Just testing out a different ad format for the top of the forum. Shouldn't consumer any more page height than the old layout. Actually if you measure its' a few pixels shorter

Personally, it looks horrible Geoff!

Hey, as long as the ads aren't noisy or animated, I'm good.

I don't like it. I loved having the "new review" on the left and the "upcoming release" on the right. If you must change it, at least put the "new review" back on the left side and put the new ad on the right where the "upcoming release" was.

I second the 'no animated or noise'.
But it seems like it's 'bigger'. Though it might be the same pixel count, its AR means there's a lot of wasted space on the top of the page. I can easily see an inch or more of just blank space to each side of the sponsor/headline/coming soon section [Firefox 1.5, 1024x768 on a 19" monitor.]

although animated I don't care much about... but the noise... the noise... "One thing I can't stand is the noise, noise, noise, noise!"

The layout looks ugly, but other than that I have no issue with it.

It doesn't really bother me that much, but this new layout is really ugly. Maybe it's a browser issue, because the ad looks significantly bigger than the old review panel that used to be there. Here's a screencap:



It looks like the Headlines section and New Review section are both distorted because of the larger size of the ad section.

New review should be on the left, and sponsor on the right.

Also, if we're going to have ads up there, does that mean they can be taken out of the threads?

Ads are going to be placed based on their strongest performance. So while I'd like the new review to be on the right, the ad needs to be there.

While the who headline block/etc is bigger... Gone is the 728x90 banner under it. So the total height of the headlines + ad is less.

And no.. They're not going to be taken out of threads.

The lopsided layout definitely uglies up the site, but if it pays the bills, go for it.

By the way - and maybe I missed another discussion on this at some point - whatever happened to the paid account option? I know it was discussed as a potential addition a while back, but I hadn't heard a mention of it in a very long time. Was it just not feasible for some reason? I know that I spend enough time here that I'd rather pay you (Geoff) directly rather than look at all of these ads.

Yeah, this example looks really crappy. The picture ads aren't so bad, but this kind of text ad here looks like hell.

It really cockeye's up things... it would help immensely if you could somehow enlarge the review column so it was symetrical in size with the ad column.

Ditto.

So how long before we are forced to have ads in our sigs?

I kid, I kid!

The lack of symmetry is making me ..

That's the biggest problem with this concept...no symmetry. You need to either add another review-sized entry on the left, or increase the size of the right-hand review to match the other two sections.

Yeah, it looks like a pop-up that's covering up part of the page.

Put a matching sized one on the other side, replace the headlines with the ad and bring back the review and release or something.

A lot of people use those headlines

Not to be flippant, but I'm sure a lot of people used the upcoming releases too.

I understand the need for ads, it just looks awkward.

It really looks terrible but ads are a necessery evil I guess. Were the ads in their previously location not bringing in enough revenue?

Now that you mention it, that's true and the overall size of ads is a bit less, so that's a good thing in my mind.

To be brutally honest, my eyes scan right around the ads for the content I'm really looking for. I don't pay attention to them in my webmail either, so it's nothing personal, I feel pretty confident in my ignoring skills no matter what website I'm on. Of course you have to pay for the site, so I repect that we have to have ads.

A huge kudos for getting rid of the noisy mouse over ads.

Upcoming releases [the link to a single title?] was the thing I used least. I glanced at the ad, scanned the headlines, and checked out 'new reviews'.

The 300x250 ad size was what was required from one company we work with.

I clicked on the Arrested Development DVD advertisement and now that is the only advertisement I get on every page! Is it setup to do that? I would like to see other advertisements to see if there is anything else I am interested in.

So review covers are back where they were now?