Ads In Threads

[palmerq]

adblock is brilliant, I have it on for everything except cycling news now, I like this site so I like to click the adverts every so often and they dont bother me now which is nice

[TeamSkyFans]

So somone who publicly patted himself on the back for using an ad blocker ends up running a forum and complaining about the use of ad blockers. Karma is a b!tch.

I dont actually use a ad blocker as such, I use opera and have some of the more intrusive advertising blocked, but I dont block google ads at all (you can only put 3 google ads per page), but i do block some other advertising. I dont see the in thread ones, but i do see the google ads.

take for instance steephill. Ive just been there, he has two google adverts on his page. I am perfectly happy them being there, but I also will click if they are of some interest because I appreciate that Steve has costs to cover. His only source of income as far as I know is advertising. He does a lot of work, provides a really good service to fans. Probably has server costs of about $30-$50 a month. If he stops recieving advertising revenue, is his commitment to cyling and the site that much that he can afford to spend upward of $300 a year out of his own pocket, not to mention the time he puts into it, in providing that service?

teamskyfans, whatever you may think of it (gets about 1 million page views a year), costs about £200 each year to run (server costs, domain fees etc), the advertising on their means that that doesnt have to come out of my pocket, we also do deals with for instance 3lc for the classics, they provide the prize for our fantasy league, in return we carry their banner on all of our classics pages for a year. Its only small amounts of money, but for bloggers, people who run small websites, its the difference between paying out of their own pocket, and their website not costing them anything.

I have issues with two things.
Ad blockers that cause people for whom a little bit of advertising is the difference between them paying for their site out of their own pocket, and having it paid for.
And sites that go completely over the top with advertising and ruin the visitors experience to the point where they have to install software to make that experience a good one.

Ideally there should be no need for ad blockers because all websites should be focussed on the user experience and not making a ton of money.

[TeamSkyFans]

Dim did. Right from the beginning.

As i say, i have no ad blockers installed, opera automatically blocked the in thread ads and i have no way of unblocking them.
I can and did for a while block google ads, but i now have google on my ok to view list. I use an opera plug in to block some of the more aggressive advertising networks that plant multiple cookies and track your browsing habits. For me its as much as privacy issue as a design related issue.

Different ad networks vary greatly in their privacy policies and their use of your information. Cycling news have used some fairly disreputable networks over the last few years.

[TeamSkyFans]

Trolling for members, the low hit count forum owner's only tactic to keeping it afloat.

No need, perfectly happy with its progress, and financially it is secure for a good while yet, at which point my level of income should be sufficient that i can afford to support it personally. This month its even in a position to be able to offer a free tshirt or two to its members as a thank you.

I've had them since their invention. Ad-blockers not only let one concentrate on the subject one wants to read but is also green, just look at your CPU load with and without those pesky ad's. You laptop owners who keep seeing your battery go dead might want to look into it for that factor alone.

id never thought about that, flash certainly is a big drain, although most ofthe big networks, google, affiliate window and adbrite dont use flash advertising anymore. Wonder if theres an app like you can get for phones that shows how much power each application is using.