Update on ad visibility...

[www.lights2you.com.au]

If you can't stand it and you are using firefox, recommend a addon to you, Adblock Plus. You can filter most of the ads. Have a try.

[onsiteTECHS]

I haven't been around for a while and when I got back recently I noticed that the whole site is now plastered in VISA ads. I too find it very off-putting and have noticed that my browser crashes much more often due to the heavy handed use of flash.

For those who suggested that this is a indication of retargetting - I don't think so. The same black VISA ads appear for me regardless of which browser I use and whether I clear my cookies.

I understand that the ads help pay for this great site, but in my opinion it's important to maintain a balance that allows the ads to seamlessly integrate with the site, not to overwhelm it and become the main focus.

I hope you work out a happy medium that remains profitable without making this forum unusable.

Cheers,
John

[MatthewKeath]

Originally Posted by onsiteTECHS

I too find it very off-putting and have noticed that my browser crashes much more often due to the heavy handed use of flash.

I don't like the giant banners at all, it's over kill but the extra impressions do make Flying Solo more money, so I think they are hear to stay. BUT my browser has never crashed due to the ad's and I have sometimes 20+ tabs open.

I would be interested to know what browsers are crashing because of the ad's.

[FS Administrator]

Originally Posted by onsiteTECHS

I haven't been around for a while and when I got back recently I noticed that the whole site is now plastered in VISA ads. I too find it very off-putting and have noticed that my browser crashes much more often due to the heavy handed use of flash.

For those who suggested that this is a indication of retargetting - I don't think so. The same black VISA ads appear for me regardless of which browser I use and whether I clear my cookies.

I understand that the ads help pay for this great site, but in my opinion it's important to maintain a balance that allows the ads to seamlessly integrate with the site, not to overwhelm it and become the main focus.

I hope you work out a happy medium that remains profitable without making this forum unusable. Cheers,
John

Hi John,

Great to see you back on the boards - a warm welcome back Sorry it hasn't been a smooth return!

We've long had flash ads on the site, however the two additional spots that are running are the tall side panels that started recently. We're looking at the feedback on these in terms of how they look, however they shouldn't cause browser crashing or overload that you've described! We'll get our agency to investigate as to whether they are implemented differently than usual??

As you say, advertising does enable us to invest in running the community, however we are always committed to getting the balance right so we'll be taking this feedback into account for future campaigns. Today we also took off a couple of the ads in the right hand column that weren't meant to be appearing.

Hope to see you back in the threads again soon.

Cheers
Peter

[onsiteTECHS]

Originally Posted by FS Administrator

Hi John,

Great to see you back on the boards - a warm welcome back Sorry it hasn't been a smooth return!

We've long had flash ads on the site, however the two additional spots that are running are the tall side panels that started recently. We're looking at the feedback on these in terms of how they look, however they shouldn't cause browser crashing or overload that you've described! We'll get our agency to investigate as to whether they are implemented differently than usual??

As you say, advertising does enable us to invest in running the community, however we are always committed to getting the balance right so we'll be taking this feedback into account for future campaigns. Today we also took off a couple of the ads in the right hand column that weren't meant to be appearing.

Hope to see you back in the threads again soon.

Cheers
Peter

Thanks Peter. I appreciate the warm welcome back and I look forward to becoming a regular contributor again if time allows it.

I understand completely the need to generate an income from the community, and wouldn't for a minute suggest that you should forgo the ad revenue to please our aesthetic sensibilities :P

The two ads which annoy me the most aesthetically are the tall banner ads on either side of the page. I think the reason I find them so annoying at the moment is because they are almost entirely black, which drastically changes the look of the site and makes me feel claustrophobic. If the ads were mainly white it probably wouldn't be such a big deal. Also if the ads were rotated randomly instead of the same ad appearing 8 times on one page, they would be less noticeable - at the moment it feels like ANZ VISA has allowed Flying Solo to occupy a small part of their site, instead of the other way around.

As for the crashing - I have a 3 year old MacBook Pro running Lion and mostly use Chrome for browsing. I have never experienced regular crashes of any sort, but the last couple of days I have had very regular errors in chrome whenever I have had multiple FS threads open in separate tabs. It could just be a coincidence, but I strongly suspect that the animated banners are contributing to the problem by consuming large amounts of resources. I'd have to investigate further to prove the theory though.

I hope you do find a good balance between revenue and site usability. Either way I'll stick around for quite a while yet

Cheers,
John

[Robert Gerrish]

Hello dear forum peeps,

Firstly, thank you again for speaking up, your feedback always pushes us to do better.

On behalf of the FS Crew I'm sorry that the density of ads displaying on Flying Solo has met with such disapproval. We acknowledge we got the balance wrong and we're working with our agency to amend the specification that goes to market from here on.

Realistically, nothing is going to change rapidly as we have a large campaign in place that's been approved and is one of the biggest we've run. As an independent publisher we were extremely fortunate to snare it (amid some fierce competition) and yes, we need the income to run and improve the community.

Behind the scenes we are working on new initiatives to lessen our reliance on online advertising and like most other online publishers are still designing and tuning our business model.

We love the excitement of this business. We love the community that's growing, but rest assured nothing upsets us more than upsetting you.

Thank you for sticking with us.

Have a fine weekend,

Robert, Sam, Peter, Jayne, Jodie and Lisa