The New Ads

[SJane3384]

Just to clarify, i have no objection to the ads. Secondly, would it help to occasionally click a banner ad then close it without signing up for anything? If we click them we dont get malware or adware do we?

Maybe we could have a click the banner day once a month ...as long as it would help the shard and not hurt our pc's.

Agreed. I wouldn't mind clicking ads daily, if it meant keeping the shard alive. Maybe we could have an ads page simialar to the voting page? I wouldn't even mind seeing them on the forums, except that they spam ads for the hospital where I work. Sucks.

[Mikel123]

Maybe we could have a click the banner day once a month ...as long as it would help the shard and not hurt our pc's.

So, as someone who sort of works in the industry... please don't do that. Advertisers can get reports from whoever they're buying inventory from (Google, Yahoo, etc.) about which sites they're paying for clicks on where no one ever buys insurance, applies for a quote, etc. And they will just add this to the list of sites they tell Google/Yahoo not to display them on. So it's maybe a little extra money up front from the shard, but long-term it's a real bad idea.

Also, if you're getting a virus-scan ad, either Derrick is using a pretty disreputable advertising service, or you have some other infection on your machine. (I would not suggest clicking on the ad to fix it!)

I find it amusing how people who don't donate are complaining about this. The degree of entitlement here is astounding. I have no complaints about Derrick trying to recoup some of the costs, or even make a profit from this. He's put more than enough hours into it and deserves it. And FFS, a couple ads on the website are about the least obnoxious way to do it. You don't need insurance? Cool, thanks for sharing. Ignore the ad and move on.

[Derrick]

Aye. I agree with this. Clicking the ads is beneficial but I really only encourage you to click on them if you are genuinely interested.

I find myself clicking on them one in a while (although I think i'm not supposed to), for example the GoGrid hosting, and there was some Toyota ad I was curious about.

These should be very reputable links, if there was anything that would hurt your pc I would not be displaying them and i have locked out some of the sources, I believe that "You've Won!" ad is one that I've removed a couple weeks ago. I don't want to see anything on the site that is misleading.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Jack Nickelson]

"I appreciate the objection but something has to pay the bills here, and while the current donators and subscribers are very appreciated still quite often some of the hosting costs go right to my credit card. Donators and Subscribers don't see these ads within the posts.

I didn't at all like the idea of putting the ads up either, but I'd like to find some way to generate enough revenue to cover costs. The revenue on these is also unfortunately pretty minimal, as I think most of our players are relatively satisfied with their present auto insurance polices and no one ever clicks on them.

Other ideas are very welcome."

I didn't mean to create any type of uproar - the ads to me are just a pain in the ass. I migrated to here from another land[PRS] and from Siege to that place before then.

I just checked my initial character age on 2nd Age and found it at 517 days as of today. I'll be donating some appropriate amount by check this week when I find the correct mail to info - I don't do the paypal stuff and just call me an old fart.

My thanks for both a well and diligently run shard.

Jack Nickelson

[SJane3384]

What we really need to do is have a UOSA telethon, and work in somehow that donating helps the children/homeless/hurricane Katrina victims/bail Kwame Kilpatrick out of jail.

[Kabal]

Back in the day, when "Kazaa", the file sharing site was popular, they had a "contest" where they said "whoever d/l the most files will win somthing. and the prizes where huge, like bigscreen TVs and XBOX 360s n wot not. But my cousin knew that it wasnt actuyally who had the most files, it was whoever d/led the most of a certain kind of file, a "gold" file. so he bought a huge HD and did nothing with his computer besides d/l gold files(which he later said that 80% of where gay porn, wierd I know). He won every week for 4 months strait, he ended up with 2 42" sony HD tvs, a x box 360, i pod and a bunch of other electronics, they eventually ran out of prizes and just started sending him a check every week. by the time the contest was done he won about $35k, not including the prizes.

this was prolly the best idea for making money over the internet I've ever seen, we should try to figure somthihng like this out for the shard.

[Arcott Ramathorn]

Back in the day, "whoever d/l the most gay porn won. They eventually ran out of prizes and just started sending a check every week. by the time the contest was done he won about $35k, not including the prizes.

this was prolly the best idea for making money over the internet I've ever seen, we should try to figure somthihng like this out for the shard.

How is paying your cousin $35,000 a year to download gay porn gonna help the shard?

[Arcott Ramathorn]

Maybe we could have an ads page similar to the voting page?

What about this? Right on the main page under the Voting tab, Secondage store tab, etc. We could have an ads tab. Maybe even have TONS of advertising on that tab. That way we might target more people that are interested in one of the ads. Does that sound feasible? Im thinking that you dont have much control over what exactly is advertised, the advertisers are just kinda renting banner space.

[nightshark]

Back in the day, "whoever d/l the most gay porn won. They eventually ran out of prizes and just started sending a check every week. by the time the contest was done he won about $35k, not including the prizes.

this was prolly the best idea for making money over the internet I've ever seen, we should try to figure somthihng like this out for the shard.

How is paying your cousin $35,000 a year to download gay porn gonna help the shard?

holy , rofl