Social network popup

[GB]

My pleasure!

[Andy R]

Our communtiy is participating in a beta advertising program. The new ad formats are called intermission ads and basically once per day you are shown a website. User experience is a top priority. Intermission Ads are never shown to a user on their first visit to a site, and are never shown to the same user more than once per 24-hours. It is easy to instantly close an Intermission, should the user choose to.

This next week we will install a system to that will prevent these ads from showing based on various metrics. The goal is to not show these ads to the members that meet certain requirements as far as contributing to the community. Look for an updated announcement on that towards mid-week...

Please post your comments and concerns to this discussion.

[Home chef]

Originally Posted by Andy R

This next week we will install a system to that will prevent these ads from showing based on various metrics. The goal is to not show these ads to the members that meet certain requirements as far as contributing to the community. Look for an updated announcement on that towards mid-week...

Please post your comments and concerns to this discussion.

Andy,

I don't like that one bit. I don't participate here very often. As far as sending these pop-ups (or whatever they are) to people who don't meet certain requirements as far as contributing to the community is just not right. Why have these ads in the first place? What do the members benefit from these ads?

[amber]

Originally Posted by Andy R

Our communtiy is participating in a beta advertising program. The new ad formats are called intermission ads and basically once per day you are shown a website. User experience is a top priority. Intermission Ads are never shown to a user on their first visit to a site, and are never shown to the same user more than once per 24-hours. It is easy to instantly close an Intermission, should the user choose to.

This next week we will install a system to that will prevent these ads from showing based on various metrics. The goal is to not show these ads to the members that meet certain requirements as far as contributing to the community. Look for an updated announcement on that towards mid-week...

Please post your comments and concerns to this discussion.

Would have been nice to have the "heads up" on "our community" in the beta advertising. Wow, I dont like this idea at all Andy. I've been here for quite some time, but to base this on user experience is against my grain. That would exclude new users, as well as put off older members I would think.

[pdswife]

I haven't seen it happen yet...but... I guess I don't really mind. If it's just one button that I have to push to get back to the important DC stuff. Even if the new folks have to push one extra button a day...is it that big of a deal??

Just my opinion.
smiles, Trish

[Home chef]

Yea, I understand it is really no big deal to just push the back button. To me it's just the principle of the matter. One of the reasons I decided to participate in this forum is because I spent time checking it out without my pop-up blocker on. The way I see it, if there are no pop-ups happening the owner(s) of the site are really only into the site for the information and not for making money. I know it costs money to run a site but that's why this site has strategicly placed Google ads which don't intrude in any way with my surfing.

I'm not going to leave DC just because of some beta testing or some remote ads once every day. In essecne it really doesn't bother me. Like I said... It's just the principle. Also, not knowing of the impending situation ahead of time kinda sucks, too.

[AllenOK]

I've had it happen twice to me, once just now, and once last night. I'm using Opera v8.51, build 7712, on a Win32 platform running Windows XP Home edition.

Like many others, I would have preferred a head's-up about this.

I would like to point out to everyone else, that advertising is probably one of the biggest driving forces behind the internet.

[Zereh]

It feels like the worst kind of underhandedness to kick me over there when I click on the "New Posts" button from this board. So I very much mind being sent to a completely different advertising website.

I choose where I want to surf; I am totally against being blindly forced onto a completely different site without warning and at your whim.

Zereh

[buckytom]

so long as it is only once a day at most, i'm ok with it. i mean, this is a community per se, but it exists at a cost, and is a possible profit making enterprise as well by those who own/run it. dat's just the cold facts.

other foodie sites attack you with these ads which fly under pop up blockers and spyware radars every time you open certain pages. it gets really annoying. it's a large part of the reason i don't go to those sites much anymore.
recipe sites are a dime a dozen nowadays, so i would think it would behoove this site not to drive off potential new contributors by making them see ads more often than anyone else. the community, in other words "us", are the main attraction, imo.
and we need a constant supply of new blood....

[jkath]

I just scrolled up and the first few posts were covered by the social network. Not like a popup, but like it was eating up the posts......

anyone have a big fly swatter?

[cara]

Originally Posted by Andy R

It is easy to instantly close an Intermission, should the user choose to.

And how? When I read this posts it seems to me there are not so much possibilities to shut that down... except for closing the browser... or hitting the back button..
I must say, I'm glad, this doesn't happen to me (yet?).. it woul be very annoying...

[texasgirl]

There is not x out as with a whole new window, it just covers the DC page. You have to close out DC and it still comes back until you shut down the internet and log back on. I don't like it at all. BUT, if that is what I have to deal with for DC to stay alive, I will do it.

[Home chef]

Originally Posted by buckytom

so long as it is only once a day at most, i'm ok with it. i mean, this is a community per se, but it exists at a cost, and is a possible profit making enterprise as well by those who own/run it. dat's just the cold facts.

Isn't that why there is a Google ad bar and a rotating banner ad at the top of the screen as well as other hotlinks at the botttom of every page? Don't those generate enough money to keep this site running without having to resort to this darn window pop-up whatever?

[Andy R]

The intermission ad has been removed. It was only a webpage that was NOT malicious. Your feedback (kind and not-so-kind) is appreciated. We will be studying various ways to offer advertisers ways to reach our membership.

In this case, it was setup as a network wide setup that helps attract advertisers because of the size of the network as a whole (75,000 members) but it is obvious that we need to keep all advertisements specifically related to each forum communtiy.

Many thanks to those of you who patiently waited for us to beta this product and kept your cool during the last 3 days. In all we served less then 800 intermission ads over the last 72 hours. That is not much when compared to 16,000 - 18,000 pages of information viewed each day.

The long term plan is to show the most ads to visitors and guests as they are not contributing to the community. As a member posts more, earns more karma, does not get warnings, etc then less ads will be shown. That is much harder to implement then it sounds. Please understand that is our goal and be patient as we work towards that.

Just like in this last beta test of the intermission ads, we need your feedback to help our community evolve.

[pdswife]

Thank you Andy.

[texasgirl]

Andy, I'm sorry that you didn't get all positive feedback. If you could warn us next time that you are going to do this, it won't come as such a shock and freak us all out. I understand that it takes things like this to keep us going for free and I appologize for any rudeness. I never thought that it was malicious in anyway. I really just thought that the server was overlapping another page somehow, at first. You do a great job with this site and I don't want to see anything happen to it. Thanks Andy!

[licia]

Thanks from me, too. I just had no idea what was happening. I was afraid some alien force had overtaken either me or my computer. Hope I didn't offend you.

[cara]

In my opnion most peole thought they got some virus or adware installed on their computer.. so you better let us know next time and everyone will be relaxed

[amber]

Exactly, I think most of us thought it could have been a virus, or something like that. A heads up would have been fine with me so I would know what I was dealing with. Thanks for your effort to bring us a quality site. Much appreciated.

[kadesma]

Andy,
while I didn't expierience the intermission ad, I would have gladly done so, if I'd know the reason for it..Having been on a forum where the main goal of a group of people was to see what mischeif they could cause each day, I left that site and didn't touch a computer for almost ten years. Then I happened on DC..It took me several weeks to see that here I could visit and not be afraid of being shot down or yelled at..On that note, I'd gladly do anything I could to help keep DC the wonderful palce it is.
A hey gang heads up, we'd like to try this to improve our site, would have been just the thing. I bet all of us would have been more that willing to help..We appreiciate all that you and the modrators and site helpers and administrators do for us and would like to give back to you in any way we can.
kadesma