MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
I was looking at vitamins last night. Cleared by browsing history a few times since then but even now my screen is full of vit ads.
How does it still know??????
Your browsing history is tracked online not just by your browser. Ads are targeted from that. Just google something random to buy then look at facebook on a different computer.
google, who does google think you are and see what they have inferred from your browsing.
And now the bloody adverts come in a big box between the thread and the post section.
Go preimer, it's a lot less adverty 😉
Yep the only thing the bloody great big advert does for me is make me think I don't want buy a Tripster ATR 😈
[i]make me think I don't want buy a Tripster ATR[/i]
I don't think you're convincing even yourself with that argument...
teamhurtmore - Member
And now the bloody adverts come in a big box between the thread and the post section.
This about one step away from having a pop up over the reply box or something else you would see on some crappy file share site or something. Not good at all.
Yup, the perpetual and massive ATR advert makes me want to go and buy a Kona Sutra.
STW is by far the most advert blighted site of any that I regularly use.
Jef Wachowchow - you know you can switch it off in your user profile, don't you?
I didn't, no. Will have a look, thanks.
'EDIT' Ooh, it works! Thank you.
It tracks via cookies, you need to clear those. Clearing the browsing data will do nothing.
I know they need the ads to keep running but maybe they could get some better paid ones are they taking over now......
Takes ages to load on a phone now.
[URL= http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/pp187/rcatkin/EEB370A2-7FCA-4F18-933A-48E1DDA47AFF_zpsx1omviea.pn g" target="_blank">
http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/pp187/rcatkin/EEB370A2-7FCA-4F18-933A-48E1DDA47AFF_zpsx1omviea.pn g"/> [/IMG][/URL]
Robdob, that ad is one of the best payers on the site. It's highly targeted. It's actually a re targeted ad which means it's based on sites you have visited recently. The ads are vital to our existence. But for £1.49 you can turn them all off for a month. For £9.99 by direct debit you can turn them off for a year. We also throw in access to not just 8 issues but every issue we've published in over a decade for that price too. Plus cheaper stuff and other deals, a free calendar (you pay postage only) and our sincere appreciation. Are we asking too much for all that?
The ads aren't there to annoy you into subscribing. They are their to pay wages. Honestly!
Chip in half a pint of beer and turn the ads off for a month. We think that's pretty fair.
Mark -Chip in half a pint of beer and turn the ads off for a month. We think that's pretty fair.
It's actually hampering the navigation and useability of the site though. As per my earlier post, it's as bad as having a floating pop up obscuring the relevant parts of the site you need to see, so it's positioning is extremely cynical. Since it's moved to where it currently is, the post formatting options won't load in my browser. By placing it as it now is, you are basically saying, pay us, or we will make this forum horrible to use.
Whilst you might think it's reasonable to force or bully people into needing to pay to have ads removed to restore a degree user friendliness to the forum you might want to consider future users who visit the site. Presumably you would want the forum to be inviting to new visitors? Apart from a few hundred regular pedants there must be a relatively high turnover of active forum members. If new potential posters come along and see some nasty, ad ridden, dodgy looking site, they won't bother getting involved in debates about how to overtake, stoves and mud tyres, and ultimately the forum dies either way.
Awaits imminent ban.
What Mark said.
Use duckduckgo if you don't like Google tracking you.
I'm surprised that ads from the likes of chain reaction aren't integrated into the page code with STW techs making sure there is no malicious code in them. I'm quite happy with discrete and safe adverts.
As for the STW mobile experience, I don't access this or any other ad-swamped site from my phone. I don't watch films on RTL TV either.
I get the need for adverts, but the one above the reply box is taking the piss a little
Use duckduckgo if you don't like Google tracking you.
That won't make much odds. It's not just about what you search for in a search engine.
e.g. You find a website via DuckDuckGo and go to it. But that website has a Google+ widget on it, or Google Ads, or Google Search, or embedded Google Maps etc etc so now Google knows you were there.
Likewise for Facebook et al (even if you don't have a Facebook account).
I understand the ads, and I try to click through from here when i need to, but even if the tripster on was moved below the reply box that'd be a start!!
It's pretty annoying
Will somebody fix the Tripster Ad!
No, not take it away, it's a proper shiny niche expensive bike, exactly what STW wants. It's the scratches on the fork around the hole. Come on Kinesis, give it a polish before the photo, or pop a fresh fork in it.
I'm still using IE8 which appears to be too ancient to allow a lot of the modernly formatted ads to display. 😀
As for the STW mobile experience...
For me this is the actual issue, not the fact there are ads here. The mobile experience is pretty poor (no offence, but I suspect you guys already know that). I'd actually have thought that a good mobile experience with better mobile optimised ads would result in higher performing ads and greater revenue, not just a better user experience. But of course the cost to get the site mobile optimised in the first place may be prohibitive.
I know, Graham. That why I'm one of the 23% and rising who only ever click on ads which are part of the page code such as the one for the STW advent calendar up there. If it can be done for an advent calendar it can be done for a long-term partner such as CRC.
Jimjam, why would I ban you? You are expressing a legitimate opinion.
Making comparisons with other sites is moot really. Our business is as it is and the financial demands we face are unique to us - a single company with a single printed publication and a website. We aren't deliberately trying to bully anyone into subscribing. Subscribing replaces one income stream with another.
Currently 0.4% of our monthly site visitors subscribe and they get to turn off the ads if they want. It's £1.49 for a month or £1.25/month if you pay annually (And you get a free gift with that) or less if you take up our direct debit £9.99 offer right now (83p/month).
Are we charging too much? Is that the problem?
And now the bloody adverts come in a big box between the thread and the post section.
If it was one third the size like a banner it would be fine, I'm quite happy to see ads and have huge ones down the side on non-mobile viewing but that new one is just too big. I don't click through on anything now, I know it's free but that's a whole screens worth!
I know, Graham. That why I'm one of the 23% and rising who only ever click on ads which are part of the page code
That still doesn't prevent Google/Facebook et al from tracking you sadly.
The very fact that there are Google/Facebook/whatever served widgets on a page (or in the code) allows them to track you. You don't actually need to click on anything.
But at least you are not rewarding them for it.
Oh and here's the big quandry about mobile ads.. They pay a fraction of the revenues compared to desktop ads currently. They just don't get the same engagement as desktop ads. Ads inside App digital issues of mags get lots of engagement however.
Grit.cx is our mobile optimised site, so we do know how to do it. The reason we haven't switched to a dynamic, mobile friendly site here is because we would stand to lose tens of thousands in ad revenue in a few months. Considering the fact we operated last year with a 2% profit margin that would drop us into a whole heap of trouble that would affect jobs here.
But, we aren't sticking with the desktop only site - we are actually working really quite hard to develop a site that works on all platforms really well but also doesn't instantly cripple us financially as soon as we turn it on. The ads you see at the moment are paying for that development. Grit.cx is a test-bed for ideas we are planning to bring over here. Grit doesn't have a large revenue stream that we depend on and so we can make changes and try new things there with an eye to what we can do here without the risk of huge financial costs.
In the meantime, the cost of less than half a pint of beer solves all your problems. It just then comes down to whether or not you consider your use of the site to be worth that much.
Mark - Resident GrumpyJimjam, why would I ban you? You are expressing a legitimate opinion.
Making comparisons with other sites is moot really. Our business is as it is and the financial demands we face are unique to us - a single company with a single printed publication and a website. We aren't deliberately trying to bully anyone into subscribing. Subscribing replaces one income stream with another.
Currently 0.4% of our monthly site visitors subscribe and they get to turn off the ads if they want. It's £1.49 for a month or £1.25/month if you pay annually (And you get a free gift with that) or less if you take up our direct debit £9.99 offer right now (83p/month).
Are we charging too much? Is that the problem?
I don't think the cost is too much. I just don't think a forum is something I am used to paying for, or really want to. I regularly use maybe four other forums, I've probably been registered to maybe 20 in my internet lifetime. I've never paid for any of them.
The other thing, which i accept is partly my responsibility, is that signing up to annual online subscriptions wich (presumably) automatically renew is a way of frittering hundreds of pounds out of your account each year. I've probably got about £80 - £100 per annum coming out each year for various things, most of which I've forgotten.
Ultimately though, I don't really read the mag, I've bought a few issues but it's not for me. So digital issues isn't something I would benefit from. I view the forum as both an entertaining way to waste time, and as importantly a resource. With regards the resource, I feel that I contribute more than I detract from the bike forum. I try to keep my posts relatively polite, concise and informative, drawing on a lifetime of mountain biking, and many years selling bikes. I rarely ever ask questions there, but do en devour to inform people. So I'm paying by adding my (dubious and debatable) knowledge to the forum. The chat forum is a different kettle of fish of course.
I have no problems at all with ads, even the video ones. But when they are actually hampering the navigation and usability of the site it becomes a bit much. I'm sure it's not intentional but I often end up hitting the banner ad for crc, in trying to click on a forum button before the site loads. That doesn't bother me, since it's my mistake. But ham stringing the useability is a bridge too far.
Where's the £9.99 deal then?
Premier + a naughty word I can't say as it's got an auto-censor on it here,
The only adverts I see are for the STW Calendar and grit.cx.
The other thing, which i accept is partly my responsibility, is that signing up to annual online subscriptions wich (presumably) automatically renew is a way of frittering hundreds of pounds out of your account each year. I've probably got about £80 - £100 per annum coming out each year for various things, most of which I've forgotten.
Partly? I'd say that's "Fully". With internet banking it's easy to cancel direct debits you no longer want.
"I view the forum as both an entertaining way to waste time, and as importantly a resource"
Then it's worth something then?
You contribute and as such you are present when ads are served and we, who have the bills to pay, are compensated for that. The price of entry is either the ads that are served (Which is why we have the rule about promoting adblocking) or your subs.
The control to turn off autorenew is in your account settings when you subscribe. It's a tick box. There's no minimum term so it simply comes down to if you think £1.49 gives you enough value if it allows you to use the forum in super quick, no ads mode.
There's no guns to anyone's heads.. everything is entirely optional. We only want people to hand over money if they think it's worth it to them. We only want visitors to the site if they think it's worth it to come here. This is or stall laid out before you. Feel free to browse or not. If the traffic falls and the revenue drops then we will know that we've got it wrong. But November just gone showed a 23% year on year increase in site traffic so we aren't at that point yet.
It is quite sad when someone providing a free product has to defend their means of income on the internet.
Mark as a side, there are some fantastic resources online on how to create a user experience that increased retention, conversion and revenue in these situations. I'll try to find some.
How do I get the £9.99 DD offer?
I was looking at ferry crossing prices. I clicked out, back in and of course the prices went up. So I cleared out the cookies- nope still ramped up. CCleaner- deep clean. Still ramped up. Different pc elsewhere- hey presto old price again.
I think its not just cookies- companies are now smart - they track area/I.P address ramping up of sudden interest. I bet your I/P address now shows you like vitamins, nude dwarf ladies and bike brakes forever.
[i]I bet your I/P address now shows you like vitamins, nude dwarf ladies and bike brakes forever[/i]
Except for most home users IP addresses are refreshed on a fairly regular basis. So do I get ads for the hearing aids and stair lifts some old codger in Dundee was browsing for last week?
9.99 sub ad is at the top of the page every so often. So much for advertising eh! 🙂
Linky
http://singletrackworld.com/sub-offers/
9.99 sub ad is at the top of the page every so often. So much for advertising eh!
It doesn't appear as one of the sub options on the Premier page though - which may cause some confusion.
I lost my P a coule of days ago as the card the DD was linked to expired.
On the one hand the mag should be for me (niche bikes, bikepacking, days out in the hills etc) but I just don't read it, possibly because the kit reviews are 90% for astronomicaly priced kit, bikes I can kind of accept as it's always the s-works, advance, pro, elite, whatever version that gets reviewed and it's a fair extrapolation down to the £1500 bikes people actualy buy, but when it's month after month of £300 jackets and £1000 forks it's neither interesting nor relavent! Those are things that get bought on a ~3 yearly basis at most, where are the pedals, gloves, tyres, grips, etc that make up the bulk of MBUK reviews each month? A page devoted to a jacket, camera bag of pair of forks I'll never use or buy is pointless, especialy as most of it's waffle.
I won't be renewing my paper subscription as in any given month I didn't read half the content, and oftent hat put me off even bothering to sift through for the interesting stuff.
Might consider the digital sub if back issues get converted to kindle format rather than .pdf . When looking at a .pdf it only lets you see the whole page, or zoom into a 1/4 of it, so if a column is written in the center of a page both verticaly and horisontaly it's unreadable.
At least the site is neat and tidy and doesn't look like mtbr.
[quote=jimjam] I've probably got about £80 - £100 per annum coming out each year for various things, most of which I've forgotten. Cancel one of the other ones, subscribe here and you're sorted. Really, do you need hand-holding on this?
Oh - I never read the mag either. There might be the very occasional feature but other than that it passes me by. Can't fault vfm for the £9.99 though. Where else do you find this level of entertainment for so little money?
All our issues are in kindle format and available to download from the Mag archive. Have been for many years now.
Yes but back issues just display as pages like they were in the magazine which made them unreadable on the small screen.All our issues are in kindle format and available to download from the Mag archive. Have been for many years now.
New issues were fine as they were in a text format (.mobi) so the kindle displayed them like any other e-book, it was back issues which didn't work so well.
No, they are in kindle ebook format. Both for kindle and any other device that can deal with ePub files. The button in the Magarchive is the one marked, 'Kindle'. Click on that and it will download a .mobi file, which is the Kindle ebook reader format. Better still, navigate to that button on your Kindle device and it will automatically open and save itself to your device and be listed along with all your other ebooks.
EDIT:
Ah.. Just re-read what you actually said.
We are working backwards through the archive to convert all issues to ebook format. Currently it's only the last few years that are true ebook formats.
Blimey that big ad slap bang in the middle of the page! (robdob's post).
I'm switching ads back on just to see how annoying they are...
WOAH! It's like a completely different site 😆
I would definitely subscribe to get rid of that lot!
[img] 
[/img]
If you don't have a subscription it has started to look a bit like the [url= http://www.lingscars.com/ ]Lings Car[/url] website now.
Although ling's is actually a brilliant site for doing what she wants it to which is sell cars.
Mark might also argue that the stw site is great at doing what he wants based on revenue and visitor numbers?
I don't mind 'em tbh
[i]If you don't have a subscription it has started to look a bit like the Lings Car website now[/i]
Wow, not seen that one before. Yeah, very similar!
I don't have a problems with ads per se, but that big ad at the bottom and the awful mobile experience, is making me think I'd be better off going elsewhere.
With a bit of vision I'm sure the Singletrack website could be a great money spinner, but increasing the ads more and more, and making it less usable on mobile devices really isn't going to help draw in new people IMO.
P.S. There are so many ads I hadn't even noticed Singletracks own one, until today.
I understand that STW have to make money.
What I dont understand is how STW managed to do it back in the good old days before the forum became one big add, they must have got their revenue else where... or they are all millionaires now, none of which is our business as forum users 😆
I think a very valid point was made before though, that this forum now looks cheap, and dodgy due to the sheer number of adds all over the place.
If I were a newbie I certainly wouldnt stay.
I also now use the site less because it is awful on mobile. 🙁
Sorry to keep banging on but the fact is if we made it super mobile friendly 'RIGHT NOW' it would be a financial disaster, because mobile ads are worth a lot less. Plus, the site has increased traffic by 23% year on year. Why would I want to encourage you to switch to viewing the site on mobile when doing that will cost us a lot of money?
The problem is that everyone wants to access everything on mobile but the commercial world isn't yet ready for that. It may be a great thing for the consumer but for the publisher it's a bad thing... at the moment.... It's changing... In the right direction.... But right now is not the time for us to do what we have done with grit.cx and make this site device dynamic. Christmas is on the way and I'd rather like to be able to buy my kids something nice. If we do what you ask that won't happen. So I'm not doing it yet.
In 6 months? The way the lines are converging on this graph, that could very well be the right time. That's looking like when mobile revenues 'may' be at a level to make that a sustainable option.
We want it too.
I lost my P a month ago, the ads however are ridiculous without it. The current offer of £9.99 is a bargain so I can't wait to get my P back when my dd has been processed.
The amount of money people were spunking on things they didn't need in the black Friday thread was crazy, a tenner (or actually less than) for no ads, all the back issues and to support the site has to be worth it no?
at the moment no- I click through on CRC etc when I want to buy something which I know helps with future re-buy of advertising/spend.I don't mind 'em tbh
If it got like bikeradar though- where theres a huge ad that scrowls down the whole screen infront of you- I'd go elsewhere. The BR one put me right off their site (well that and their bizarre product review opinions).
What I dont understand is how STW managed to do it back in the good old days
I'm speculating, but I expect that a quieter forum would have considerably lower bandwidth costs for a start.
Sorry to keep banging on but the fact is if we made it super mobile friendly 'RIGHT NOW' it would be a financial disaster, because mobile ads are worth a lot less.
Just a thought Mark but how about a mobile-friendly version for [img] 
[/img] members only, since they don't see the ads anyway?
That'd be another good incentive for folk to get a sub.
Grit.cx looks nearly as bad as this one, albeit harder to read with adverts in the middle of the forum.
GrahamS' idea is probably a good one for the mobile site.
I have a sub so tried logging out to see what the site is like with adverts. It's actually not as bad as I remember it, but I suspect that since the adverts are targeted my experience will be very different from someone else's. It'd be interesting to see what sites you need to visit and what search terms you need to use on Google to trigger the more irritating adverts
It's based on your posting history, so presumably if you spend a lot of time talking about annoying adverts then that's what the search algorithm thinks you're interested in.
(-:
<is tempted to write a reply containing lots of "interesting" words then thinks better of it>
😆
STW need to make money - tick
I click on the adds on the side every now and again - tick
I would just prefer the adds to be mtb based instead of some vitamins and other stuff stuff I've just bought
Not sure about you guys but I actually quite like the ads in magazines. I wish the mags were thicker with more!
I wish the mags were thicker with more!
Based on my experience in the trade, so do the magazines.
Daft question but why not switch off ads for mobile browsers if they make no money? Then you'd have a lot more happy punters who may come to the desktop version and .. kerching.
I'm speculating, but I expect that a quieter forum would have considerably lower bandwidth costs for a start.
That and they 3 staff working for virtually nothing, paper was king and I believe the mag had more ads.
Daft question but why not switch off ads for mobile browsers if they make no money? Then you'd have a lot more happy punters who may come to the desktop version and .. kerching.
Or they'd have more people use the mobile service and then they would be skint.
Sorry to keep banging on but the fact is if we made it super mobile friendly 'RIGHT NOW' it would be a financial disaster, because mobile ads are worth a lot less. Plus, the site has increased traffic by 23% year on year. Why would I want to encourage you to switch to viewing the site on mobile when doing that will cost us a lot of money?
The problem is that everyone wants to access everything on mobile but the commercial world isn't yet ready for that. It may be a great thing for the consumer but for the publisher it's a bad thing... at the moment.... It's changing... In the right direction.... But right now is not the time for us to do what we have done with grit.cx and make this site device dynamic. Christmas is on the way and I'd rather like to be able to buy my kids something nice. If we do what you ask that won't happen. So I'm not doing it yet.In 6 months? The way the lines are converging on this graph, that could very well be the right time. That's looking like when mobile revenues 'may' be at a level to make that a sustainable option.
The Grit.cx experience is much nicer, I'd never used it before. Fair point on not wanting to push the balance towards mobile by improving the experience too much, sucks from a user experience but logical from publisher and advertiser perspective, I've enough experience of all 3 sides to see it as a pragmatic solution....for now.
The industry (digital advertising in general, not bike publishing) will need to get their act together on mobile advertising sooner rather than later as it's a pain from an advertiser side too, if it isn't in the next 12 months we see that then I'll be very surprised.
Daft question but why not switch off ads for mobile browsers if they make no money? Then you'd have a lot more happy punters who may come to the desktop version and .. kerching.
The better the mobile experience, the more people that use it, the less people that use the desktop. Not kerching.
Not convinced. Are you telling me you will be sat at your PCs and pick up the phone to avoid the ads?
It's probably a greater comment on society really. Content is free, once it's out there it's out there etc. Piracy is easy. Most people probably don't remember the days when you paid for x hrs of internet a month or when there was no internet and if you were cheeky you tried to read as much of a magazine in WH Smiths before they kicked you out.
In life I have choices about stuff, I use STW a lot and still enjoy reading the mag, I was on a transfer where somebody asked what that strange new bike mag was (in Oz) and I had to explain that it was better to import y biking mags these days. Because of that I am happy to fund the site, the costs stack up. I was looking at setting up some Amazon Web boxes for a work project and you know you actually have to pay for the resources it's not free.
I spend a lot of time travelling and I pay for lounge access - it's like an ad free internet. For me it's worth the cost to retain the benefits.
Huge amounts of the internet is covered by pop up ads, in your face adverts, find a popular you tube - 15s advert in front of it, some bike sites even have the 15s overlay ads that you can't click round so I imagine STW has a long way to before it's truly that annoying.
Not convinced. Are you telling me you will be sat at your PCs and pick up the phone to avoid the ads?
Tablets use a similar setup to mobiles so my guess is they're taking them into account when talking about mobile usage.
But tablets don't need a mobile-specific site because they work just fine with the desktop site in my experience.
(Apart from [url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/gifs-you-could-watch-all-day ]the GIFs thread[/url] obviously - which makes tablets cry. But that's not the fault of STW Towers)
Besides,
As a user (and I'm one too) it's easy to be blasé in a "wah wah adverts" kind of way. But if getting this issue right or wrong makes the difference between a small band of froody people keeping their jobs (and, y'know, this site continuing), or them just pulling the plug on the entire bloody lot, it's perhaps understandable when changes involve a degree of inertia.
Whilst, with respect, Mark's bedside manner will never win awards, ultimately he knows better than anyone whether a decision is shit or bust for the site. So this month he addresses the complaints by shutting down all the ads, three months later there's no cash left to pay for hosting, then what? Some cleverbollocks volunteers to host it on their home ADSL?
Some cleverbollocks volunteers to host it on their home ADSL?
What again?
(But that's not the fault of STW Towers)
Weeeeeell, if they allowed gfycat, then that would help.
Plus, y'know, for all it's "just" a forum, we have a unique community here ([url= http://www.mono.org ]mono[/url] aside). I can't think of anything similar. It's a third of the price of Xbox Gold, another service where the alternative is free but crap.
Not convinced. Are you telling me you will be sat at your PCs and pick up the phone to avoid the ads?
No, it's not that the two are necessarily directly competing for use at the same time, more that increasing usability on a mobile device means people might check it when they only have the mobile to hand, so have no need to check it again when they get in front of a proper computer. For example you might check the forum more on the phone/tablet on the morning commute, rather than wait to get into the office to use the laptop.
Or you might be more likely to use the phone on the sofa at home during the ad breaks in X Factor, rather than waiting till it finishes to turn on the laptop.
So this month he addresses the complaints by shutting down all the ads
Said no one. Typical STW Towers response that, shout back at everyone about something that was never said 🙄
I like most of the ads- I preferred the ones with birds in tshirts on but they've now gone 🙁
girls naked girls nerdy girls products (never know google might insert something into my STW/ ad browser) 8)
girls naked girls nerdy girls products (never know google might insert something into my STW/ ad browser)
Scarlett Johansson
Kate Upton
Scarlett Johansson
Kate Upton
Scarlett Johansson
Kate Upton
Scarlett Johansson
Kate Upton
Scarlett Johansson
Kate Upton
That's my afternoon sorted!
Typical STW Towers response that, shout back at everyone about something that was never said
Who at STW Towers said that?