advertisement in between postings

[Omega_0]

I don't think I'll visit this forum again, if I'm forced to see ads after EVERY post.

[hartiberlin]

I don't think I'll visit this forum again, if I'm forced to see ads after EVERY post.

Okay, I changed it now, so that at least 2 or 3  postings are between ads.

How much would you be willing to pay per month / year
for no ads at all ?

If every member , who would not be willing to see any ads at
all will pay 1 to 5 US$ per month, we could finance the
guys, who already do projects on a shoestring budgets and
ad articles and test reports over here.

Non paying members would still have access, but only
with inbetween posting ads.

So, would you at all be willing to pay a monthly / yearly fee
for faster access without ads and/or to more test reports,
where you could get yourself be paid for, if you have done these ?

So compare it to a magazine subscription.
If you have subscribed for instance to the Magazine Nature you
also have to pay a monthly fee for the new monthly issue of the magazine.

I am setting up a poll, so please vote and let me know your opinion.
Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

[hartiberlin]

I have now only text ads inside the topics, so
this is less intrusive

On the contrary, this is the most intrusive thing possible.  The forums are the main things that we read.  We can tune out the things outside of the forum frame, but with this, we are forced to scan past them.

By the way, there is a theory, which I think is valid, that goes something like this.  Ads should only be displayed to the unique or relatively infrequent visitor, and return visitors should get ads turned off.  This may seem counterintuitive, but it makes sense.  Think about the unique or first time visitor.  There is a good chance he or she just stumbled on this board by sheer accident.  For example, if I was searching for new motor parts, and for some reason google threw me over here because new motor sounds like newman motor, and if there is an ad for motors, I may click on it.  However, if I was a frequent visitor, I frankly would not care what you advertised, because I did not come to the site for helpful suggestions about things I may want to buy - I came on to read the forums.  Anyway, that is the theory.

Hi shruggedatlas,
yes you are somehow right and I agree.
I could disable all ads for members and only leave the advertisement
for guest visitors, who have not registered yet here.
But that would drive up the userbase even more and produce more traffic that is
not being paid for.

I really want here the best minds of the whole world who will
find the solution to our energy crisis and only together we will
solve this "puzzle".

So as here are many poor students from all over the world,
but which are smart and clever and have bright new ideas,
I want to give them some support by giving out monthly
money for their work and articles and test reports.

But this could only work, if the memberbase would be willing to
pay a monthly fee like a newspaper subscription.

In this moment overunity.com only generates about 200 to 300
US$ in revenue each month and if the userbase will increase as fast as it now
goes, I might need to change soon the hosting features will
will cost more money and which could handle the bigger traffic...

So I am really looking into alternative revenue plans and
also to support the community via payments from a possible
monthly membership.

So please post your views about this and let me know
your comments.
Many thanks.
P.S: OverUnity.com will always be free to browse
also for visitors, but with ads.

[Iosh]

This is the worst kind of ad placing I've ever seen on a forum, it's bound to make people dislike the place a lot.
If people does not like or care about advertisements, triplicating their appearances won't make them more prone to click on them; it'll make them think the place turned into a spam-ridden dump.

[hartiberlin]

This is the worst kind of ad placing I've ever seen on a forum, it's bound to make people dislike the place a lot.
If people does not like or care about advertisements, triplicating their appearances won't make them more prone to click on them; it'll make them think the place turned into a spam-ridden dump.

Since I made this change since yeasterday the clickthrough rate has been risen.
I really need to checkout how it goes for a few days, so I have to decide
how to do it more userfriendly and the least intrusive.
During the next days I will try different setups as I add different text advertisers.
I disabled already the Google Adsense graphic banner ads, so only text ads and no more long loading
flashy annoying graphics banners. So I hope you liked that already which makes
the site load faster.

Regards, Stefan.