[Robert McClelland]

Hey Is there away put the adds on right side it make more since and maybe speed up loading time on the forums now there a vista big add and xbox 360 ad second area I think we should really put those on top or right side or bottem make forums look nicer. Just thought if not I put up with it lol

[pr0digal jenius]

*puts up his advertisement force field*


that xbox ad has got to go....the tag for it even contains the term "active X'...i'd rather bring intelliTXT back then active X crap

[CDsDontBurn]

you guys are talking about the one between posts right? the microsoft one.....i don't like it at all. it gets in the way of posts. i don't mind all the ads on the side. i just don't like that one. if it were on the side, i wouldn't care, but it's not.

[Geminiwave]

I believe allan has already said his piece about those and how MS is all picky and demands them there etc etc.

I agree. they have got to go. They annoy the hell out of me. I'd prefer intelliTXT. I'm dead serious too.

but there you have it.

the activeX thing IS a serious issue though. if nothing else THAT needs to be taken care of cause thats an easy exploit there.

[Reedy]

Hi Guys

I'm sorry that this is causing so many problems for you all. At the moment we are trying to expand Driver Heaven and make it bigger and better for you all. We want to take on more reviewers and more staff to make sure you are the first to know whats going on in the tech world.... unfortunately that means more money needs to be put into the company. Microsoft came to us wanting to put some adverts up on the site because they know how many people we can reach and they know we are the right audience for their products, the problem is that the site layout perhaps does not cater for these advert sizes to well but these are the only sizes they use... What to do?

At the time of putting these up I had no idea that it would cause this many issues, had I known at the time I would have made changes then. I would like to ask for any suggestions of how these advert can be better placed, if you have any ideas of where these could go then please let me know. Driver Heaven is your community and none of the DH team want to change that, yes we have to put adverts in but only so that we can grow and offer you more.

As Allan said anything you want to suggest or comment on the advert please mail me James@Driverheaven.net or post in this thread and I will do my best to come back to everyone and all your ideas will be put forward.


Thanks to you all for making DH the no.1 tech site on the web and let’s keep it that way.


James Reed

Managing Director

[Dyre Straits]

Hi, James,

Thanks for taking a moment to respond.

The biggest problem I seem to have with these new ADs is that they are causing the forums to not load nearly as quickly as prior configurations. It's taking sometimes up to 30 seconds for a forum to load for me now where it used to be under 5 seconds or almost instantly.

I know these Flash ADs are animated and it almost seems that the ADs have to complete their entire animation 'cycle' before a page will then load. I'm not sure about it, but that's the feeling I get. Almost like, 'you gotta see our AD first before you can see anything else' type of thing.

I'm really eager see DH grow like everyone else. I also understand the need for the ADs in order to achieve that goal. So, I hope we can reach a happy conclusion for everyone concerned.

Cheers!

Dyre Straits

[CDsDontBurn]

the problem i have with the microsoft ad isn't so much the same problem that dyre is having. my page loads up rather quickly still, although it does take a smidge longer to load, but no nearly as long as dyre states. for me, its mostly the placement of the ad.

[Judas]

my gaud..... is that small bit of advertising that bad?

and i recall intelitxt causing massive slowdowns.

I'm not sure about you guys, but the forums load incredibly fast. I couldn't tell the difference between without ads and with ads at this point. Hell, and i'm running on 100 posts per page mode which requires that much more juice.

Is it really that intrusive? I mean i just scroll by both of them like nothing. One spin of the wheel and that's it.. reading on. Hell of alot better then popups and noisey ads and other crap like that.

[Geminiwave]

alright. here are the two problems.

1) the bloody things are inbetween forum posts. That should NEVER happen. Put them above the posts, below the posts, to the side of the posts...we dont care. its all good. we know DH needs advertising (though since all of the things you mentioned are volunteer work one wonders why you need more money for that.............) but the second it starts interfering with the POINT of the website (the forum in this case. sorry but thats your bread and butter here) you send that ----er back home.

2) they use activeX. seriously. Does that even need discussion?

remove the activeX.

[Guyver2K5]

i dont mind the adverts...they help DH so its allllllllllllllllll good.

[Judas]

Gemini, wtf is wrong with between posts? are they really that much of a pain!?

[Zelig]

Originally Posted by Geminiwave

2) they use activeX. seriously. Does that even need discussion?

I don't really see that as a big problem, it just means they won't work on non-IE browsers...

[craig5320]

Actually Gemini, it's not all volunteer work, I for one now hold a paid position at this site, James didn't aquire a stakehold in DH for thin air and that has to be made back. We have around 6 servers that you probably don't even know about and they aren't cheap to run. There's all manor of people working behind the scenes on projects that either come to fruitation or don't quite make it, salesman, PR agencies etc. Companies don't just throw hardware at sites like ours we have to work to achieve the results, and we have to pay those people in order to expand this site.

I'm not having a go, but to just come on here and rant at the guy that's trying to expand DH and make it the best and biggest tech site around is a bit shitty that's all.

No body likes adverts PERIOD.

[Robert McClelland]

Ya that xbox 360 ads gone wahoo thanks guys forums runs quicker now

[Geminiwave]

Originally Posted by craig5320

Actually Gemini, it's not all volunteer work, I for one now hold a paid position at this site, James didn't aquire a stakehold in DH for thin air and that has to be made back. We have around 6 servers that you probably don't even know about and they aren't cheap to run. There's all manor of people working behind the scenes on projects that either come to fruitation or don't quite make it, salesman, PR agencies etc. Companies don't just throw hardware at sites like ours we have to work to achieve the results, and we have to pay those people in order to expand this site.

I'm not having a go, but to just come on here and rant at the guy that's trying to expand DH and make it the best and biggest tech site around is a bit shitty that's all.

No body likes adverts PERIOD.

i understand theres paid staff. and I have a pretty good idea of the server situation...and server costs. I'm working right now for a non-profit running about 6 servers too and the cost is monsterous (I suspect less than what you pay since its non-profit so you'd have it even worse)

but they were discussing a lot of reviews and such which so far are mostly done by unpaid staff. Much of the expansion to driverheaven as of late as been to gaming heaven and the game reviews have been done by volunteers.

I'm not ragging on the paid staff. and like I said I DO understand you need the money and need the ads. I didn't say remove the ads. I just said to fix them.

and Zelig, firefox has some plugins to run activeX.

[Zardon]

most of the expansion to driverheaven you have not yet seen so I really wish you would think before you type, especially when you are coming across as being very aggressive. There are also quite a few paid people behind the scenes.

James took the time to answer the ad query, a situation you find unacceptable so at least respect the answers and stop being so aggressive. Also don't pretend to understand how the DH network runs because quite frankly you have absolutely no idea - and why would you? it is not publically discussed.

It is just as well you didnt speak to me the way you spoke to james, however i strongly suggest before you reply or ask another adminstrator a question you do so in a respectful manner. If you guys want to be shown respect, then show it. its a two way thing.

I used to think you were a pretty cool guy geminiwave but you really have changed lately.

[Geminiwave]

I dont want to get this thread closed since its pretty important.

So James I'm sorry if I offended you or came off as overly aggressive. That was not my intent. I'm just concerned that if the problem doesn't get taken care of, more people will simply block the ads which would be detrimental to DriverHeaven. I get a bit over-zealous occasionally when it comes to this site.

Likewise Craig I'm also sorry if I was aggressive towards you.

[Zardon]

Dont worry, we do value all your opinion. we honestly also feel that without you guys the site is nothing. not because we are ass kissing, because it is true. However in life you will find people tend to listen more if you air your opinion with a little understanding. we aren't your enemy. anyway....

I am having a meeting with james next week to see how we can make this less obtrusive for you all. Remember, there were many forms of advertising in the past I had complaints about and they were removed. We do care about DH - again remember I started this as a hobby years ago and its something i am still extremely proud of. Unfortunately in life, many things have money as a weighing factor and this site whlie run like a hobby site with a lot of fun things going on and me in the middle of it on the forums is actually a fully fledged UK business. We just do a good job of hiding it because it would ruin the site. I like hanging with you guys on the forums, its like a community of friends in here. right?

We have a lot of exciting things planned this year and im sure you will all get more value for your internet time with them.

Just stick with us for a bit while we iron these ads out, it takes time.

[Jetsetlemming]

I most certainly think ads between forum posts are a bad idea. If a user is constantly seeing advertisements, especially animated ones, the natural assumption is that he will get annoyed.
When you annoy the people that are making you money by viewing the ads (without site visitors the ads dry up), you are doing something wrong. You either reduce your website traffic, or the viewers block the ads with Firefox plugins, or something along those lines, and then your new ads don't help you anyway. Ads are best small, unobtrusive, and visible but not demanding. Google context ads are a good example of good ads. They're text only, and typically on a sidebar or the bottom of the page.
Personally, I can't STAND flash based advertisements at all, so I have a Firefox plugin that prevents all flash and quicktime imbedded objects from running until I click on them (before this they show up as a white box with a quicktime or macromedia logo). I'm on a low bandwidth connection. I'm fine with websites advertising to cover their costs, but I'm not fine with waiting a matter of minutes for pages to load thanks to a WoW or real estate ad next to the information I want. That just makes me look for another source.
I'm not trying to be demanding or overtly critical, I'm just offering my view of things. Annoying, large size, animated ads don't help anything, because they reduce the enjoyment factor a visitor has looking at the page it is on. You've got exclusive content here, and that'll make visitors come back in spite of the ads, but that's still in spite of them. They're still a negative point if they're annoying. TV producers could flood the airwaves with advertisements, and switch the standard from 22 minutes of TV for 8 minutes of ads to 22 minutes of ads and 8 minutes of TV, but they don't, because they know the viewer backlash would be ennormous. Same concept applies to the internet.

[Geminiwave]

the trouble with not having flash is that flash is a good medium to make better ads. I know it blows for low bandwidth people but many companies want to push people to be using broadband anyway (MS is all about the broadband for instance...)

I totally agree with you. I hate flash ads too...but more and more ads are switching to flash these days.

On the plus side, flash ads do look spiffy most of the time......*shrug*

[Erroneus]

I can live with flash banners, getting used to them, but never use ActiveX, Java or similar banners, it kills the speed

[BWX]

Only problem I have with them (edit- them being the big ads) is that ever since that MS ad (I think), the forums load up differently in IE6 and take a lot longer to load. They used to kind of load up as the info came in- basically all the text and whatnot, then the pics would come in later filling out the thread. Now it seems that I get blank DH page with just the ad first, then I have to wait for all the info to load, then the page pops up all at once, instantly, but much much later- like up to 30 seconds depending on the number of posts shown on that page. That's about the best I can describe it.


Sometimes I see that big square ad after the first post on a page and I think that is the last post of a thread, only to come back and realize that there are many more post. I guess that is just a matter of getting used to those ads. Maybe just have that big square one on top of the first post shown?

-just an example of description above:



As far as ads in general- It is a necessary "evil".. I'd much rather have it like it is than Intellitxt all over the place- that was Hell, it;s not so bad now, I see many sites that are soooo much worse.

[Robert McClelland]

Ya Allan I don't mine the ads they just need to be readjust abit what kills speed if stick to ads in between the forums it's very annyoing for me since I'm on dialup all the time. If you put all ads right side of the forum I'm all for that. I do hate flashing ads they blind me big time lol

[CDsDontBurn]

placement of the microsoft ad is just what bugs me here like i said earlier. if it were placed on the side of the forum, like the Drivercleaner.net ad is placed, i wouldn't mind that at all.

[drivehard454]

I dont think it's to big a deal having the ad there. It just hasn't been a common thing, is new, and now it is noticed everytime. A couple weeks and I think people will be just scrolling right by it with out thinking of it anymore.

What I wonder is if it is always going to look the same or will they change the looks once in a while. That will help out a lotTo see something different once in a while.

Just an opinion

[BlueMak]

So, am I the only now that doesn't see these ads between the posts anymore?

[Geminiwave]

possibly bluemak. I still see the MS ad. though I think one has been removed.

[Dyre Straits]

FWIW, the site is loading faster now. There's still some lag after I click to go to another page/forum, but the response is much better now.

[CDsDontBurn]

Originally Posted by BlueMak

So, am I the only now that doesn't see these ads between the posts anymore?

for me, it's only on the main page. all other pages/threads it's still there for me.

[BlueMak]

ok, I found the reason why I don't see that one. It is on my end.
Move along.