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

[Roger Long]

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?

You're right, Jerry. It's just like cable TV. You pay for cable, but you get commercials whether you like them or not. It doesn't seem right, but that's the way it is. Cable subscriptions alone cannot pay for the huge expense of bringing us all of the programs we enjoy, so we have to put up with the advertisers who do pay for it. It's simply business.

Do whatever you have to do, AZB; but please keep the good stuff coming!

Roger

 

[Rethunk]

So, give us your ideas. What forms of ads will both be effective (meaning you see and read them) and yet are not intrusive?

...Do you want to pay us magazine subscription rates and have less advertising or keep the site free and see ads?

First, thanks for keeping the AzB forums going.

The inline ads that appear in the site JB Cases mentioned are unobtrusive and might be sufficiently effective for advertisers. A sample inline ad can be seen here:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=131524

Another option might be to expand the area above the navigation links (User CP, Register, . . . , Links, Log Out). Currently I see linked ads for PoolDawg.com and OzoneBilliards.com there. Unless these advertisers are given special consideration over others, I wouldn't mind seeing other ads up there.

If there were a special section for advertisers, I'd be more inclined to visit that section if the ads were coupled with video clips from tournaments, lessons demonstrating drills, or something like that. For example, if Predator ad were bundled with a short video of Joe Tucker explaining the benefits of an LD cue, I might actually click on the ad.

 

[back2good1]

I really hope that someone has hacked into the AZ computer system and set up this pop up and that it is not a spot that was sold. I think it's probably the most annoying thing that you could ever do to a forum, especially since it pops up every time you go back to the forums. What gives?

Doug

Really? Its business... this is free to you!!! Come on.

Some people just don't get it....

 

[Tom In Cincy]

Pay per post site....:grin-devilish:

Even at a penny a post, I would imagine the number of daily posts would decrease almost 80%.

Where are all the Pool related posts anyway?

 

[DWBOD]

<--------See that, it says Club Member!

Really? Its business... this is free to you!!! Come on.

Some people just don't get it....

It might be free for you, since I see you're not a paying member here, but I pay my $35 a year to post and to read the forums. Maybe if people like you would support the site, we wouldn't have to resort to pop-ups for our survival. I love AZ, I just think we can find a better, less intrusive way to make money.

Doug

 

[Celtic]

Take it easy guys. This site has more info than anything else on the net for FREE. If I have to put up with a popup when I see the main menu, big deal.

If you are talking about the info on the forums then that info is actually coming from the users of the forum themselves, and it is those very contributers of that info that are being forced to put up with the ad.

I don't care about banner ads like we already have but the popup ad IS going too far.

 

[Neil]

....................

 

[peteypooldude]

What ever you choose to do is fine by me,good work and thank you :smile:

 

[SUPERSTAR]

Why don't we just enjoy the fact that it's a self limiting popup, and NOT some 15 second commercial that you MUST watch before getting to the forum that is loud as $#!T, that you can't shut the volume down on.

Seems to me that whenever there is a free video or even some of the free streaming events that i want to watch online, that's exactly what i have to sit through a lot of times.

No big deal. Comes with the territory.

 

[Matt90]

No problems

I can see a pop up or two to help pay the rent....thats not a problem .It would not even bother me at all to make it an all paid site. I pay $60 a yr to two sites that are strictly for video and electronic techs and engineers. The
$60 a year sorta seperates the people who are serious about the sites from the ones who just want to rob info and not contribute. Bring it on !!!

 

[Celtic]

Seems to me that whenever there is a free video or even some of the free streaming events that i want to watch online, that's exactly what i have to sit through a lot of times.

"Free" streaming events SHOULD have ads to pay for the setup of the camera, the travel of the person to the event, the time of the commentators, the bandwidth, ect.... Pool is going to live or die on advertising on streaming events. When was the last time I watched a hockey game on TV and did not see a advertisement? Thats right never.

The ability to see a bloody post that some other forum member makes on a pool forum where ALL of the members are what in reality lead to the success and popularity of the community is not the same thing AT ALL.

 

[Beware_of_Dawg]

LOL!!!

whining little *****ez. lol. somebody's got to pay the bills in this place. Your getting pure entertainment, education, and dare I say joy from this place daily and someone has the stones to complain about an ad?

SO, you guys are wandering around the desert of the world wide interwebz, getting mighty thirsty...

so, AZb gives you a drink of water, you want a glass to drink it out of.

They go out & get you a glass, now you want it filled to the top.

They work to give you a full glass of water and U wanna know why you dont get no free ice?.

They go buy you some ice, so you get a free glass full of ice water and now u want to know why you don't have a straw.

They awful tired & broke from all the work it took to get you ice water so they go to a sponsor to get you a straw, and you fuxing clowns are pissed the straw has a sponsors name on it. How dare they intrude on you while your drinkin the ice water.

Madness!! This is outrage!! DOn't they know you are all entitled to these luxuries!!!

lol, sorry guys but.... REALLY!?!? I mean REALLY?!?!?

 

[ShootingArts]

the catch

I can see a pop up or two to help pay the rent....thats not a problem .It would not even bother me at all to make it an all paid site. I pay $60 a yr to two sites that are strictly for video and electronic techs and engineers. The
$60 a year sorta seperates the people who are serious about the sites from the ones who just want to rob info and not contribute. Bring it on !!!

Some merit to your idea. The problem is that the fees would have to be quite high because we would probably lose 95% or more of the members of the free forums. Advertiser numbers and the fees for advertising would plummet because most of them are targeting the casual players.

There aren't any easy answers. Doing some testing as AZB is doing is as good an idea as any. I do think a few days warning with a thread explaining that AZB is doing something as a test and why it is necessary to explore new revenue ideas would be a good idea. You can run off five or ten percent of your membership base. You can't run off 70-80% as my friends accidentally discovered.

Hu

 

["CaliRed".]

I have no clue what the bandwidth on this site is but I do know that Hostgator has plans with unlimited bandwidth for less than $10 a month.

Anyone that thinks this marketing scam of "unlimited bandwidth" and "unlimited storage" is real, is very gullible.

Common sense would tell a person that there is no way a business could give away unlimited bandwidth and storage for 10 or 20 bucks a month.

Any time something sounds too good to be true, it isn't... it should tell you to read the fine print and ask lots of questions about what the scam is.

 

[back2good1]

Too funny...

Hey I pay for cable tv... but I don't want to see commercials! Damn it, after all I pay for it!

It's a pop-up... get over it.

 

[uwate]

I doubt this is particularly accurate but it is fun to see how they value different sites. Drudge report is pushing five million in value and brings in over $6500 a day. AZB is worth $43,000 and brings in about $55 a day according to the site. I suspect this is based on certain assumptions and I would certainly hope daily net is a bit better but that gives some idea that AZB is anything but a cash cow.

Another site that once was shown to be worth $35,000 is worth $2500 today. They made changes forum members didn't care for and people went away after many years of the forum being the top forum in it's niche. We need AZB, AZB needs us. One sponsor supplies the vast majority of the $2500 site's income the last I knew. They go away and it becomes purely a hobby. That bites because two friends of mine own it and could have sold it for pretty nice dollars once.

This is the link to the values site. No idea concerning accuracy but as mentioned earlier, it is fun to see comparative values of sites.
http://www.websiteoutlook.com/www.azbilliards.com

Hu

Hu,
That website is very inaccurate. So much so its about the same as looking at someones haircut and trying to guess their education and net worth. The reason why its inaccurate is because that site has no idea what the revenue streams are, nor does it show the costs involved in a site. For example a video driven site has much higher costs and a site that has a recurring subscription model has much different revenue. They base their numbers off of one flat formula and their traffic numbers are based on one flat formula as well. True traffic statistics are not available to them as are the traffic origins. For example alot of Asian traffic (everywhere in Asia but Japan) has low value because the chinese do not buy much online. Nonetheless the amount of asian traffic, particularly Chinese can be enormous. The difference between Alexa estimates of traffic and actual traffic registering on something like Google stats can be night and day.

The site is interesting but just as long as you understand its accuracy is very poor.

 

[catscradle]

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.

From the first inception of the web I've felt the advertising model will not work. It is not TV, radio, or printed matter. All the analogs to standard advertising that is presented on a website does nothing, absolutely nothing, but irritate. It is just not a successful presentation medium. In radio & tv there is no choice though the advent of remote controls have been a marvelous boon to listeners/viewers. In publishing the ads are just there and easily ignored, but it is a great medium for creating visual appealing ads which people want to look at.
On the web even the pop-ups are easily ignored and I think most people are like me and don't even really see the banner ads. People just automatically scroll down.
I think the web provides a good medium for brick and mortar replacement stores and pay sites, but the publishing model isn't going to work without some dramatic changes in technologies.
JMHO.
In the meantime anybody who really doesn't like the ads (in any form) just go elsewhere. Me, I'll put up with the ads and ignore them as usual.
Steve.

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

I work in online advertising so I can comment a bit on this -

This isn't a pop-up. It's what's often referred to as an Introduction Ad or a Splash Ad. The HTML code for the forum is instructed to load this ad before the forum loads in the same window. To block it, you can do one of two things but both will hinder your internet experience. You can either disable pictures so no pictures will load or you can disable javascript which means all sites containing javascript will load improperly.

I see it in both IE and Firefox so I cannot ascertain where it is not working and why. Older browsers or scaled down browsers will likely yield a different user experience, in general.

It doesn't appear every time because of "Frequency Capping". This is a cookie-based feature on most ad servers that allows a publisher (in this case, azbilliards) to dictate how often a user will see an ad. A common setting is once a day but if the user clears his cookies, they will see the ad again.

AZBilliards uses D1.OpenX.Org as their ad solutions company. I don't know anything about them so perhaps they might do things a little differently than what I'm accustomed to seeing. Everything I said might be 100% on the money or slightly wrong (I'd lean toward slightly wrong for now).


Personally, I see no fault in trying to monetize azbilliards, although I do believe this particular ad might be slowing down the load-time. The forum has grown into an amazing beast and requires round-the-clock maintenance. Money has to come from somewhere and ads like these often generate a lot of money. With that said, the user-experience is often top priority for publishers. If you really don't like it, feel free to voice your opinion. If you feel an ad such as this will diminish your experience enough that you no longer wish to visit, obviously the powers-that-be will listen. However, bear in mind, every time we block an opportunity for this site to make money, we also hinder the growth of azbilliards.

 

["CaliRed".]

I understand your need for revenue and the use of advertising....but...

I see your new advertising method "The Pop Up" is extremely annoying to what appears to be for many members...so it may not be a great way of advertising.

I personally don't want pop ups on my computer.

I don't see it as offensive.. just plain intrusive..

I would rather pay a membership fee and not have pop ups.

Actually pop ups are an invasion of my computer...if I wanted pop ups I'd ask for'em.

By the way the banner ads are like not problem they are fixed on the page.

Have an advertising thread for business.

I don't know what your deal is with AZ but you need to do some other form of advertising.

I understand the whole revenue thing, but this isn't the way to do it. I understand being a member on AZ is free and because of that we should tolerate intrusive actions on the part of AZ....I think not! You can do better..I have confidence in AZ to do the right thing.

Thanks,
Scott:shakehead:

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

Actually pop ups are an invasion of my computer...if I wanted pop ups I'd ask for'em

I understand the whole revenue thing, but this isn't the way to do it. I understand being a member on AZ is free and because of that we should tolerate intrusive actions on the part of AZ....I think not! You can do better..I have confidence in AZ to do the right thing

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.

 

[Jerry Forsyth]

OK, So you don't like the splash ads. I am writing Mike to have him take it down. And I do appreciate some of the ideas you folks sent me. We will be exploring them. I do hope that you all realize that there is much more than bandwidth costs involved here. We pay for cameramen, on-screen talent, writers, editors, web designers, the bills go on and on. And we have to have a way to pay them.

We have a vision for a bigger and better AZB but it will take a lot of money to pull it off. So if we try out new ad formats, please understand that these are what enable us to grow and get better. And it really wouldn't hurt at all if you let people you do business with know that you frequent AZB.

Thanks to all of you.