New thread ads, intensely annoying.

The new thread ads, on the left hand side of the screen are so bad

that I can hardly stand it. Western languages (this is an English

language site) read from left to right. Trying to read and each time

your eye goes back to the right, you hit the ad bar and having to

start each screen 20% in from the left is a serious annoyance. Please

relocate the ad bar to the right hand side of the screen.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00E0WQ

Ben, thanks for your opinion. I've read your comment. I hope you will now allow me to give you my opinion. It will make you mad. If you have high blood pressure or something, you might want to stop reading.

 

A completely invisible ad that you can totally ignore is not worth the advertisers' money. If this site were supported 100% by subscriptions, which would be our preference, then the needs of advertisers would not be any concern of ours, and we could concentrate on meeting only the needs of our audience. Especially the subscribers.

 

However, that is not the case, and we need to give the advertisers what they are paying us for, which is some of the attention of the audience of the site. We would prefer that 100% of the attention of our audience be on the content that we are providing. We don't particularly like putting up ads that invite people to exit the site and click over to the advertisers' sites. We work hard to get people's attention, and we would prefer to keep it all for the site rather than selling it off to advertisers.

 

However, we are taking the advertisers' money, and therefore we are going to play fair with those advertisers. So, don't expect the ads to be invisible. On the right-hand side of the forum, the ads were so inobtrusive that people never clicked on them. So we will try putting the ads on the left. Totally inobtrusive ads is not our goal. Our goal is: everybody subscribes and we don't have any ads. However, if we have ads, they will be ads that people notice and click on, because that is what the advertisers are paying us for. Sorry.

 

Futhermore, I don't think you have any grounds to complain about how the site raises its funds unless you subscribe. If you are not a subscriber, photo.net is a gift horse, as far as you are concerned. Free, gratis, something that someone else is paying for. You know what they say about looking gift horses in the mouth. It's impolite, to say the least.

 

Indeed, if you were a subscriber, you wouldn't see those ads. My opinion is that after 1756 forum posts, you should be a subscriber, unless there is some very good reason why not. I presume you have a good reason for not subscribing. But meanwhile have the minimum politeness not to complain about the advertising.

 

I guess this isn't what you expected when you posted this. Thanks for your participation on the site. I hope I can thank you soon for subscribing to the site.

Well said Brian...tactful but to the point

Here I need to subscribe sometime again; maybe after I reroof and re sheetrock my summer Katrina flooded summer house. The advertising I see here has never really bothered me; and I am not even sure when it even appeared. I remember getting back on Photo.net again in late September after many weeks, running a generator on dialup with a dirty noisey sp :)line at only at 9600 to 14400 bps due to noise. The swabbles about ratings, advertising, and threads being deleted were a welcome VERY VERY humourous break from the monsterous task of hurricane cleanup; and seem trival compared to boiling water; eating MRE's; washing clothes in buckets; trying to find salt water flooded photogear under 2 feet of rubble. Some lenses got washed out a block from the house. Then we we got AC power after 3 weeks; the telephone line cable got cut; and one had no telephone again. Canadian Bell telephone chaps speaking French fixed on phone line a couple of weeks ago. It was real funny to read "annoying" photo.net complaints; when here one only wanted some dry shoes; AC power; closepins, maybe a real hamburger or eggs.

So when I do subscribe I will be allowed to make comments? Or maybe be responded to by yourself when I write to tell you that a member is attacking me instead of being ignored?

 

I apologise for demanding. I should have worded it differently.

Ben, you're already allowed to make comments. You've made nearly 2000 of them, I believe. If you subscribe, you can complain about the advertising. You also get to complain about the other people who aren't yet subscribers and how they make it necessary for the site to have advertising. Because at that point you will no longer be one of them.

OK subscribed, now I still see a wide bar at the left hand side of the screen with an 'adorama' button in it. It's still taking up the first ~15% of the left side of the screen (as it was before but without the yahoo ads) making reading posts extremely annoying and uncomfortable. I didn't mind the yahoo ads, the space they took up was the annoyance and still is.

Thank you for your subscription and for supporting the site, Ben. On Monday, when I'm officially working, I'll look at putting the gray option bar on the right for subscribers.

Thanks, Brian. It's better on the right.

 

Conni

Many sites use a menu bar or other space on the left.

 

For example:

 

Yahoo News - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051029/ap_on_re_us/fall_back

 

MSNBC News - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9844831/

 

Slashdot - http://slashdot.org/

 

A left border is a standard navigation position. Maybe a list of forums could be put there and/or a list of links to articles which would be of interest to readers of that forum (recent equipment reviews for example) - plus ads for non-subscribers.

Personally, I wish that Pnet would phase out the free memberships. Yes, there would be some reduction in membership numbers (which would hurt ad revenues), but is that such a bad thing? Especially if you offered to STOP the ads altogether and just make money from subscribers?

 

Pbase and Smugmug are two very sucessful photo websites that have NO ADVERTISING! They allow a 30 day free trial for people to see if they like the site, and then you either pay up or you don't use the site anymore!

 

Pbase has about 36,000 paid members paying $2 a month ($25 per year) for gross revenues of $72,000 A MONTH or $864,000 PER YEAR--certainly not chump change! Yes, I know servers and bandwidth, etc. cost money, but $72,000 a month for a web-based business is a nice chunk of change.

 

According to Pnet's About Us link, http://www.photo.net/about-us Pnet has over 500,000 registered members! If you maintained the free 30 day trial accounts, phased-out the free-loaders who now pay nothing, and retained just 1/3 of your current membership, Pnet would have over 150,000 members paying $2 a mo. for gross revenues of over $300,000 a month or $3.9 MILLION dollars a year! You also save a lot of money by not having to pay for server space for galleries from free members.

 

I know that Pnet is afraid to dump the free-loaders for fear that they will lose many members, but I'd take a smaller, ad-free, and 95%+ community supported membership over the present system ANY day!

 

The quality of work available here on Pnet is VASTLY superior to the work found on websites like Pbase and Smugmug (and, most of that work comes from PAID SUBSCRIBERS!)and thus Pnet should NOT be afraid to demand that members pay for this service! Pbase and Smugmug have some good work too, but Pnet is leaps and bounds better in many ways. If those sites can maintain a loyal, paying, and ad-free community, then there is NO REASON why Pnet can't do the same thing!

 

Instead of focusing on new ways to annoy us with ads and cookies, etc. announce a 90-day phase-out for ALL free memberships. Pull the ads, make the site a little more customer-friendly (i.e nicer forum moderators that let us discuss what WE want instead of what THEY want) and watch the money roll in!

Um... As others have said: Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

If you don't like the ads, filter them out or don't look at them or something, but don't go complaining to Brian & Co about your poor old self having to watch annoying gifs or whatever. That's just uncivilized and spoiled.

Edward, you never do read what I write. You did see the bit about my subscription last night?

unlike yours I may add...

It's easy to tell someone else how to run a business when you don't have to do it yourself.

 

Making money is so easy, I wonder why everyone doesn't do it.

 

I can think of a number of websites which would be delighted if photo.net went subscriber only. Their increase in traffic would be substantial.

Unashamed freeloader here.

 

I agree with Bob that slash.dot, etc. have menu bars on the left but notice that ALL their advertising bars are on the RIGHT or in the middle of the text as in MSNBC. Not one places its ads on the left.

 

Brian, I understand that you're trying to do right by your advertisers. Let me say that gentle persuasion works best. Ads that end up annoying your intended targets will only be self-defeating.

 

But it is not the ads that I decry; it is plain and simple BAD LAYOUT DESIGN.

 

I gather you're no graphic designer nor layout expert, Brian, so hire one. As photographers, we are sensitive to visual design. By placing the ad bars on the left with the proportions that you have, you caused an imbalance in the visual field. Even those subscribers who do not get the ads are complaining because they see the gray menu bar which is not balanced by anything elsewhere in the layout.

 

I do not decrey your trying to attract eyeballs to your paying advertisers; they must get their money's worth or they split. You just gotta to do it in concert with good page design which does not annoy your readers. Bashing them over the heads with uglily placed do not earn you any brownie points.

 

So fudge around with it for all I care but at least do it RIGHT. Hire a good designer for that. I hope at least that you will be sensitive to your readers' needs for good page design.

Lots of sites put ads on the left. Studies have shown that it's one of the premium ad positions. Google has published studies that show that ads on the left perform second only to those stuck right in the middle of the text. Ads on the right significantly underperform ads on the left.

 

If you let too many aesthetically orriented web designers loose on a site, you may end up with a beautiful site that generates no income!

All right then, Bob. We have our own ways of looking at this. Even Google places its ads on the right.

 

Give it a run and then check the click-throughs.

 

Still an affront to my, sniff, sniff, aesthestic sensibilities but I'd expect you to say no matter, being the engineer that you are :)

It's not my call. It's 100% Brian's decision.

 

On my own website, I run ads on the left. That was not an arbitrary decision.

Haha, I never noticed they were there until you just pointed them out. Thanks, now im going to be miffed off.

.

 

How to kill photo.net:

 

Earlier on this thread: "...Personally, I wish that [phot.net] would phase out the free memberships. Yes, there would be some reduction in membership numbers (which would hurt ad revenues), but is that such a bad thing? Especially if you offered to STOP the ads altogether and just make money from subscribers?..."

 

Yeah -- make the free and open Internet CHARGE ONLY! =8^o

 

Click!

 

Love and hugs,

 

Peter Blaise peterblaise@yahoo.com http://www.peterblaisephotography.com/

 

PS - Now, if you offered to PAY ME a commission for all the people I have helped (and provoked into thinking deeper) on free and open photo.net (250 posts from me on record so far) ... and by the way, I would NEVER be part of a pay-only Internet photography site, and have seen more than one such effort KILL the site that implemented it.

.

 

PS - Including a l-o-n-g web link in a posted answer would push the right-hand advertisements off screen whewre no one would see them, so left it will be!

 

$$$

 

Now, in Mozilla with ad-block ... well, even Yahoo has been ad-free for me for a long, long time!

 

Let's stop copmplaining about the free resources we all use and the advertisements that keep such a wealth of resources free, and start configuring our own browser to do our bidding and ad-blocking for us.

 

Does anyone complain to the post office about free postage but we hate all the junk mail? Oh, wait a minute, postage isn't free ... never mind!

 

How about complaining about all the advertisements before a movie in the theater yet we don't complain about the cheap or free seats? Oh, wait a minute, there are no cheap or free movie theater seats ... never mind!

 

Gotta love this free and open Internt, though -- our US tax dollars at work!

 

Click!

 

Love and hug$,

 

Peter Blaise peterblaise@yahoo.com http://www.peterblaisephotography.com/

Peter, I agree with some of what you say. But you seem to think that because you've paid your ISP and your tax dollars to be able to connect to the internet that everything you find on the Internet ought to be free. I don't think it will come as any news to you that your ISP is not sending any part of your monthly ISP charges to photo.net. And, presuming you are correct about U.S. taxpayers still paying for the Internet, we aren't getting any tax money either. The only funds we get are from subscribers and advertising. If you aren't a subscriber and you are blocking the ads, and you say you are never going to be a subscriber or stop blocking the ads, please tell me why you feel entitled to use this service?

.

 

Earlier on this thread: "...you seem to think that because you've paid your ISP and your tax dollars to be able to connect to the internet that everything you find on the Internet ought to be free. I don't think it will come as any news to you that your ISP is not sending any part of your monthly ISP charges to photo.net. And, presuming you are correct about U.S. taxpayers still paying for the Internet, we aren't getting any tax money either. The only funds we get are from subscribers and advertising. If you aren't a subscriber and you are blocking the ads, and you say you are never going to be a subscriber or stop blocking the ads, please tell me why you feel entitled to use this service?..."

 

Peter Blaise responds: Because *I* and other provocative and photopgraphy-savvy people like me provide the service, and Google, Yahoo and various vendors pay photo.net for the eyeballs I bring in with my posts.

 

I'm sorry -- did I imply that I PAY for the Internet via my ISP and my taxes?!?

 

Nix that.

 

Please don't assume anything!

 

Assume is spelled ... you know the drill!

 

However, I do pay for services rendered, if and when thay are rendered, just as you do.

 

I participate here and my posts frequently bring in the eyeballs that photo.net then sells to Google and Yahoo and variuous vendors. Directly or indirectly, my posts, and other provocative and photopgraphy-savvy people like me, provide the services that Google and Yahoo and various vendors pay for, and photo.net gets the money -- Hi Philip! ;-)

 

Are you gonna cut off your nose despite your face, throw out the baby with the bathwater, kill the goose that's laying your golden egg for you? Show some appreciation! It's a movable feast. http://forum.shutterbug.com/forum/ubbthreads.php is hungering for participants and they promise to keep it lively. Photo.net makes it money keeping me and provocative and photopgraphy-savvy people like me on board, not blowing us away -- paid membership or not.

 

Click!

 

Love and hugs,

 

Peter Blaise peterblaise@yahoo.com http://www.peterblaisephotography.com/