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Post by
90137
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Corveroth
Really, my only complaint with the ad is that is insists on
opening a new window
. If it would simply take me away from Wowhead in this one, or open a new tab, I wouldn't object, but I'm running FF3 and I can't even use the standard 'middle-click-for-new-tab' functionality. Aside from that, I don't mind the nature of the ad.
It's not exactly subtle, but it's only on one page
and it's of a subject matter that many users would be interested in, instead of the considerably more random (and more poorly built) ads normally found in the header and sidebar.
Post by
JamesKilton
Funny how none of the moderators have answered the questions and complaints (like mine) about the technical implementation of said ad.
All I want is assurance from the WoWHead staff that they won't implement any future ads in such a distracting and confusing way. Opening a new window, that's fine. Opening a popup, that's fine, but
please do it with a very obvious link, NOT a full body onclick!
. The implementation of this ad is so anathema to the whole philosophy of this website that I am still boggled at how such an obviously bad interface made it out to production.
Post by
Arador
:text:
Good input, and trust me, I appreciate all the people behind wowhead have done. Also, as tecnobrat pointed out, advertising has gotten harder - I work in the tech industry, I am aware of this first-hand.
I don't know what wowhead's bandwidth and server costs look like (surely they are immense), but I can't help but shake the feeling that there have to be other ways to generate revenue without making the community feel like they are being sold out.
I've already made one suggestion - a simple sponsored link right after the news. I'd be far more inclined to click a link like that than a huge T-Rex head eating the search bar. Perhaps not all users are like me though.
Other alternatives - surely the powered by wowhead costs a good amount of resources. I wouldn't see anything wrong with requiring an account to use that feature, and limiting the number of views - if someone exceeds those views, they need to pay via micropayments.
There are plenty other things that could be handled with microtransactions as well. Whenever the character profiler does get released, I know I would be more than willing to foot an annual cost (e.g., $10-$15 a year) for a quality service of that sort.
I also know I would gladly be a paying member (either through a one-time fee or a marginal recurring fee) just to not have to deal with ads.
Post by
tecnobrat
Really, my only complaint with the ad is that is insists on
opening a new window
. If it would simply take me away from Wowhead in this one, or open a new tab, I wouldn't object, but I'm running FF3 and I can't even use the standard 'middle-click-for-new-tab' functionality. Aside from that, I don't mind the nature of the ad.
It's not exactly subtle, but it's only on one page
and it's of a subject matter that many users would be interested in, instead of the considerably more random (and more poorly built) ads normally found in the header and sidebar.
You can tell firefox to force new windows as tabs. I don't remember where the option is in FF3, but I have it enabled in FF2, and it opens in tabs just as I would expect. :)
Post by
dan945
I love Wowhead to death. It's cleanliness is a great thing to see in a world of bloated sites.
Please do not ruin it with the monstrosity placed on the front page.
Post by
Daemon
IMO ? Crap .. but I am just an end user so wtf does it matter to me/us...
QFT
Is the ad gonna make me use another website? Not likely. Do I have to like the ad? Nope, as a matter of fact, I think it looks tacky.
To everyone that says "Stop whining!", this is the Site Feedback forum and we're providing feedback.
Post by
Skosiris
All I want is assurance from the WoWHead staff that they won't implement any future ads in such a distracting and confusing way. Opening a new window, that's fine. Opening a popup, that's fine, but
please do it with a very obvious link, NOT a full body onclick!
. The implementation of this ad is so anathema to the whole philosophy of this website that I am still boggled at how such an obviously bad interface made it out to production.
Could you elaborate on how this is a problem?
The whole page is themed using a background. The cursor changes to a
hand
when you mouseover it, and when you click some page opens in a new window.
What did you expect?
To those who complain:
Chill out. Most of you don't click (or even see) the ads -- it's not asking much of you to ask to endure an ugly frontpage-only skin for 2 days. Just see this as... 2 days of extreme pain and suffering in order to get months of free Wowhead!
Post by
46763
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Malgayne
Opening a new window, that's fine. Opening a popup, that's fine, but
please do it with a very obvious link, NOT a full body onclick!
A full body on-click is standard procedure for this type of advertising. It's not designed to be misleading, that's just what advertisers understand that you MEAN when you say "a site skin". If at the time of reading Curse still has their site skin up, take a look at their execution--it's exactly the same. I admit that it's not necessarily readily visible on that front page that what you're looking at is an ad--that's certainly a problem, but it just means that the ad is poorly designed.
We can do things like provide links directly on the homepage, but once we do that we get into the sticky area of "what's advertising and what's not". We use the one-liner to promote internal features, or external features we're just plain excited about. We've never sold a link on the homepage for money. We can sell that link to people for money, but I'd rather not--I don't want you guys to see the one-liner and not know whether it's an advertisement or not. We can add another "sponsored link", but then it would (rightfully) be ignored by most users, and from there it's just a slippery slope towards putting banner ads on the front page. That seems a lot more like "selling out" to me.
Whenever the character profiler does get released, I know I would be more than willing to foot an annual cost (e.g., $10-$15 a year) for a quality service of that sort.
You'd really rather we charged an annual fee for profile access, rather than allow everyone to access it for free and have a dinosaur on the homepage 2 days out of every month? We'd need to quadruple Allakhazam's premium subscriber numbers before we would even start to break even. I really honestly figured you guys would prefer this.
Please understand that this IS the place for site feedback and suggestions. Even if you hate the skin, we want to hear about it here. If we get defensive, it's just because we want to make sure you understand that a lot of thought went into this decision, and we didn't just say "HAI SWEET HEERZ SUM MOAR MONEYZ LOL".
Post by
Murlocs
I don't know why everybody is so concerned about this--it's not a "new homepage", it's just a site skin ad, same as you will see on a nearly daily basis on Curse, Photobucket, IGN, Gamespot, etc.
I'm concerned because the simplicity of the landing page is what drives me to Wowhead, and the same reason that millions of people use Google instead of Yahoo!
Post by
Arador
Whenever the character profiler does get released, I know I would be more than willing to foot an annual cost (e.g., $10-$15 a year) for a quality service of that sort.
You'd really rather we charged an annual fee for profile access, rather than allow everyone to access it for free and have a dinosaur on the homepage 2 days out of every month? We'd need to quadruple Allakhazam's premium subscriber numbers before we would even start to break even. I really honestly figured you guys would prefer this.
Yes, I would prefer that. I'm probably a minority in this, but that's how it is. I would rather pay a nominal fee and rest assured to have a clean minimally intrusive site to visit rather than fear seeing a giant dino on my work monitor right as my boss walks by.
Post by
pelf
I will repent for my blocking sins when the premium/donation service comes online :\.
Post by
Malgayne
You'd better. We'll know.
Post by
pelf
You'd better. We'll know.
I wouldn't lie to you.
I'm your number one fan.
Post by
Avais
Opening a new window, that's fine. Opening a popup, that's fine, but
please do it with a very obvious link, NOT a full body onclick!
A full body on-click is standard procedure for this type of advertising. It's not designed to be misleading, that's just what advertisers understand that you MEAN when you say "a site skin".
Doesn't necessarly mean that a full body ad is the direction you wish to take the advertising with your site. Granted, you want their money so you abdicate some control, but I imagine since they sent it to you for approval you still hold control over how the site skin
operates
.
We can do things like provide links directly on the homepage, but once we do that we get into the sticky area of "what's advertising and what's not". We use the one-liner to promote internal features, or external features we're just plain excited about. We've never sold a link on the homepage for money. We can sell that link to people for money, but I'd rather not--I don't want you guys to see the one-liner and not know whether it's an advertisement or not. We can add another "sponsored link", but then it would (rightfully) be ignored by most users, and from there it's just a slippery slope towards putting banner ads on the front page. That seems a lot more like "selling out" to me.
Well, you
have
sold a link on the home page. It is not a one line text link (that you think will "(rightfully) be ignored by most users") but rather this link that has been sold on the front page has an estate that is far more valuable than a single link: 90% of the page.
I don't mind site skins.
Pandora
uses them 100% of the time, not just two days a month, and I think they're very tastefully done. They have a non-linked background for an ad, and a place to click to learn more. You should go there to see it and listen to good music. The problem (in my mind) is NOT that 90% of the page is an ad, but that 90% of the page is a link for that ad. There are 2 reasons people click on an ad:
1) On purpose.
2) On accident.
If Browser Bob clicks an ad on purpose, it doesn't matter to Bob if the link is 90% of the page or a small section that is clickable that reads, "Learn more about the product!" (or something). He'll still click the link if he is interested.
If Surfer Sally clicks an ad on accident they're less likely to buy the product because her surfing has been rudely inturrupted, and likewise they're less likely to visit the site because that site supported that rude inturruption.
The "Pascal's Wager" on these situation clearly shows that you don't gain anything with ad linking behavior like this and you certinaly lose customer confidence with it.
Post by
JamesKilton
Opening a new window, that's fine. Opening a popup, that's fine, but
please do it with a very obvious link, NOT a full body onclick!
A full body on-click is standard procedure for this type of advertising. It's not designed to be misleading, that's just what advertisers understand that you MEAN when you say "a site skin". If at the time of reading Curse still has their site skin up, take a look at their execution--it's exactly the same. I admit that it's not necessarily readily visible on that front page that what you're looking at is an ad--that's certainly a problem, but it just means that the ad is poorly designed.
I've never seen a full-body onclick on any advertisements, ever. I came to WoWHead like I normally do, saw the huge advertisement and was kind of shocked, but that's kind of the point. The problem is that when I went to grab my mouse, I accidentally hit the left button, and was taken to a new page.
That is unacceptable. There was nothing warning me of such a thing, there was no way of me knowing that the page is now a full page onclick ad. It's deceptive, and doesn't belong anywhere near this site.
If you want to compare it to Curse, you'll have quite a chore. Curse's main page still has a 1000 pixel wide content window that
doesn't
have the onclick, and thus it's much harder to accidentally click on said avertisement.
A "Click here for more information" area of the image would be perfectly fine and acceptable, and most importantly
not
deceptive or unexpected.
Post by
xaratherus
That is unacceptable. There was nothing warning me of such a thing, there was no way of me knowing that the page is now a full page onclick ad. It's deceptive, and doesn't belong anywhere near this site.
Oh, it's unacceptable? Must've been your mistake since you're the web master.
Oh, you're not? Well then, you're the site moderator.
No? Ahh, then you must be bankrolling the operation.
You aren't paying for it? You mean this is a free site? Then I guess you'll need to deal with your palsy that apparently makes you spasmodically click on the giant ad that turns your mouse pointer into a hand - or go to a different site.
Seriously
people - why don't we bitch and moan a little about an advertisement? Jeebus Harold Crossed, it's a wonder that anyone bothers doing anything for free anymore on the Internet; if I were in charge of this shebang, comments such as these would've had me yank this thing down so fast it would leave your little advertise-fuddled head spinning.
If you don't like it, then say so
once
and leave it at that -
or go someplace else
.
Post by
JayRay
Okay, my bookmark for wowhead no longer goes to
www.wowhead.com
, it goes to these forums.
Ugly ugly ugly.
Post by
Tyrsenus
Aside from that, what are our options?
We can run popups on every page.
We can require you to pay money for the service.
We can run interstitial ads, like Curse does--the ones that interrupt your browsing and force you to look at an ad before you can continue browsing.
We can put more ads on the pages.
We can require you to click through more pages to reach the information you want.
Have you considered putting ads on the Wowhead client?
Edit:
I meant ads in the client window, not injecting ads into the game.
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