More Banner Fun

[The Hobo]

Is it just me, or do a few of the banners stream (or whatever) little movies? What a great way to alienate dialup users.

[DiGiTaIErRoR]

Originally posted by The Hobo
Is it just me, or do a few of the banners stream (or whatever) little movies? What a great way to alienate dialup users.

Nah, it'll just make this website load slower.

Technically, since all advertisements take up bandwidth, people with more bandwidth are directly/indirectly targeted.

Damn my broadband and my targetability!

[brad jones]

Originally posted by The Hobo
Is it just me, or do a few of the banners stream (or whatever) little movies? What a great way to alienate dialup users.

Animation doesn't necessarily mean big files (or big bandwidth). Many of the ads are animated gifs or flash files that are relatively small. I believe there are size limitations imposed for the file sizes of the ads to insure that they stay small.

Brad

[OrdinaryGuy]

Originally posted by brad jones
Animation doesn't necessarily mean big files (or big bandwidth). Many of the ads are animated gifs or flash files that are relatively small. I believe there are size limitations imposed for the file sizes of the ads to insure that they stay small.

Brad

whatever it is Brad, those ads have slowed the board 10 times. its no more fun surfing here. Ever considered more light weight ads?

[brad jones]

Originally posted by OrdinaryGuy
Ever considered more light weight ads?

I'll see if I can find out what the 'specs' are for the advertisements. The advertisements are done through a different group (I focus on site content rather--not ads), so I'll have to ask some others what these specs are. I thought they were small enough specs that even on a 56k modem that the bandwidth would be much less than a second.

[The Hobo]

I guess it could be an animation...but it looked a lot like a movie clip to me, and I know my little dialup icon on the tray was going crazy forever (loading) and this page was the only thing on the net I was accessing.

And I do agree, the site does load quite a bit slower, especially for me on dialup.

I wish I had some kind of broadband alternative, but nothing is available in my "area" yet it is 2 blocks away

[BestCoder]

The only one I have had trouble with is the SBC Pacific Bell java ads. Sort of ironic, since they're advertising broadband. I guess, they figure that they might as well prove their point.

[MartinLiss]

I have a DSL line and some of them slow me down.

[honeybee]

Originally posted by MartinLiss
I have a DSL line and some of them slow me down.

Hey, Brutus, you too! Oops, sorry, that's probably a wrong comment

When I visit VB Forums from office, behind a proxy, 5 times out of 6 I don't see any ads. No, Brad, that's not an issue with me .

From home I am on a dialup, but thanks to the ISP I don't know how much speed I am getting overall, if at all I am, so I can't say for sure the ads are slowing down the site for me

.

[si_the_geek]

Originally posted by BestCoder
The only one I have had trouble with is the SBC Pacific Bell java ads. Sort of ironic, since they're advertising broadband. I guess, they figure that they might as well prove their point.

True - they slow me down significantly even tho' I've downloaded them before and I have a 800 GB cache (corporate access), so there's only the issue of loading it from a server a few feet away.

I've checked the size of the video file and it's 1482 KB.. not exactly a small file to download!

[brad jones]

I noticed in Internet Explorer that if I right click on a Flash movie (aka Flash Ad), I can set the quality (which was defaulted to 'high' on my machine). I don't know if setting it to low will make a difference, but it is worth a try.

If someone with 'low' bandwidth can try this out - next time you see a Flash ad, drop the quality to low and see if it speeds up the load. (I'm on a cable modem with a flakey ISP, so it is hard to tell if it makes a different.

(Of course, I didn't suggest this..... )

[OrdinaryGuy]

Originally posted by brad jones
I noticed in Internet Explorer that if I right click on a Flash movie (aka Flash Ad), I can set the quality (which was defaulted to 'high' on my machine). I don't know if setting it to low will make a difference, but it is worth a try.

If someone with 'low' bandwidth can try this out - next time you see a Flash ad, drop the quality to low and see if it speeds up the load. (I'm on a cable modem with a flakey ISP, so it is hard to tell if it makes a different.

(Of course, I didn't suggest this..... )

untrue, you only can change the quality once it has totally loaded, at least for the flash ads here. If it was a flash movie, and had a loading sequence, then changing the quality would affect it. So we are stuck with these ads for eternity, eh Brad?

[brad jones]

[i]So we are stuck with these ads for eternity, eh Brad? [/B]

We are stuck with ads because they pay the bandwidth costs.

I have no control over the specific ads -- they are controlled by the jupitermedia sales team. I am, however, working with them to understand the specifications they work within. I'm also working to see what the maximimum sizes are. As I mentioned previously, I was under the impression there was a size limit for ads. (file size).

[OrdinaryGuy]

Originally posted by brad jones
[B]We are stuck with ads because they pay the bandwidth costs.
[B]

Well, unless the Jupiter Media team is too dumb to realize, your traffic has dropped. You have probably lost 90% of your dialup users. Visit www.visualbasicforum.com and www.galahtech.com. They have gained drastically. And VBF is still bleeding. Traffic is still being lost as VBF members discover new sites that load 10 times faster and are more popular (like visualbasicforum.com) Think about how much more effective was Karl Moore's ad and how much more quicker it loaded. People actually clicked on that, and the forum was doing fine.

[brad jones]

Originally posted by OrdinaryGuy
Well, unless the Jupiter Media team is too dumb to realize, your traffic has dropped.

What stats are you looking at? I don't see any indications of the 90% drop you referenced. I've seen the statistics for this forum and to me, they don't look like the 'bleeding' you describe. In fact, this forum is staying quite strong.

I believe there is only one ad that has been causing people issues and that ad is being addressed. There seem to be several people yelling the 'sky is falling'; however, these same people seem to be trying to build traffic on other sites.

Brad

[crptcblade]

You'll have to forgive OG, he's still getting used to that Dutch calculator he got for Arbor Day.

[Zaei]

Originally posted by brad jones
I'm also working to see what the maximimum sizes are. As I mentioned previously, I was under the impression there was a size limit for ads. (file size).

Doesnt much matter what the sizes are. Its probably pretty easy to squeeze a Java applet to load a movie from some external source into the same size required by a fairly nice looking animated gif.

Z.

[brad jones]

Originally posted by Zaei
Doesnt much matter what the sizes are. Its probably pretty easy to squeeze a Java applet to load a movie from some external source into the same size required by a fairly nice looking animated gif.

Z.

Excellent point. I'll raise this issue with the ad people as well.

Brad!

[OrdinaryGuy]

Originally posted by brad jones
Brad!

u excited about something?

[The Hobo]

Originally posted by OrdinaryGuy
u excited about something?

I thought he was just yelling at himself? *shrugs*

[brad jones]

An exclamation is almost always a happy, positive thing. I actually started adding the exclamation to my name/signature back in 1995 or 1996.

At that time I exchanged a few e-mails with one of the creators of DOOM at ID Software. He used extended characters in his name when ending e-mails. I thought it cool, so I "took" the idea. It also makes me different from all the other "Brad's" out there

By the way, my exchange with him was regarding a book I was creating called Tricks of the Doom Programming Gurus. It was a very cool book that had a CD with all the tools you need to build levels and such for DOOM. I got to work with people from all around the world on that project.

Brad!

[The Hobo]

An exclamation is almost always a happy thing?

[Explitive] You!
Oh my God, my mom died!
I hate you!
Go to [Explitive]!
Loser!

hmm...I wouldn't say almost always.