Please excuse my computer ignorance.
Gotta say, these things are scary on target but any of you guys know how to or if its possible to disable this feature ?
Finding it on other message boards now too/
Thanks.
aloha,
pog
Submitted by onnopaddle on Wed, 03/24/2010 - 1:11pm
i'm sure there are several ways to block them. i personally have a mac. i use AdBlock which is a free download you can find for safari. that works pretty good. Occasionally other ads still get through. For these I run another thing that I found for free on the internets that you install in the "advanced" preferences in safari. It is called userContent and is called a style sheet, this further erases ads. Lastly I installed Click to Flash. This automatically blocks all flash animation from appearing until I click on it. This way I never see anything except the web page itself.
If you use firefox as your browser there are a ton of free ways to do this too. just google ad block for firefox. there will be a ton of hits.
A bit anal? Yes. But all the web pages load much more quickly, I never see ads, and adobe flash induced crashes never happen.
god I'm a tool.
#1 Wed, 03/24/2010 - 1:36pm
I use the Ad Block Plus plug in for FireFox. I can't believe how long it took me to install it... web browsing is so much better now!
#2 Wed, 03/24/2010 - 1:52pm
Got to have some adverts to help pay for the site that is free for everyone to use.
They don't bother me too much, but glad they aren't the damn talking ads or pop-up ones. I end up using FireFox and Adblock extensions to filter them out since they can get so annoying.
#3 Wed, 03/24/2010 - 2:48pm
How come I keep getting adds for hair replacement and appendage enlargement!@#$
#4 Wed, 03/24/2010 - 3:08pm
pog, would you pay a small amount to get rid of the ads? say $12/year. Maybe there could be other benefits to a paid membership, but I don't know what they could be.
Honestly, I don't like ads much either, but at the same time Google ads are one of the best ways to keep a website online. That's why I have them up and that's why you are seeing them on other forums.
The targeting is good and sometimes the ads really are useful. For example the ad on this page is for the NY race: www.nymayorscup.com, I think that's pretty relevant for a lot of us here. Even some interesting reading material on their site from Greg Barton and others. The point of Google ads is to be relevant for the viewers and therefore effective for the advertisers.
These ads also hugely reduce the time I have to invest to maintain this website. Rather than dealing with advertisers directly, anyone who wants to advertise here can do so through Google. Recently, some of the Moloka'i vacation rentals emailed me to advertise for the upcoming races. It's not really possible for me to set up advertising directly for the price that the ads are worth. However, if they want to get a few ads for the month here, they are able to do this using the Google ad service.
There are companies within our community that also use these ads. Kialoa and Gillespie paddles are two examples that I see often. It helps them sell paddles, and it helps me keep this website available.
For a long time, I've kept only the text ads on here for sake of speediness, but now that nearly everyone has high speed internet I thought it would be okay to let the image ads run. I also try my best to keep the impact and intrusiveness on browsing the website to a minimum.
Bottom line, I won't hold it against you if you use an ad blocker, but I'd appreciate it if you guys don't encourage everyone to do it.
#5 Wed, 03/24/2010 - 5:17pm
Thanks guys.
I guess its not the adds so much as the placement of them.
Might sound like whining but having them right inbetween the posts is weirdly disjointed.
Thanks Keizo for keeping this thing going ... NOT complaining : )
aloha,
pog
#6 Thu, 03/25/2010 - 9:51am
I'll try put them at the bottom and if people still see them, that might work better.
#7 Thu, 03/25/2010 - 10:07am
Hey Keizo,
In all that spare time you have when you're not building boats you could just put up a simple donate link and probably get a few people that would click it and contribute regardless of any additional benefits. The content here is generally enough to keep people coming back.
I don't mind the ads so much as long you keep blinky flashy things at bay. I definitely understand the need to see some revenue to keep the site operational.
For those of you interested in the whole ad blocking debate this is but one of many articles on it recently:
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-devastat...
#8 Thu, 03/25/2010 - 10:57am
On a side note, when you use ABP, Keizo does not get the revenue from the ads being blocked. I could be wrong, but I think he only gets revenue when the ads are actually shown. I am "the pot calling the kettle black" 'cause I use ABP also. (Adding an exception right now for OCP)
I think we all need to consider that running this site is not free, there are actual hosting costs plus the personal time for Keizo to maintain the server and software.
#9 Thu, 03/25/2010 - 11:40am
hmmm. well if OCPaddler gets funding every time an ad is loaded then i'll unblock ads only on this site so that this forum keeps going. this whole time i thought you actually had to click on the ad in order for OCP to get some kind of benefit.
#10 Thu, 03/25/2010 - 12:03pm
That was true with the text only ads Jc.
Nope i.m wrong, you still need to click to make it payable even with flash ads.
bummer.
I think the static image ads are fine, the animated ones are the ones starting to generate dislike.
Tough call Keizo, i recon the donate button is a good idea and is often suggested by professional internet marketing consultants as a better payer than Google Ads.
R
#11 Thu, 03/25/2010 - 2:30pm
Which ads are you talking about ? I must have a blocker on ?
Anyway - just do an 'ad click session' every now and then,
one minute dedicated to clicking ads only - might work.
#12 Thu, 03/25/2010 - 6:48pm
I've done my bit, clicked on four ads today..............
#13 Thu, 03/25/2010 - 7:34pm
I think the ads are sweet. Seriously. This is a great website, and I bet it took a hell of a lot of time for Keizo to set up. I am greatfull.
#14 Mon, 03/29/2010 - 7:47pm