porieux

The pop up ads are extremely obnoxious.

Please don't sink to this level; it's definitely enough to drive users away from the site.

AndyCapps

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=219984

porieux

I saw that, but since it was closed the only way to express my opinion was to start a new thread.

This is the feedback forum, so I can't imagine it's innapropriate to express my opinion here?

AndyCapps

Just making sure that you had already seen Geoff's response in that thread.

It's definitely not as annoying as getting a pop up every time you go to a site like espn.com.

porieux

Thanks.

Agreed, but I would never tolerate that.
I 'just say no' to sites like that and don't go back.
I'd really hate to have to do that with DVDTalk

Just expressing my opinion because I care

benedict

What happens if you turn off the "scripting" function(s) in your web browser?

Gallant Pig

Could you switch them to pop ups instead of pop unders? My first instinct is to close them and when I try and close pop unders they run away from you and it's more of a hassle. Either way they interrupt the focus of the browser.

GeoffK

Just to clarify. They are pop-unders, not pop-ups which I think is a pretty big difference. Also there's a cookie set so you get 1 pop-under per 12 hour time period.

I don't see it as 'sinking' to this level, but doing what we need to in order to keep DVD Talk Running.

When we post to the forum asking for people to help support the site we get a very minor response. But when we put up some pop-unders, everyone can help support the site just by closing 1 browser window every 12 hours. Seems pretty fair.


Does this mean you don't use Yahoo. They have pop-unders....

Actually Pop-ups are much more 'disliked' by people and much more interuptive. I just close the pop-under when I exit out of IE.

Blade

If you really hate pop unders, it would help to really start using DVDTalk's other links. Our store links and banner ads, specifically.

Geoff wouldn't be doing this if he didn't have to.

-David

das Monkey

I hate pop-ups and pop-unders, but I understand why you need to do what you need to do, and I'm not going anywhere ... but if you're interested, Yahoo! has accomplished the incredibly difficult task of driving me away from their site. Between the crap they pulled with their email and the obnoxious ads that are literally everywhere now (I type www.yahoo.com, I click Sports, I am redirected to a huge Pepsi logo and have to find the link to move on), I've moved away. There's little point to my saying that other than to note that even the best of sites with huge numbers of subscribers can lose people if they go too far.

das

The Antipodean

I'm OK with the pop ups myself, but I don't understand why the last thread on this topic was locked. Can't we discuss whether or not people like popups or is that topic suddenly verboten? I just didn't like the way it seemed implied (to me) that we aren't allowed to bash the pop ups if we want to. Then again, it aint my site....

GeoffK

Topic is fine. The last thread changed from a discussion about them to a volley of personal attacks between memebers.

Psi

Off-topic question for Geoff.

On this site, I've seen you referrred to variously as "Founder", "Owner" and most recently "Editor" of DVDTalk. What do you want to be called, really? One of the above, The Big Guy, The Boss, Sir, God or just Geoff?

Inquiring minds want to know.

GeoffK

kuroiinu,

um er uh. Geoff is fine.

I think I use the title 'Editor' or 'Founder' now more than anything else

Gallant Pig

Can we still say "GEE-OFF" ?

GeoffK

Like I've never heard that one....

porieux

Just wanted to point out that, like das Monkey, I have indeed been driven from the Yahoo! site. I subscribe to a few mailing lists but never go to the site, because it is way too annoying to me. Too bad; I would be fine with legitimate forms of advertisement, but that type of forceful pitch (like Telemarketing) will never work with me and just pushes me away.

Not that DVDTalk is anywhere near that point, just wanted to express my opinion lest things get worse. I'm all for supporting DVDTalk BTW, and I hope that there may be other more effective ways to generate revenue .

One last thing: to me a 'pop-under' is worse than a pop-up as it is basically just a pop-up with some JavaScript that tells tells the window to blur behind the others after it pops up. The thing is, there's no way I'm ever going to let an unauthorized window hang around in the background while I'm surfing---for security reasons if nothing else---so it just means I have to go to an extra step to close it because it tries to hide; which just pisses me off even more

Well, that's my mini rant for the evening. Thanks for playing

benedict

<small></small>Particularly:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/support.html
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=197744

mikehunt

so with these ads and links at the top of the pages, does dvdtalk get cash just from mr clicking on them or do I have to buy?
my dvd buying is very sporadict now since my supply of gift certificates from amazon is down, but if all we have to do is click I can do that (it'll be like freeride all over again )

das Monkey

The worst is when you lose focus of the browser. I'll click in a text box and start typing before the pop-under activates (maybe by ******()), then it blurs focus and I lose a bunch of characters that I've typed. That's so damn annoying.

das

Abob Teff

It looked to me like the last thread was closed with "Just shut up and take it, it's not hurting you." Perhaps there were posts deleted that I did not see?
<P>I find pop-ups, pop-unders, pop-offs, pop-sideways, slap-offs, slip-overs, cross-hatches, knock-offs, Gungans, N*Sync, or whatever else you want to call them, to be extremely annoying.
<P>"It's just one click every 12 hours." Yeah, and it was just a temporary tax, and the toll roads were only going to operate until they paid for themselves, it's only a few cents out of every dollar that the new tax will be, the changes in Star Wars are for the better, walkie-talkies are more friendly than guns, rental pricing is good for everybody, Enron and Worldcom are in good financial shape, Bill did not inhale that woman or have sex with marijuana, the dinosaurs said "look at the pretty light," the Jews were just going to the showers, and AIDs is just a little bug.
<P>OK, maybe I'm being a little melodramatic, but it gets the point across.

Adam Tyner

By likening a click of the mouse to AIDS and the Holocaust? "Melodramatic" doesn't begin to describe it.

The Antipodean

Or, you've gone so far over the top your opinions can't be regarded seriously at all....

GeoffK

You see why I closed the last thread on this issue. I'm all for a reasonable discussion of pop-up,unders, etc. But often these discussions careen out into absurdity.

I'm in no way saying "Just shut up and take it, it's not hurting you." All I've said (a few times now) is that we're running them as a means to be able to support the tremendous amount of bandwidth consumed by the forum. As always we've weighed the needs of our members with our need to be able to run the site and tried to come to a balance between the 2. In this case 1 ad per 12 hours seemed to be pretty fair. And many of you have agreed (some less enthusiastically than others)

It's not our only means of getting support, and if I find something that works better, I'm more than happy to kill the pop-unders. The tough position I'm in is people in general aren't willing to do anything to ensure the survival of resources online that they use.

We have a thread in the OTHER forum that has been there for months about supporting the site and only an extremely small number of members have even looked at the thread. (it has had 1/6th of the views as the get together thread!)

We've been committed to keeping DVD Talk free and constantly work to make sure that the advertising on the site is tasteful and generally in obtrusive. I'd invite you to go to many of the larger entertainment sites on the net and you'll be inundated with pop-ups, pop-unders, rich media and more. Look at gamespot.com which makes you watch an ad just to get to the site, or IGN who forces you to become a member just to read their content.

So I DO welcome your comments about what you like and don't like on DVD Talk. I understand that some of you really don't like the pop-ups and you communicating that IS important and I DO take that into consideration as we look at what we're going to do next.

Ultimately, DVD Talk will continue to succeed as a FREE membership site because of the support of our members. If we figure out how to get their support willingly then great, if not, then we have to turn to crappy advertising like pop-unders, rich media, and more intrusive advertising.

One final note, for those of you who don't like the pop-unders (or adult ads), have you ever done anything to try to help support DVD Talk? If so.... THANK YOU. But if not, you could be part of the solution to your own problem.

das Monkey

I'll admit it ... I laughed at that part.

das