Game Site Wonders 'What Next?' When 50% of Users Block Ads 978
6 writes "Destructoid, one of the few remaining bastions of independent game journalism online, wonders what to do now that nearly 50% of their users run ad-blockers."
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For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!
Team up with AdBlock - they'll help you out. (Score:4, Informative)
AdBlock has a scheme where if your Ads are place sympathetically, they're not blocked.
But this article (and TFA) reads as 'We don't understand or communicate with our readers, but this is somehow THEIR fault.'
Re:Do you really need ad-supported websites? (Score:0, Informative)
Slashdot would do just fine without ads. It would mean the guys behind Slashdot would be a bunch of enthusiasts and not a huge company and the persons running it wouldn't drive around in fancy cars. Now go fuck yourself.
Re:ad networks (Score:5, Informative)
I block SWF and only SWF (Score:4, Informative)
Now i simply manually block ads with my hosts file only when they are particularly annoying (autoplaying videos? Whose great idea was it?).
I used to do that until I discovered the Flashblock extension. Now I block ads only when they're presented in SWF format. Chrome on my tablet doesn't even support SWF, and Firefox on my laptop and tablet makes SWF click-to-play except for a few sites on the whitelist. Text ads and still image ads still load just fine; an advertiser wanting to reach me should use those.
Because you don't pay, you just complain (Score:5, Informative)
Some time ago I wrote a shareware program that does something no other software does. 100,000 people downloaded it. It got top ratings everywhere. About 60 people emailed me saying how much they like the software. Exactly ONE person paid the $5 "donation" for it. Web sites are like that - people will visit daily, they'll talk about how awesome the site is, but no way they'll fork over $1. They just don't.
Re:Do you really need ad-supported websites? (Score:2, Informative)
They would pay for it out of their own pocket, and accept it as a cost of a hobby they enjoy.
Re:I used to block ads (Score:1, Informative)
Your cost of living is 9% to 12% higher because of Marketing
Link please or mods please do NOT mark +1 Insightful.
SO fucking lazy. 20 seconds on Google gives this as an example, and a whole shitload more:
http://www.legalzoom.com/business-management/promoting-your-business/cost-marketing-what-is
"The average allocation usually ranges between 9-12% of the annual budget,"
The poster probably didn't include a link because this is business management 101.
Re:I used to block ads (Score:5, Informative)
However very often ads are the only way of creating revenue. Just like with tv, the ads is what it is about and the shows are there so we watch the ads.
In Britain the BBC doesn't show advertising. They are funded by an annual fee that TV users pay. 145UKP (216USD). And that gets more than just the lack of advert breaks. It also gets programmes that the commercial channels don't find profitable to make, such as period dramas, and science programs.
I block abusive ads (Score:5, Informative)
Abusive ads have one or more of the following:
These are the ones I block. I suggest advertisers start treating people as people.
That site is a joke. (Score:4, Informative)
My Ghostery blocked 14 scripts from loading on that site. The sad thing is, with all that blocked, the entire left and right quarter of the screen came up blank. If a site needs that much revenue from ads for mostly re-reporting what other people have already written they do not deserve to be in business in the first place. I can't stand that most of these types of sites have nothing but garbage opinions and things I've read elsewhere AND think they have a right to gather my information for free, even if its just my IP. If it was for their own metrics, fine but not to 14 entities that I never clicked on or agreed to share with. I've never clicked on disable advertising on Slashdot and yet I'm still looking at most of my screen showing content. I don't have Musinex ads screaming out of my speakers. If they want to survive, sites like Destructoid need to figure out how to do it in a way that consumers are willing to put up with.
Re:It's a flawed way to keep a site up. (Score:5, Informative)
If you serve the ads yourself, then afaik no ad blockers block them.
Re:It's a flawed way to keep a site up. (Score:5, Informative)
> and click on the ads?
Not necessary. With Flash and Java all the virus writer needs is a 0-day in the plug-in and you still get pwned, even if you only visit 'trusted' sites. Also some of the jackass flash ads that are small for a moment then explode to half the screen size if you get close to them make accidental clicks common.
Couple big guys got hit (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I used to block ads (Score:5, Informative)
> It's the obnoxious, intrusive and privacy-stealing
> ads that are the problem.
Which is to say, most of them. :-)
My rationale for blocking ads: Most ads come from ad networks. These networks can be hacked to serve malicious ads (or maybe people just pay for malicious ads and they don't get caught by QC -- don't know, don't care.) The fucking New York Times [nytimes.com] fell victim to this so it's not a minor problem. I block ads as a security measure.
Still waiting for it to load (Score:4, Informative)
Destructoid.com - stuck trying to read assets from "craveonline.com", "bulk2.destructoid.com", etc. When it finally comes up, we get a giant picture from Teenage Pokemon, followed by clips from stories. Plus lots of ads.
Their RSS feed [destructoid.com] is more readable and loads quickly. Now we get to see the content.
It's just some gamer's blog. "This is my favorite episode so far." "There's not a whole lot of information disclosed on how and when the game will released". "Ten golden rules of online gaming." (the usual excuse for hanging ads on every paragraph.) "We had a delightful little Saturday Morning Hangover this morning, playing the recently released Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds." No insights. No inside information. Not even good trip reports.
Why should this guy expect to make money for writing a personal blog about his hobby?