Ok, I love this site, but could use some tweaking -- mostly on Ad serving. Otherwise, you have a great site and a cool resource. Nice to be able to chat about DVD/SVCD/etc stuff with other folks, give tips and suggestions, and share experiences in this area. Great work guys. [rant] First of all, I'm using Mozilla because I HATE popups -- they are the worst possible way to advertise -- I make note of which companies use them and never buy their stuff. Just one step above SPAM. I hope others will do the same. Second, what kind of ads are your serving? What's up with the "If the link above is flashing, you've won..." stuff? I mean, really, does anyone get served an Ad that *isn't* flashing? I don't mind banner Ads, I know they pay the bills (or I hope they do), but the type of Ads served are annoying -- especiallying the constantly flashing ones -- scurge of the earth like the Netscape BLINK tag. I'm not sure what your Ad serving standards are, but I would ask that you re-visit this with the hope of creating eye-catching, yet not-annoying Ads. And of course, avoid popups at all cost. [/rant] Thanks for hearing me out. Love the site otherwise.
We don't serve popups. We serve _ONE_ popunder for each visitor -- once you get one popunder, you wont see a new one until your next visit (which means you have to shut down your browser and open it again and visit the site again). You wont see more pops other than that. Unfortunately banners don't pay enough to pay the bills -- one popunder pays more than 6-8 banners. Popups would pay more, but I hate them -- but as a webmaster, I know that some sites are pretty much forced to use them (we have good advertising deals that pay relatively nicely, most sites don't have such deals and have to make up the difference by using more aggressive ads, more ads, etc). We try to block "annoying" ads as much as possible. We always block alcohol, cigarette, sex and "provocative" ads, but sometimes some annoying ads get through our censorship (if you would see some of the ad networks' approving tools, you would understand how this is possible . I'll try to take a look at these particular ads and block them if financially viable (sometimes these "annoying ads" are being bought as part of another campaign and bought in very large volumes, such as 3 million imps, etc in which case you really can't afford to lose such deal). We appreciate our users and have tried to keep all the annoyances down to minimum (when financially possible), but I'll look into the banner issue as soon as I can.
Actually, I disagree with Awesomejt, I think the adds on this website are a lot better than other forums i've seen. For instance, a pop under add doesnt really bother you as you can still write or click on the page you are trying to load. The other adds in the forum are small and at the top and bottom of every page. Where is the problem with that? I understand that flashing ones stating you have won something are a bit annoying, but only if you sit and stare at them. Read the posts and you wont even notice they are there. Through the adds i managed to find 3 good deals that i have signed up for. They are useful and if they keep Afterdawn at a high standard, then thats always going to be a good thing in my book. Chris
From a technical stand point, I seen no difference between a "popup" and "popunder" -- just a line or two of Javascript. As popup/unders go, your site has one of the better policies that use them. I rarely go to About.com without running Mozilla or other sites that are super agressive with serving Ads. I don't mind seeing Ads since you have to pay the bills somehow, but when Ads become so annoying that it is difficult to use the site -- it becomes not worth it all. Since I use Mozilla 90% of the time, I usually can't tell the difference between popup and popunders -- what I see is the ! mark at the bottom telling me this site sent unsolicitied window via Javascript. If you sent only one popunder or thousands of popups makes no difference in how Mozilla handles it. As far as folks that use popup/under stuff, that is one of the better policies (except for folks running IE that can't count browser references). Well, if you are using a third party Ad service, I can understand your issues. I like the one-line Ads on the forums and I am fine with/put up with the fairly tame banner Ads. My only annoyance is with the flashy "click here to see what you've won" stuff or the "if this is flashing, you're lucky number 234321..." -- that's all. It reminds me of those vile Casino Ads. I just don't care for the "strobe-light" effect. My instant reaction isn't that the advertiser is a good quality company that I can trust my money with, but the opposite. I guess it is more of a suggestion for the Ad companies, but I thought I would share my thoughts since *everything* on your site reflects on your overall image. Isn't this the same reason you built your own forum software? In the long run, your site sucks *far* less in this department and overall is still a way cool site. Of course, these are my opinions and since this is the feedback thread, I wanted to share. Thanks.
I actually went to our ad serving selection and blocked all "extreme animation" ads from showing -- they might show up occassionally through some ad serving companies down the line (1st company doesn't have inventory -> ads go to 2nd one -> 3rd one -> 4th one etc..), but that happening should be now rather minimal (UK users might still suffer from these, we don't have full control over our UK-targeted ads). I appreciate all the feedback and always try to make the user experience as good as possible.
