AdPoints: Enjoy and support GTTP ad-free

I'm testing a new subscription program for Guide to The Point members. It's called AdPoints and it works like this:

You order with your credit card 5,000 ad-free page views for $20. Each time you view a page, your total will decrease by one. When your total runs out, you'll be at zero and you'll see ads again. To signup and give it a whirl, use our secure form:

https://www.popw.com/gttp/

Now, before anyone gets excited or mad or whatever, understand that it is not cheap running sites that serve thousands of people every day. Advertising pays a little but there are to problems. One is that there aren't enough ads being sold, and two that the ads are often pop-ups or cause seizures. That isn't cool.

For the vast majority of site visitors, 5,000 views will last a year. For the top 10% of active members, it will last two months or less.

This is an optional program. You don't have to participate. No one is going to think bad of you if you don't buy the points. It's totally up to you. This is a good way to support something you enjoy and take the pop-up action out of the equation.

Thank you for your consideration. I'll have a function that shows your view balance soon.

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP, Sillynonsense.com
"We used to hate people, now we just make fun of them. It's more effective that way." - KMFDM, "Dogma"

thats a good idea jeff...I really hate the pop-ups...But i think i'll just get a pop-up stopper ;)

If i wasnt too broke i'd probably scrape up some cash to support this site...But right now i'm flat broke.

You should set up some funds so people could donate to this site and pay through some online things...like paypal or watever.

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- Dennis

Welcome to New York City

Well if you use a pop-up blocker then I don't get paid either way, and with all due respect I consider that stealing. It's like buying a magazine and having the ads torn out before you read it. The publisher would obviously have a problem with that.

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP, Sillynonsense.com
"We used to hate people, now we just make fun of them. It's more effective that way." - KMFDM, "Dogma"

yea..i know what you mean....but like i said i don't really have any money to spare now...since i don't really work.

I really love GTTP and would love to support it...and will try with every chance that i get.

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- Dennis

Welcome to New York City

Then support it by not using a pop-up blocker??

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James Draeger
"Make it stop!"
"There goes the body buggy"

Or you could use proxomitron.....

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Im a lurker....

Jeff,

I do use a pop-up stopper in conjunction with an edited HOSTs file (to redirect ad domains to my localhost). However, in the continued interest of supporting your site, I would like to know what companies you use for the inline ads, so I can remove them from my HOSTs file to allow the hit to go thru. However, I can't deal with the popup ads! I feel they are an unwelcome addition to any site, and will continue to take control of my browser.

Thanks for the great work, you do a great job.

Sorry, I dont get it, and I dont have a credit card.

~*kP

Ads to GTTP are served from www.burstnet.com.

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP, Sillynonsense.com
"We used to hate people, now we just make fun of them. It's more effective that way." - KMFDM, "Dogma"

Duly noted. :-)

Interesting. I get lots of ads on CoasterBuzz and GTTP. But I get NO pop-ups on those sites, and the only pop-up stopper I have is to put Doubleclick into my hosts file......

Or is it just because I don't use IE?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

It's probably because you don't use IE (or Windows in general).

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP, Sillynonsense.com
"We used to hate people, now we just make fun of them. It's more effective that way." - KMFDM, "Dogma"

When I'm at work I'm running Opera on Win'98SE. I have to make it pretend that it is Mozilla, though, because if it pretends to be IE, a lot of sites simply crash; and if I tell it to be Opera a lot of sites just get confused and don't work right. :) --Dave Althoff, Jr.

As well as avoiding pop-up blockers, make sure you uninstall Gator from your computer if you have it! Gator removes pop-up ads from pages and replaces them with Gator's ads without you knowing. Remember, if it wasn't for GTTP, we'd all be talking on boards controlled by hoards of 13-year-olds and participating in discussions like "omg if they attack CP that would be the worst place for this to happen, and i was at the park yesterday and a small plane was flying over the park!!!! i was so scared I thought it was the islams (sic) !!" :)

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DIPPIN DOTS!!!111 THEY ROXOR YUR WORLD!!1!

Sounds like a site where they try to use trademarked domain names and every other topic is a best, worse or versus thread!

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP, Sillynonsense.com
"We used to hate people, now we just make fun of them. It's more effective that way." - KMFDM, "Dogma"

Its a shame the way the internet is going these days. ICQ - great product, now it has adds galore. AIM - Not too bad, but still has adds. Yeah you have to make money, I understand that. But what people don't take into account is that it seems that you are hosting 4 sites off of one T3 pipeline. Company where you make money, Coasterbuzz where you charge money also, GTTP which now costs money to remove adds which are hosted off of your other site that people pay to have hosted. I don't mind the pop ups or the adds. Its on everyother site I see. So how much money do you make off this site? Is it enough to out weigh the costs of running it.

Jeff,

I am interested.. Just one question. Will the User (me) be able to view his/her page views in any way? (used or unused, amount left, or something similar)

What I don't understand is the nature of the advertising that makes it onto the Web these days. Advertisers complain that they don't get click-throughs. Well, of course they don't get click-throughs. Their banner ads are sitting on pages where I (or any other user) is interested in the content of those pages, and we're not interested in going somewhere else to look at the advertiser's site. Particularly when most of the ads are for things many of us have no interest in at all.

I don't understand why the ad services don't abandon the click-through as an absolute measurement and target those marketers who don't care if you visit their site, but rather care if you buy their product. The Cedar Point campaigns on Jeff's sites were a good example of this...the kind of thing where the important measure is *impressions*.

Of course the worst ads are the ones where an annoying banner sits there flashing, "CLICK ME!!!!!!!!!" and doesn't give me a compelling reason to do so. If you have a product to sell, say so...and maybe I'll visit your site. When I am done with this one.

It seems obvious to me. But if it were obvious to the ad service companies (well, I don't know about Doubleclick; I nuked them for crashing my browser too many times) I don't think the state of web advertising would be quite so bleak...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

That's what publishers have been asking for a year or two now, Dave. I mean, frequency has always been a key to successful ad campaigns, not immediate gratification (i.e., click-throughs).

I don't make anything from this site, or any other site I run. Almost a year ago I decided to get a T-1 and host the sites myself because bandwidth charges were scaling beyond what made sense using a third party.

Last year, the business lost a few grand. I can tell you right now that if it weren't for strong sales of POP Forums last summer, you wouldn't be visiting this site right now.

My intention has never been to make money, but if I can do something better than break even, I sure as hell shouldn't be criticized for it. The amount of time and energy I put into these sites doesn't have a dollar amount attached, but that has to be worth something.

If you do buy AdPoints, your total remaining is listed on the home page.

BTW, here's more info:
http://www.guidetothepoint.com/content.aspx?channel=41

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP, Sillynonsense.com
"We used to hate people, now we just make fun of them. It's more effective that way." - KMFDM, "Dogma"
*** This post was edited by Jeff 7/8/2002 4:53:03 PM ***

Idea: What would REALLY be cool would be to use AdPoints to nuke the really annoying banners and let the rest of 'em through so that everybody can win... :)

Pity it's probably not workable...the overhead would cost more than the revenue generated by the non-annoying banners!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.