Advertising

[Hightower]

Thanks for clearing things up. I'm by no means having a go. It's just good to know why the amount of adverts have risen and it's also good to know that a North-East conference is in the pipe line.

I appreciate all the work that goes into this site and thank everyone involved.

[dhicks]

We have ads? Seriously, I don't think I'd even registered there are adverts on the site until I saw this thread - they're just something your eyes automatically skip over these days. The stuff I do take notice of is the adverts and offers posted to the sponsers forum, and the companies that answer questions and post things in forums - we've just spent around £15,000 this summer with people I heard of through EduGeek.

Just to make sure we've had our daily dose of irony, I see that the keyword-scanning algorithm that serves the adverts is now showing us adverts for advert services, specifically the rather oddly named "InviziAds". Better not discuss this any further, though - a meta-discussion about advertising advertising might put the advertising system into a recursive loop or something and wind up with the known universe imploding.

--
David Hicks

[ZeroHour]

Originally Posted by dhicks

Just to make sure we've had our daily dose of irony, I see that the keyword-scanning algorithm that serves the adverts is now showing us adverts for advert services, specifically the rather oddly named "InviziAds". Better not discuss this any further, though - a meta-discussion about advertising advertising might put the advertising system into a recursive loop or something and wind up with the known universe imploding.

LOL

[Hightower]

Nice one David -

[tech_guy]

I don't think the ad for the awful t-shirts was suitable for the site.

[amfony]

Just my 2 cents AUD ...

But obviously the ads are there for a reason. No one at eduGeek would want to have ads for no other reason the offsetting the costs of running (i trust) the site and from what i can tell about the origins/original players of the site i doubt that the runners/owners are keeping all the massive amounts of cash and driving merc's or in your case .. jaguars.

Either way - what ever keeps me away from a subscription fee more power to it!!

By they way - i fully agree with the guy that said the forums are nothing with out the members.

[Dos_Box]

Originally Posted by amfony

Just my 2 cents AUD ...

But obviously the ads are there for a reason. No one at eduGeek would want to have ads for no other reason the offsetting the costs of running (i trust) the site and from what i can tell about the origins/original players of the site i doubt that the runners/owners are keeping all the massive amounts of cash and driving merc's or in your case .. jaguars.

Either way - what ever keeps me away from a subscription fee more power to it!!

By they way - i fully agree with the guy that said the forums are nothing with out the members.

Funnily enough, almost all the big players I spoke to at BETT in January all wanted to know why we didn't charge for membership. Some people can't grasp the 'community' thing at all, especially business.

[GrumbleDook]

@DB : don't forget the Saudi Prince who wanted to know if he could buy EduGeek and get it translated? And the number of people who would walk past the stand and ask what the catch was if it was all free?

[Hightower]

So 8000 members, a lot of those one timers. £15000 running costs per year. I would rather pay the £10-£20 year subscription than have the adverts, but that's just me.

£20 at 800 regular visiting members (just a guestimate) = £15000. I'd go with that.

[Ric_]

Originally Posted by Hightower

£20 at 800 regular visiting members (just a guestimate) = £15000. I'd go with that.

We currently have 869 active members (according to the magical VBulletin algorithm). These are the people that actually post... however, I know a lot of people just read the forums - lurking as it were. There is also no requirement to join to view most of our content. We actually get well over 5000 visitors a day during term time!

If we charged for membership, I suspect we would lose a good few of those active members. We would also lose the majority of those 5000 visitors each day. Together, these two things would give the site less 'pull' and that would mean that we wouldn't be at BETT, we wouldn't be able to get decent speakers for conferences, we wouldn't be discussing national agenda (e.g. BSF) with the big wigs on your behalf and we wouldn't be able to offer free stuff.

It all comes back to the fact that EduGeek is not just a technical forum - it is a community.

[webman]

I love the smell of imploding universes on a Friday afternoon

[leco]

Originally Posted by Hightower

I would rather pay the £10-£20 year subscription than have the adverts, but that's just me.

£20 at 800 regular visiting members (just a guestimate) = £15000. I'd go with that.

Whilst I wouldn't mind paying a fee I wouldn't actually have become a member in the first place if the site required one. I was a 'read only' for quite a long time before I posted.

The fact that this site is a community is what holds me here. As someone said earlier I hardly notice the ads, but if I'm looking for something specific then they help. Knowing that Edugeek endorses whatever is there is a good enough recommendation for me.

All I would say is understand why ad's as there and what we do with the revenue.

And also please understand, some of us use this forum to post responses only and never ask for help. Some of us have no interest in the Bett show or your conferences.

Please understand there are users of this site with different interests in it. As a result, they don't feel they need to add an exception to our adblocker.

If those people... like me, are then considered unhelpful, un-supportive or rude to the cause, then so be it. I'll delete my account right now.

[pete]

I block the "sponsored by" ads on here in a bid to make the forum list less unwieldy and cluttered - displaying 60 forums and sub-forums on one page, especially with no option to collapse sub-forums, is excessive. If I turn the "sponsored by" ads on, the amount of scrolling needed gets sillier and the ads make the page harder to navigate.

I understand the need for you to advertise, but if your adverts are annoying or make the site harder to use, I'll block them. Somewhere in the middle, there's a happy medium.

[ZeroHour]

Originally Posted by pete

I block the "sponsored by" ads on here in a bid to make the forum list less unwieldy and cluttered - displaying 60 forums and sub-forums on one page, especially with no option to collapse sub-forums, is excessive. If I turn the "sponsored by" ads on, the amount of scrolling needed gets sillier and the ads make the page harder to navigate.

They are getting tweaked too
Soon they should not effect scrolling so that will minimise their impact too. We are trying to make it as unobtrusive as possible.