Video Ads

[Anonymous]

The chicken tikka masala ad is making me hungry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could you try putting up a link to PayPal or Venmo or something and ask for donations? Give us hard numbers on what you need to raise.

As you know, I’m not wealthy liberal stereotype but am more than willing to donate. I have been on here at least ten years and remember the day I stumbled on the preschool forum through google.

The owner of this site needs an income, like all of do, not a fundraiser. If he is talking about college costs, our little donations that we give when we remember and feel like are not going to cut it. This should be obvious.

[Anonymous]

Does it generate more money if we actually click on an ad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could you try putting up a link to PayPal or Venmo or something and ask for donations? Give us hard numbers on what you need to raise.

As you know, I’m not wealthy liberal stereotype but am more than willing to donate. I have been on here at least ten years and remember the day I stumbled on the preschool forum through google.

The owner of this site needs an income, like all of do, not a fundraiser. If he is talking about college costs, our little donations that we give when we remember and feel like are not going to cut it. This should be obvious.

Agree. Jeff needs to do what he needs to do, and offering this site for free, or a pittance in ad revenue, isn't going to put his kids through college. And you're probably right that a Wikipedia-type fundraiser isn't going to work. Wikipedia probably has millions of visitors every day.

That said, after I've scrolled past the Tikka Masala ad, is it absolutely necessary for it to pop up in the lower RHS too?

[Anonymous]

From a marketing POV I think the fixed ads could be deployed better, e.g. ads for Kumon should be deployed in the in the Education forums rather than in the travel section; ads for makeup in could be placed Beauty and Fashion rather that in the College and University section etc. I understand that you wouldn't target ads toward individuals if want to stay anonymous, but I'm wondering if perhaps you can target them toward relevant forums. Just the way you might move an irrelevant thread to a more appropriate forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could you try putting up a link to PayPal or Venmo or something and ask for donations? Give us hard numbers on what you need to raise.

As you know, I’m not wealthy liberal stereotype but am more than willing to donate. I have been on here at least ten years and remember the day I stumbled on the preschool forum through google.

The owner of this site needs an income, like all of do, not a fundraiser. If he is talking about college costs, our little donations that we give when we remember and feel like are not going to cut it. This should be obvious.

Agree. Jeff needs to do what he needs to do, and offering this site for free, or a pittance in ad revenue, isn't going to put his kids through college. And you're probably right that a Wikipedia-type fundraiser isn't going to work. Wikipedia probably has millions of visitors every day.

That said, after I've scrolled past the Tikka Masala ad, is it absolutely necessary for it to pop up in the lower RHS too?

Some of us would probably pay $5 a month (or whatever) to get the option of an ad-free forum. I pay that much - or more - to several podcast providers because I like their product and don't want ads. And I spend a whole lot less time with those podcasts than I do on this forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could you try putting up a link to PayPal or Venmo or something and ask for donations? Give us hard numbers on what you need to raise.

As you know, I’m not wealthy liberal stereotype but am more than willing to donate. I have been on here at least ten years and remember the day I stumbled on the preschool forum through google.

The owner of this site needs an income, like all of do, not a fundraiser. If he is talking about college costs, our little donations that we give when we remember and feel like are not going to cut it. This should be obvious.

I agree. I’m trying to think of a way other than charging a monthly subscription to go ad free. I’d pay it if I could still post anonymously. Jeff must know who we are anyway. But I think a lot of people willing to give elsewhere would be hesitant to sign up if it meant giving their name.

[Anonymous]

I guess building and managing an app (versus this website) is more expensive?

That’s what Google tells me.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:I've turned the ads off on all pages except the main forum listing. Clearly the system is not working correctly since no ads appear to be displaying but only the Keanu Reeves video. I'll probably start turning the ads on for more bags if/when things start working as expected.

I didn’t like the video popup over the text, but it could have been worse since I was only seeing Keanu and he’s easy on the eyes. I will never forget his birthday now, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could you try putting up a link to PayPal or Venmo or something and ask for donations? Give us hard numbers on what you need to raise.

As you know, I’m not wealthy liberal stereotype but am more than willing to donate. I have been on here at least ten years and remember the day I stumbled on the preschool forum through google.

The owner of this site needs an income, like all of do, not a fundraiser. If he is talking about college costs, our little donations that we give when we remember and feel like are not going to cut it. This should be obvious.

Agree. Jeff needs to do what he needs to do, and offering this site for free, or a pittance in ad revenue, isn't going to put his kids through college. And you're probably right that a Wikipedia-type fundraiser isn't going to work. Wikipedia probably has millions of visitors every day.

That said, after I've scrolled past the Tikka Masala ad, is it absolutely necessary for it to pop up in the lower RHS too?

Some of us would probably pay $5 a month (or whatever) to get the option of an ad-free forum. I pay that much - or more - to several podcast providers because I like their product and don't want ads. And I spend a whole lot less time with those podcasts than I do on this forum.

Agreed $5-$10 a month to avoid flashing video ads would be well worth it and they might even make more money doing it that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:I've turned the ads off on all pages except the main forum listing. Clearly the system is not working correctly since no ads appear to be displaying but only the Keanu Reeves video. I'll probably start turning the ads on for more bags if/when things start working as expected.

I didn’t like the video popup over the text, but it could have been worse since I was only seeing Keanu and he’s easy on the eyes. I will never forget his birthday now, either.

Problem is, Keanu only has a birthday once a year. The jury's still out on what else we'll see. Tikka masala and Welsh ponies so far for me, which isn't bad. We shall see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could you try putting up a link to PayPal or Venmo or something and ask for donations? Give us hard numbers on what you need to raise.

As you know, I’m not wealthy liberal stereotype but am more than willing to donate. I have been on here at least ten years and remember the day I stumbled on the preschool forum through google.

The owner of this site needs an income, like all of do, not a fundraiser. If he is talking about college costs, our little donations that we give when we remember and feel like are not going to cut it. This should be obvious.

Agree. Jeff needs to do what he needs to do, and offering this site for free, or a pittance in ad revenue, isn't going to put his kids through college. And you're probably right that a Wikipedia-type fundraiser isn't going to work. Wikipedia probably has millions of visitors every day.

That said, after I've scrolled past the Tikka Masala ad, is it absolutely necessary for it to pop up in the lower RHS too?

Some of us would probably pay $5 a month (or whatever) to get the option of an ad-free forum. I pay that much - or more - to several podcast providers because I like their product and don't want ads. And I spend a whole lot less time with those podcasts than I do on this forum.

Agreed $5-$10 a month to avoid flashing video ads would be well worth it and they might even make more money doing it that way.

For better or worse, I use this site significantly more than news subscriptions that I do pay for. I'm not saying I'm going to fund DCUM at NYT levels, but to me, DCUM is worth the same as a couple podcasts I pay a subscription for, etc.

It doesn't solve the problem of how to make the site a primary income generator for this family, but I do think that the amount of time I spend here would be worth maintaining, complain though I often do about the content I read.

[Anonymous]

Well at least Keanu is gone today!! I wouldn’t mind a tikka masala video, if it was about cooking?? Haven’t seen it yet….

[jsteele]

I've just changed the video ads so that they only appear on the posts pages. Let's see how much screaming that elicits. I'm trying to find a compromise in which we use the ads but minimize the irritation.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:I've just changed the video ads so that they only appear on the posts pages. Let's see how much screaming that elicits. I'm trying to find a compromise in which we use the ads but minimize the irritation.

What does that mean? Only on the pages with actual posts, not recent topics? I see them now (some weird supplement ad) as a popup when I clicked in this thread.

Is there a way to have the embedded videos without the popups? Or is that a lot less income?