to run his site. We should give helpful input to him on our own personal viewpoints on what would make us continue to visit here or to make us pay a membership fee, but to suggest a pop up is a invasion of your computer is nuts. You may not like pop ups, but you are the one that clicked to go to his site, and enjoy all the content he has to offer.. and you didn't pay one dime for it.

I agree with most of what you said with the exception that the people in a forum don't have anything to say about it.

Online forums are not normal websites. The content in an online forum is user generated and as such the users are active investors with their time and brainpower. The more users the more that the site becomes a collaboration rather than a one way presentation.

The topic of how to finance that collaboration is a one worthy of discussion as is being done here.

If time is money then people are actually paying a lot to be here and add to the collective body of knowledge. There is a lot of good information on AZB right now that would either be elsewhere or nowhere were it not for the community (users) that CHOOSE to SPEND their time here instead of somewhere else.

 

[JB Cases]

So what do you do when a DDOS attack comes? you can handle that yourself and not have the server company involved at $$ an hour?

What does your security cost you per month so you don't get hacked? or you just don't have any? A top security program is in the 30k range.

Thats where we can start.

You're joking right?

Do you know exact costs or not? Or are you just guessing?

I just had a nice conversation with Hostgator about their unlimited bandwidth claim. It's really unlimited. I told them about AZ and they said AZ's traffic wouldn't make a dent in their capacity.

However there is a limit - I will give you a cookie if you can define what the limitation is and why it matters. Ought to be easy for you since you obviously know so much about it. And also Hostgator has plans that erase this limitation and those plans cost less than $100 per month.

Like I said previously, twice, I don't THINK that BANDWIDTH costs are the issue. Please learn to READ and ABSORB the content before responding.

 

[selftaut]

You're joking right?

Do you know exact costs or not? Or are you just guessing?

I just had a nice conversation with Hostgator about their unlimited bandwidth claim. It's really unlimited. I told them about AZ and they said AZ's traffic wouldn't make a dent in their capacity.

However there is a limit - I will give you a cookie if you can define what the limitation is and why it matters. Ought to be easy for you since you obviously know so much about it. And also Hostgator has plans that erase this limitation and those plans cost less than $100 per month.

Like I said previously, twice, I don't THINK that BANDWIDTH costs are the issue. Please learn to READ and ABSORB the content before responding.

Joking? You just don't have a clue do you. AZ is not hosted on a cheapy, its hosted where its connected to a tier-1 backbone through OC-12's. Their total nut a month has to be substantial just in hosting, then add the designers and all the other costs.

I am done talking with you.

 

[HIRUN526]

I think your a little off base on what's going on here in the real world. The World Wide Web is a collection of domain names. These domain names are able to be bought by anyone. Once a person buys a domain name, they can do whatever they want with it. They bought it, it's theirs. They pay for the domain name, they pay for someone to host it, they may pay someone to design it, they may pay someone to administer it, they may pay for applications, such as a license for Vbulletin so they can have a forum.

A person may go to google and want to search for Billiards. Google can do whatever they want with their site, If I click on on a link called AZBilliards, when I go there, they can do whatever they want on their site. I"m just a visitor. They're paying for everything, I"m just a freeloader that hasn't paid for a damn thing.

Now, most web site owners want to get many people to visit their site for whatever reason, so they will try and make their site user friendly, someplace that someone will come back to. But, really we don't have the right to tell them what they can and can't do with their site. We can decide if we want to go there again or not, but really that's all we can do.

So your statement of


is just not realistic. You can only get "invaded" if you decide to click on a link to go to someone else's website. Someone's website that they paid for, to put whatever they wanted on their website.

AZB is trying to find ways to offset the cost of running a popular website. Jerry was kind enough to ask for people's input, because they want as many users as possible, to go to their website. The more traffic they have, the more advertisers will pay them to put their ad up in hopes that people see it and buy something from them.

We can't tell Mike or Jerry what they should do with their site, we can, as users, tell them what irritates us and would be ineffective advertising. We can tell them what may drive us away from their site. They will probably weigh the users comments with what makes financial sense and try to provide the best experience for everyone, because they care about the users here. They also care not to take a bath in red ink, so we can read our pool forums.

Popular websites cost a lot of money and time, to start up and to maintain, and the costs escalate the more popular the site becomes.

So always keep in mind, it is the web site owners site, he will do with it as he pleases, he is the one that pays for it and spends countless hours maintaining it, and us that have given not one dime to him, have no right to tell him how to run his site. We should give helpful input to him on our own personal viewpoints on what would make us continue to visit here or to make us pay a membership fee, but to suggest a pop up is a invasion of your computer is nuts. You may not like pop ups, but you are the one that clicked to go to his site, and enjoy all the content he has to offer.. and you didn't pay one dime for it.

Number one they(the owner(s)of the website)elected to make this site free...what you are saying is that in retrospect should have charged for membership....so we wouldn't all be freeloaders, as you say. When something is offered and given for free and one accepts that which is free, then he is not a freeloader

I have been on this site for a few years and I have never seen a pop up until now.

I am more than agreeable to have a membership fee involved for this website.

Actually I have the right to say just about anything I please...it is up to the website owners to respond or not respond.

So if I understand what you are saying..."we can give helpful input" but we can't disagree??

Oh, you're one of those guys.

I see that their going to pull the ad. It appears quite a few LOYAL AZ members were unhappy with the type of ad that was used and they are going to do something different. I guess when the "freeloaders spoke" someone listened.

We all want AZ to be successful...but without the pop ups.

 

[JB Cases]

Joking? You just don't have a clue do you. AZ is not hosted on a cheapy, its hosted where its connected to a tier-1 backbone through OC-12's. Their total nut a month has to be substantial just in hosting, then add the designers and all the other costs.

I am done talking with you.

That's why I said in my INITIAL post on this subject that I didn't have a clue.

I guess you glossed over that part.

But again what is their cost?

What type of infrastructure do you think Hostgator has? Do you think that this is just some company with a few servers in a closet?

I hear you talking down to me for having no clue but I don't see you telling us what the facts are?

Thank God you are done talking to me. If you have any information to provide that is HELPFUL to the subject of how to fund AZ then please share it. Otherwise stop wasting the "expensive" bandwidth.

Edit: let me help you out here - the most expensive hosting solution on HostGator is $374 a month found here - http://www.hostgator.com/dedicated.shtml

Would that not be enough to host AZ Billiards or am I still clueless? I mean it's a far cry from the thousands that you claim AZ is paying currently for hosting. Can we save some money here or does Mike really have to employ that army of techs at the hosting company's headquarters to monitor the account 24/7?

I am guessing that there are plenty of hosting companies out there who manage to host larger websites on similar dedicated server plans as the one I listed above. But I wouldn't know since I am clueless.

 

[selftaut]

I guess you do want me to respond, not that I want to. I meant their total nut has to be in the thousands including hosting, just to clear that up, but the hosting has to be substantial for what they NEED to use to keep the site up without to many headaches. Hostgator would be fine for some, but would not serve the needs of AZ.

 

[ShootingArts]

Hmmm dere . . . . .

You bring up a number of points here, some of which I agree with and admit are valid. However, there are a few I wanted to address that I do not agree with. Please read my comments below.

I agree, this particular ad was poorly made. The print is too small and there's no follow-up. An ad such as this should always be followed with a fixed banner so that the user can process the information and make a later decision to click on it. However, I don't believe that all billiard related advertising is bad. No, it won't work well on television but THIS IS a niche market and that is PRECISELY what advertisers seek. If I owned a billiard company, this would be the first place I would want to advertise online.

I agree that this is where I would advertise too. How much I would pay to advertise here is a whole 'nuther issue though. I won't advertise very long anywhere that doesn't give me greater return for my buck than what I spend. Cash flow for AZB is the issue being discussed.


No, we don't know what azb got for it nor do we know the ad's effectiveness. It wasn't our business deal. For all we know, azb got more revenue than they ever received for an ad and this cue company saw an unprecedented spike in business.

The answers to that are no and no. According to Jerry Forsyth this was an experiment. You don't get big money for a three second experiment. The company didn't see an unprecedented spike in business because nobody could even read the ad, much less click on it. You have spent too much time in advertising, spin ain't gonna cut it with me. I've been advertising since 1967 and dealing with the folks selling it since then too!


No, you don't know the click-thru rate was poor. You THINK the click-thru rate was poor. There's a good chance you're right. It was a poorly done ad but that's specific to this particular ad, not ALL splash ads. In general, splash ads have a much higher click-thru rate than anything else.

Of course the click through rate was poor. Folks would have to click on a splash that they weren't even sure wasn't from an attack on the site before they read it. Let's don't get silly here. I never talked about all splash ads only this one.

The point of my previous post was not to turn this into a d***-measuring contest.

Funny, seemed to me that was exactly your intention. Same for this last response. Mine might not be longer but I'll bet it has more wrinkles!


I wanted to convey to you that this wasn't our business deal and that we're only making assumptions. Admittedly, I don't deal in television commercials or billboards or taxi bumpers. My business is online advertising and as far as measurements go, I'm the ten-footer. I've worked for the largest online advertising agency in the world and currently manage orders for over two dozen websites, all of which exceed a million pageviews a month, some in excess of 30 million.

How long did you say it was again??


Websites need to generate their revenue from some place and advertising is a very popular solution - it sure beats membership fees. I've been in online forums for over 10 years now and what we have today is spectacular compared to the rsb days. We have live streaming, can post photos, have private mail, blog spaces, live chat... This stuff ain't free and this stuff is just the beginning of what is possible.

I've been around the internet for over twenty years and I'm a former system engineer and administrator of several sites, moderator of a few more. Former MCPS, CNA, CNE, MCNE, a few more sets of initials I don't recall at the moment. Told ya mine had more wrinkles!

For pool players, for me at least, the internet is the greatest thing that ever happened. So what if we never go mainstream? We have our niche. We have OUR place. Who knows? This site might one day be as polished and as diverse as any sports channel. That's not going to happen on a small budget.

Cool beans! One thing we agree on.

Hu

 

[JB Cases]

I guess you do want me to respond, not that I want to. I meant their total nut has to be in the thousands including hosting, just to clear that up, but the hosting has to be substantial for what they NEED to use to keep the site up without to many headaches. Hostgator would be fine for some, but would not serve the needs of AZ.

And you couldn't have said this without the need to insult me? After all I was trying to be helpful while admitting that I had no clue about AZ's "needs" on the hosting front.

FWIW - the guy at hostgator looked at AZ and said that they could host this website with NO PROBLEM at all and I believe him.

I don't know if that's true or not. I don't think that you do either. But I am sure that Mike knows and that Hostgator probably has a few tools to look at domains that most of the public doesn't.

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

Cool beans! One thing we agree on.

Hu

Yes, you definitely win on wrinkles. Admittedly, this ad was poorly done but I'm not adverse to these types of ad solutions. I think criticism is good and we should protect the user experience but we also should maintain an understanding of what's at stake. We all love this forum and want it to continue to improve.

 

[selftaut]

And you couldn't have said this without the need to insult me? After all I was trying to be helpful while admitting that I had no clue about AZ's "needs" on the hosting front.

FWIW - the guy at hostgator looked at AZ and said that they could host this website with NO PROBLEM at all and I believe him.

I don't know if that's true or not. I don't think that you do either. But I am sure that Mike knows and that Hostgator probably has a few tools to look at domains that most of the public doesn't.

You and I going back and forth on who insulted who isn't going to help the problem of AZ staying afloat and improving into the future.

They need to charge a subscription fee for income, IMO.

 

[JB Cases]

Here's the deal. Web advertising is changing, but nobody knows where it is going. AZB is experimenting with different ad formats. The banner ads you see every day were complained about loudly when they first came out, now are accepted.

We NEED to find advertising methods that work for our advertisers or we go away. It's that simple. So we experiment. Now, we certainly don't want to piss off the readers. So, give us your ideas. What forms of ads will both be effective (meaning you see and read them) and yet are not intrusive?

The new ad you see now is set to come up only once per sign-in and only when you transfer from the main page to the forum page. It only stays up a few seconds, long enough for the menu to load in the background behind the ad. So it costs you no time, it only has you see it instead of the menu loading. And you only see it once per sign-in. That seems pretty unobtrusive to me, but we want to hear more from you.

We are an advertising vehicle. Fact of life. So how do we advertise to you in ways that will make you support our advertisers the way the sponsors of other sports are supported by the fans?

The ad you are now seeing for 3 seconds is the same full-page ad that you see in Billiards Digest or any of the other magazines. I am curious why many of you find it offensive here but do not fly into a rage when you find it in your magazine. After all, you are paying for the magazine, AZB is free, and yet you accept the support of the ad in the magazine but not here. Help us out here, guys. Do you want to pay us magazine subscription rates and have less advertising or keep the site free and see ads?

To be very honest with you I would LOVE to see all the full page ads. In fact I would LOVE if there were a COLLECTION of ads over the years somewhere.

One idea would be to have galleries of ads OR do one of those online magazine applications where you are reading it similar to a real magazine. Pool and Billiard and Mike Janis both do one of these that is very entertaining. You could do one for every advertiser.

I love going to websites once in while that have image galleries of vintage ads.

BUT you have to make it so that the readers here WANT to click on it.

I mean Jerry look at the funny pictures thread? That thread is huge with more than 100,000 views.

Threads like that get attention.

What has Predator ever done here interactively?

I know that you will hate me for this but Jimbo's ask the cuemaker series is PURE BRILLIANCE. You could easily copy that and use it. It's not unique to him it's something that is done in other forums and venues across the web. Who cares if he did it first in pool - it's a great idea and is something that is interactive. He focuses on the individual cue makers and you can focus on your advertisers. Predator, OB, Tiger, etc....

You're right, web advertising is changing and it should be more than banner ads. I don't know about other people but when I go to other websites I always notice the ads almost subconsciously. IF one of them is good enough to get my conscious attention then I am likely to click on it.

The thing is that your advertisers are guilty as well of thinking that the old model still works. Put up an ad and magically sales will appear - it doesn't work that way and never has EXCEPT in direct response ads and those have less than a 1% response rate.

On the web an advertiser has to be either hugely intrusive with banner ads everywhere and clever ones at that - OR (and) they need to become a part of the community. Not just be this inaccessible company that puts out stuff and expects people to beat down the door because they put up ads in a place where people gather.

Go to the bar and you will see that beer companies and the like are always doing promos where they have people on the ground to back up their advertising. Advertising is just branding, getting in touch with the customer base is relationship building.

Figure out how to do that and get people to pay you for arranging a date with the thousands of folks who come here every day and you might have the solution you are looking for.

Best,

John

 

[JB Cases]

You and I going back and forth on who insulted who isn't going to help the problem of AZ staying afloat and improving into the future.

They need to charge a subscription fee for income, IMO.

The forum itself can exist fine without ads and without the need for any money coming in. The forum could be hosted on an inexpensive account and the bandwidth is not enough to be a problem.

It could be moderated by volunteers as many other successful online forums are.

There are thousands of forums just like this one out there, many with way way way more active members.

The Vbulletin software can handle enormous amounts of traffic and modern hosting companies can handle all that traffic.

It has been proven however that any forum which charges a fee for access, which was formerly free, sees a huge drop in membership and traffic.

The best model so far seems to be a mix of advertising and donations.

That insures two revenue streams while not alienating those who wish to donate only content but no money.

Personally there are many posters here who do not have "club member" badges and so quite possibly don't put money in the collection plate but their contributions in knowledge make up for it in spades.

I would not want them to go away. Nor would I want to see all the great content that has been posted locked up behind a subscription fee-based service.

The fact is that this forum receives quite possibly the most traffic of any online billiard forum and that should be worth something to advertisers. How much it's worth is unclear.

I see that people do in fact start discussions over what is advertised in the banner ads and if I were an advertiser I'd be taking that into consideration as to how I assess value for the money I am spending. I'd also be looking at how I could create ads that spark more discussion.

I am about pooped on this discussion. For the record you insulted me first when there was no need to do so. We are on the same side here.

 

[ShootingArts]

do you really want to play the out of context quotes game with me??

Cool beans! One thing we agree on.

Hu

Yes, you definitely win on wrinkles. Admittedly, this ad was poorly done but I'm not adverse to these types of ad solutions. I think criticism is good and we should protect the user experience but we also should maintain an understanding of what's at stake. We all love this forum and want it to continue to improve.

TRY THIS:

This site might one day be as polished and as diverse as any sports channel. That's not going to happen on a small budget.

Cool beans! One thing we agree on.

Hu

Jude,

You aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Do you really want to start a battle of out of context quotes with somebody that owned, moderated, and participated in a political discussion forum for years?

Hu

 

[JB Cases]

Guys, please don't start a flame war here. Let's keep it to discussing positive ways to keep the lights on so we can all get our daily fix.

Here is a good place to start checking out what the biggest boards on the net are up to.

http://www.big-boards.com/

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

Cool beans! One thing we agree on.

Hu




TRY THIS:





Jude,

You aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Do you really want to start a battle of out of context quotes with somebody that owned, moderated, and participated in a political discussion forum for years?

Hu

Nah Hu,

You're the man. For the record, the quotes I commented on were 100% in context. I omitted nothing.

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

Yes, you definitely win on wrinkles. Admittedly, this ad was poorly done but I'm not adverse to these types of ad solutions. I think criticism is good and we should protect the user experience but we also should maintain an understanding of what's at stake. We all love this forum and want it to continue to improve.

Hu, if you're speaking of THIS quote, I'm shocked. I would assume someone with your expertise in political discussion would know this was meant to be light.

 

[ShootingArts]

you are easily shocked!

Hu, if you're speaking of THIS quote, I'm shocked. I would assume someone with your expertise in political discussion would know this was meant to be light.

You are easily shocked! So are many politicians, or so they pretend too. You have a lot else in common with them also but I'll stop there. I'm well aware that you were playing games. However if you insist that you want to play games I will join in soon. Be careful what you type in every post, matter of fact you need to clean up a few now just in this thread and you have posted a lot of threads here on AZB. Years ago a liar got pissed because I quoted in context what he said on another site in direct conflict with what he was saying on the site the thread was on. That is bad enough but when I join you in playing out of context games . . . accidentally of course! :grin-square:

Hu