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

[ShootingArts]

thanks

Hu,
That website is very inaccurate. . . . . .


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

I knew that it couldn't or was very unlikely to account for various revenue streams. However I think some believe that AZB gets a lot of money from current advertising. I suspect that the site isn't vastly far off on that. Even 100-200% error wouldn't mean much. I found it disgustingly accurate about a couple other sites.

Hu

 

[mamono]

As someone mentioned earlier, I agree with the idea that club members should be exempt from "Introduction," "Splash," and "Pop-up" AD's. Honestly, the AD doesn't really bother me too much, its just an annoyance every time I go here, but not enough to make me stop using AZB.

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

I knew that it couldn't or was very unlikely to account for various revenue streams. However I think some believe that AZB gets a lot of money from current advertising. I suspect that the site isn't vastly far off on that. Even 100-200% error wouldn't mean much. I found it disgustingly accurate about a couple other sites.

Hu

If people think azbilliards makes lots of money, I'd be shocked. It is kind of sad when you think about how much complaining is going on over one splash ad when sites like CNN.com actually do use pop-ups, pop-unders, push-downs, SRMs, floaters, user-studies and sponsored content. I haven't even mentioned the ads that have sound.

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

As someone mentioned earlier, I agree with the idea that club members should be exempt from "Introduction," "Splash," and "Pop-up" AD's. Honestly, the AD doesn't really bother me too much, its just an annoyance every time I go here, but not enough to make me stop using AZB.

I can tell you right now that most ad-servers simply don't work that way. I'm sure there is a creative solution to such a request but there would be a hefty cost behind it.

 

["CaliRed".]

We pay for on-screen talent

Which reminds me... I haven't got a check this month for my on screen talent.

No check, doesn't insinuate no talent, does it?

My personal opinion is this, from surfing the net since it's inception.

I cant' stand sites loaded down with banner ads, especially animated ones. Animated is ok, if they just stick to soft transitions. The ones that flash and grow or explode are a eyesore. Banner ads lose their effectiveness, the more there are of them. Placement and design are key to good ads.

I don't like inline thread ads in forums. They are extremely annoying. Almost annoying as people that have huge signatures with huge graphics or yellow 36 pt bold fonts.

I don't like popup ads at all, but am not turned off by a short 5 second or so lead in ad, even if it's full screen, once a day. Some of the worst ads are the ones that unfurl themselves till they take up 1/2 your screen and slowly roll back up. Or the stupid ones that fly around on your screen in hopes you can't click on the X fast enough:grin:

I don't have a problem paying a membership fee once a year if it was in the 15 or 20 dollar range. I would think that the lower fee would enable many more potential signups, then a higher fee. The addition of more people would offset the lower fee.

You guys have a very clean site here and I have enjoyed it very much. You guys go to a lot of work to provide up to the date info on everything pool and the site and the info generated by you guys, is a reflection of people who truely love the game.

Good luck !!!

 

[Tramp Steamer]

Why can't we have a new category called 'Sponsor Classifieds', that contains special offers, new products, and sponsor announcements?
I'll tell you, this thread got me so upset I went over and kicked the neighbors dog. It bit me and I had to go to the emergency room and get a tetanus shot and the neighbor called and threatened to sue me. All because of this pop-up and the fact that I don't have my own dog. :wink:

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

Why can't we have a new category called 'Sponsor Classifieds', that contains special offers, new products, and sponsor announcements?
I'll tell you, this thread got me so upset I went over and kicked the neighbors dog. It bit me and I had to go to the emergency room and get a tetanus shot and the neighbor called and threatened to sue me. All because of this pop-up and the fact that I don't have my own dog. :wink:

I'll tell you why through this little script I did for you:

mike: Boy, it'd be nice if I could monetize this site somehow. All these bills and nothing to show for it.

advertiser: Hey Mike, I have this new pool cue coming out and I'd love to advertise on your site.

mike: Whoa, what timing! Sure, I'd love to take your money. We have a special place on the site for advertisers. Let me ship you the link! (sends advertisers.azbilliards.com)

advertiser: Wow, what is this garbage? It gets 14 page views a year. I don't want to be here. I want to be in the main forum and the Wanted/For Sale forum.

mike: Nah, those forums are special

advertiser: I'll give you top dollar

mike: I mean, they're special for you!

Seriously, advertisers decide where ads run, not site owners. How is azbilliards supposed to make any money if ads aren't running in the most popular areas?

 

[ShootingArts]

many do

If people think azbilliards makes lots of money, I'd be shocked. It is kind of sad when you think about how much complaining is going on over one splash ad when sites like CNN.com actually do use pop-ups, pop-unders, push-downs, SRMs, floaters, user-studies and sponsored content. I haven't even mentioned the ads that have sound.

Jude,

I remember past threads about revenue ideas. Many people, at least in those threads, thought that AZB was making quite a bit from advertising.

The few second splash ad right now is meaningless. It isn't effective advertising, it isn't very profitable for AZB either. It was only a test to see how we would react to it. As you mention, there are many other forms of similar advertising and the ads can become far more intrusive and plentiful. To become a significant cash stream for AZB they have to. As the ads multiply the advertisers have to jump up and down and scream to be noticed in the constant barrage of ads. Movement and noise or just large and gaudy ads. The escalation has ran me off of a double handful of sites. Advertisers have to be different to be noticed. Being different often means being obnoxious to many.

Hu

 

[Quesports]

Annoying

I am going with the annoyed crowd. For one thing if we like it in the main forum don't you think it will be in all the other popular sections soon? I am having visions of it popping up all over the forums. Pop up here, pop up there, pop up everywhere... Soon it will be a pool/pop up forum!
JMO,
Dan

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

Jude,

I remember past threads about revenue ideas. Many people, at least in those threads, thought that AZB was making quite a bit from advertising.

The few second splash ad right now is meaningless. It isn't effective advertising, it isn't very profitable for AZB either. It was only a test to see how we would react to it. As you mention, there are many other forms of similar advertising and the ads can become far more intrusive and plentiful. To become a significant cash stream for AZB they have to. As the ads multiply the advertisers have to jump up and down and scream to be noticed in the constant barrage of ads. Movement and noise or just large and gaudy ads. The escalation has ran me off of a double handful of sites. Advertisers have to be different to be noticed. Being different often means being obnoxious to many.

Hu

Wait, how do you know what is or isn't effective advertising or what is or isn't profitable? Do you know how much azb got for that ad? Do you know how much sites get for ads like that? Do you know what the click-thru rate was or the acquisition rate?

I'm just sayin, people have all these grand ideas on what they'd like to see on the internet and then they get all pissy when it comes to generating some revenue for it.

 

[TX Poolnut]

Personally, I don't mind the pop-ups because this site is free to the user.

Pick your battles.

 

[selftaut]

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.

In fact here is their shared hosting page.

http://www.hostgator.com/shared.shtml

I have 99.99% uptime with them and their customer service is off the hook!

Maybe none of these hosting plans will work but I don't think that the traffic costs are the problem here. More likely it's the fact that Mike and Co. have to spend a lot of time on the site maintenance - both here on the forum and on the main site to keep all the info current among other things.

With limited places to place ads there are limited opportunities to sell ads.

It's not an easy formula to work out to make a forum self-supporting through ad revenue.

JB, the monthly bill on a site the size of AZ is in the $$thousands$$, sorry but when I saw the $10 I had to give more of a perspective. Not only does it need a high end dedicated server but other costs are accumulated as well from the server company. Then as Jerry stated, there is design, writers etc..etc..etc.. No way its not in the thousands a month, simply not possible.

Kev

 

[ShootingArts]

Wait, how do you know what is or isn't effective advertising or what is or isn't profitable? Do you know how much azb got for that ad? Do you know how much sites get for ads like that? Do you know what the click-thru rate was or the acquisition rate?

I'm just sayin, people have all these grand ideas on what they'd like to see on the internet and then they get all pissy when it comes to generating some revenue for it.

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.

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.

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?

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

 

[cranegod1]

JB, the monthly bill on a site the size of AZ is in the $$thousands$$, sorry but when I saw the $10 I had to give more of a perspective. Not only does it need a high end dedicated server but other costs are accumulated as well from the server company. Then as Jerry stated, there is design, writers etc..etc..etc.. No way its not in the thousands a month, simply not possible.

Kev

selftaut, don't waste too much of your time there. You're dealing with an idiot.

 

[lfigueroa]

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

I'm not quite sure what the fuss is about in today's day and age of an app for anything and everything. If you don't mind the ads, pop-up or udderwise, no biggie. If you dan't like the pop-ups, load something like Ad Blocker Plus (it's free), and you won't see *any* ads. Anywhere.

Lou Figueroa

 

[JB Cases]

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.

Well I agree with you which is why I said that I don't know if these are real solutions for a site like AZ. I did find it curious that the dedicated server plans had bandwidth caps of like 500gb/month for $39.

For a site like mine it's fine. I run a few other websites off this account, one of which has a lot of streaming video hosted on the same server and is used regularly and I have seen no hassle from Hostgator so far. In fact they have been the best host I have ever had in my 15 years of having websites.

I am pretty sure there isn't a "scam" per se, but instead something along the lines of a "fair use" clause which says that if your traffic is taking the server down for everyone else then they reserve the right to suspend the account or something like that. I am sure the marketing aspect of "unlimited bandwidth" has to do with the fact that 99% of websites are going to get very little traffic in terms of actual bandwidth usage.

However I do agree that what the BIG PRINT giveth the fine print taketh away.

And if I had a site with 10,000 users I definitely wouldn't trust it to a $7.95 shared hosting account.

 

[JB Cases]

JB, the monthly bill on a site the size of AZ is in the $$thousands$$, sorry but when I saw the $10 I had to give more of a perspective. Not only does it need a high end dedicated server but other costs are accumulated as well from the server company. Then as Jerry stated, there is design, writers etc..etc..etc.. No way its not in the thousands a month, simply not possible.

Kev

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?

 

[JB Cases]

selftaut, don't waste too much of your time there. You're dealing with an idiot.

This is from the guy who wastes some of that bandwidth *****ing about a keychain.

I told Brandywine that I don't want mine. Brandywine please send this guy my keychain so he can have two.

Maybe you'll be able to read the keychain if you have two to practice on since you obviously are too impaired to read what I wrote and understand it.

 

[JB Cases]

Which reminds me... I haven't got a check this month for my on screen talent.

No check, doesn't insinuate no talent, does it?

My personal opinion is this, from surfing the net since it's inception.

I cant' stand sites loaded down with banner ads, especially animated ones. Animated is ok, if they just stick to soft transitions. The ones that flash and grow or explode are a eyesore. Banner ads lose their effectiveness, the more there are of them. Placement and design are key to good ads.

I don't like inline thread ads in forums. They are extremely annoying. Almost annoying as people that have huge signatures with huge graphics or yellow 36 pt bold fonts.

I don't like popup ads at all, but am not turned off by a short 5 second or so lead in ad, even if it's full screen, once a day. Some of the worst ads are the ones that unfurl themselves till they take up 1/2 your screen and slowly roll back up. Or the stupid ones that fly around on your screen in hopes you can't click on the X fast enough:grin:

I don't have a problem paying a membership fee once a year if it was in the 15 or 20 dollar range. I would think that the lower fee would enable many more potential signups, then a higher fee. The addition of more people would offset the lower fee.

You guys have a very clean site here and I have enjoyed it very much. You guys go to a lot of work to provide up to the date info on everything pool and the site and the info generated by you guys, is a reflection of people who truely love the game.

Good luck !!!

On www.leatherworker.net they allow anyone to donate what you want. If you donate $25 then you get a notice and some extra stuff on site. I have donated around $50 a year there. The initial $25 and also $5, 10 when the mood strikes me or I get a particularly good tip from the content there.

I agree with you that there should be a big fat DONATE button here so that people could just do it when they felt like it for as much as they wished to.

I also do NOT like the idea of tying memberships to giveaways like t-shirts and such. I am not a big fan of creating extra overhead when asking for donations.

 

[LC3]

I'm not quite sure what the fuss is about in today's day and age of an app for anything and everything. If you don't mind the ads, pop-up or udderwise, no biggie. If you dan't like the pop-ups, load something like Ad Blocker Plus (it's free), and you won't see *any* ads. Anywhere.

Another great one is the NoScript plug-in for Firefox. By default it doesn't allow scripts to run, and you can choose whether to temporarily or permanently allow individual scripts for a given site.