[Closed] An interesting article on That Which Cannot Be Spoken Of.

So, we meant to discuss this? Just read it?

C'mon, OP. Put some effort in.

well i won't be stopping any time soon (that which cannot be named 😉

I've noticed (When using a friend's computer) that tvcatchup.com now detects whether you're using a blocker and tells you to switch it off else it wont show you any TV. I can see more sites doing this if their revenue is too badly affected.

Admittedly if all sites started doing this it would turn in to a bit of a race between sites and blockers to see who can detect/hide more effectively than the other.

I thought this was going to be about Tandem Jeremy or that odd lad from Landan.

Tandem Jeremy or that odd lad from Landan.

Hmm, they've not been here for a while, what happened to them?

It's not that we can't discuss it we're simply not allowed to promote it... That's what the Mods told me the other day.

I'm not surprised that the use of such things are on the increase, and I understand how much of t'interweb needs to be commercially viable.

But the bleating is really from lazy advertisers and marketeers, who haven't twigged that there are ways to promote stuff online other than using the web's equivalent of indiscriminate leaflet bombing...

Should there perhaps be a code of conduct for commercial sites that prescribes a bit of a [i]"Content to Promotion Ratio"[/i] say for every MB of [i]content[/i] there should be no more than 100KB of advertising data?

Hmm, they've not been here for a while, what happened to them?

TJ's had the grace not to try and sneak back. We banned the Lahndaner's latest incarnation a week or so back. No doubt he'll be back, and round and round we go. I think I might spam-kill him next time. Ho hum.

But the bleating is really from lazy advertisers and marketeers,

Lazy or not, without advertising revenue we wouldn't have a forum. Consider that next time you circumvent it.

"We banned the Lahndaner's latest incarnation a week or so back. No doubt he'll be back, and round and round we go."

What was his login name this time?

We banned the Lahndaner's latest incarnation a week or so back.

Ohh was he? Sneaky little blighter.

What was his login name this time?

I'd rather not give him the publicity to be honest. Probably shouldn't have said anything in the first place, but hey.

I understand that to use a service for free that I will be advertised to. It's part of the deal.
When those ads become too intrusive/annoying (by my own standards) then those products which cannot be mentioned become very interesting.

The adverts shouldn't be "too intrusive" - what your standards are I've no idea. Nine times out of ten, when an ad is intrusive it's a fault rather than intentional.

TBH, I don't find the ads on here especially intrusive, I've usually got the main forum body zoomed to fit my screen, I can see the Chain Reaction ad just above the Reply box, so it's all good as far as I'm concerned. What I do hate are aggressive pop-ups that scroll down the screen, demanding that you sign up or something.
They can get stuffed! 😀

We banned the Lahndaner's latest incarnation a week or so back.

You spotted him. Oh, he's not THAT clever, then? 🙄

People do the unmentionable for practical rather than commercial reasons. I don't have a "publicité non-merci" sticker on my letter box because I'm quite happy to read what interests me and it doesn't result in the letter box jamming shut, smelling badly or shredding my proper mail.

There's a fine line between "intrusive" and "malicious". Ads with pop-ups that take you to sites that realistically imitate updates and infect your computer with stuff it takes half a day to remove I consider malicious. I noted others concerned also had non-UK IPs BTW. Some ads freeze the page and stop you accessing content. Some ads move you around the page automatically.

There are several sites that are so unpleasant and bandwidth greedy due to ads that I class them as PC only, phone access being too expensive and/or laborious.

It was the point at which businesses started selling chunks of their site pages and lost control of them that the trouble started. Advertisers will have to go back to having their ads integrated into the page code such as the Bike Biz awards ad on this page.

Great Blocking adds means less crap to watch. Gets my vote 😉

I'm always amazed that people don't use the unmentionable apps. Ads are so intrusive I've just go and play outside rather than use the Internet with them...

such as the Bike Biz awards ad on this page.

That's not an ad! That's us showing off 🙂

The adverts shouldn't be "too intrusive" - what your standards are I've no idea. Nine times out of ten, when an ad is intrusive it's a fault rather than intentional.

So many ads are animations which slow down the browser / annoyingly flicker in the corner of your eye. They also make the page look shit. The site designer spends ages coming with a nice uniform clean look, then outsources 60% of the web page to random images / animations which just look horrible. The whole ad-free experience is so much more pleasing to the eye.

I have some great software to remove the ads, I pay for the content.
It's a model that seems to have got less popularity over the years but it really does work.
[url= http://blog.wan-ifra.org/2013/07/04/three-years-into-the-times-paywall-ceo-says-revenue-s-worth-lost-reach ]Time Paywall discussion[/url]

It makes me wonder how people think the internet works, or how it's paid for. It's almost as if it's just floating round out there. Many of those suggesting blocks etc would be the first to defend someone who was being paid too little or ripped off by a boss.

It makes me wonder how people think the internet works, or how it's paid for. It's almost as if it's just floating round out there. Many of those suggesting blocks etc would be the first to defend someone who was being paid too little or ripped off by a boss.

I'll bet STW makes most of it's money from subscriptions.....

I've noticed (When using a friend's computer) that tvcatchup.com now detects whether you're using a blocker and tells you to switch it off else it wont show you any TV.

It seems Ch4 put you on the naughty step for a while.

Some of the ads that takeover the screen are a PITA for mobile users, can't get to the x to close the ad. Advertising needs to be done properly or they'll suffer the consequences of it.

BTW I don't normally use this sort of software (it's installed on 1 browser on 1 PC - PCs being as prolific as bikes in my house) and having a P there's no need to block anything on STW anyway 🙂

On a related note, you can now support the Guardian which is starting a membership scheme as a way to raise money without using a Paywall.....

http://www.theguardian.com/membership/2014/sep/10/-sp-guardian-editor-alan-rusbridger-welcome-to-guardian-membership

The whole ad-free experience is so much more pleasing to the eye.

It Pays to be Premium 😀

No ads and no guilt about depriving Chipps and Mark of artisan coffee.

You spotted him. Oh, he's not THAT clever, then?

I could take a guess at who he was!

OT I'd sooner pay the small premier subscription that use blockers. BikeRadar persistently has annoying ads that fill the whole screen so you have to close them manually, that really annoys me!

It is worth the £1 something I pay to be add free.

I'll bet STW makes most of it's money from subscriptions.....

I bet we don't.

If 1% of the visitors to this site paid £2/year we could afford to turn ads off for everyone.

I've had this discussion with a lot of people and a lot of publishers but we are the architects of our own problems here. For years publishers have put content that they have to pay for up on their websites for free in the hope that the ads around it will pay for it. But that model is failing now. Part of the problem is that we've labelled that content as 'Free'... "Registration is free" is a phrase used all over the internet. But it's wrong. Registration is not free at all. There is a cost to registration and that is the presence of the ads on the page around the content. As a reader you ARE paying for the content.. so long as you leave the ads where they are and accept that as the price of your access to that website.

The problem is getting that message across is really hard since for years we've been telling you all that what you get on the website is free. It really isn't.

So, what is now happening is that your (the general net reading public) right to access online content from publishers is becoming dependent on your acceptance that the ads remain there. ie. it is becoming part of the terms and conditions of your right to access publishers' content that you don't act to remove the ads.

Two things need top happen.. (1) Publishers need to find that balance of the 'right' amount of ads. That's an amount that the readers are willing to put up with as a cost of the content they have access to. Horrible pop ups and sneaky ads are going to put readers off no matter how good the content on the site.
(2) Readers need to change their assumption that they have a right to read the content on a website free of ads if they so choose. The content is not free and readers need to accept that there is a price to be paid.. That price is either to pay the publisher directly (the paywall model) or to accept that they will be advertised to while they access the content.

If you block the ads then you must expect that the publishers will act to protect their content in the same way that all rights holders to content do.

Work needs to be done by publishers to change public perceptions to content access because the bills need to be paid.

Thank god those nasty pop ups on the bottom of the page on iOS have gone!

An interesting article on That Of Which, Cannot Be Spoken [s]Of[/s].

BTW.. Subs to the site are now £1.49 for EVERYTHING!
ie. Mag archive AND App access. For £1.49 you get 13 years of mags plus the latest issue.

We previously only allowed mag archive access to the £2.99/month subscribers and app access was annual subs only.

Any existing subscribers paying more and getting less are having their accounts adjusted over the next few weeks and you will get an email shortly to explain how you will be paying less and/or getting more from now on.

Maybe a big flashy ad that says PAY 1.49 to make me go away would help, in HD, on loop, with Music & Playboy Bunnies

BTW.. Subs to the site are now £1.49 for EVERYTHING!

I didn't know that, interesting. I was happy paying £1.49 for the hours of entertainment I get from the forum anyway!

Further to Mark's point about balance: Presumably the ad companies make their money by people paying them to advertise, and people will pay as much money as they think is worth it for the increased sales they get. So the more effective the advertising the more people will pay for their ads, so the fewer ads are required to be seen.

Targeted advertising therefore makes a lot of sense - it not only improves the relevance of ads but should decrease the volume of ads. Targeted advertising however requires your internet activity to be tracked, and people complain bitterly about this.

Doubleclick et al should perhaps come up with a way of allowing people to specify exactly what they are interested in, perhaps, rather than spying on them?

If you block the ads then you must expect that the publishers will act to protect their content in the [b]same way that all rights holders to content do.[/b]

or more likely failing to do so....

Mark - Resident Grumpy
BTW.. Subs to the site are now £1.49 for EVERYTHING!
ie. Mag archive AND App access. For £1.49 you get 13 years of mags plus the latest issue.

We previously only allowed mag archive access to the £2.99/month subscribers and app access was annual subs only.

Any existing subscribers paying more and getting less are having their accounts adjusted over the next few weeks and you will get an email shortly to explain how you will be paying less and/or getting more from now on.

Niiioice, but really, you shouldn't have.

I'm happy to contribute to the Mag as a "P" even though I don't want/need a paper copy..

Have a double decaff latte mochachino/frappe' on me Sir.
😀

Indeed. It's an issue with all kinds of digital content.. music, video, books, magazine content etc. And it all fundamentally stems from the attitude perpetuated by so many people, companies, organisations over the initial years of existence of the internet that what is on there is free.

Nothing is free. Someone has to pay for it.
The advertising industry has been picking up that bill so far but the cost of advertising is declining and so the revenues are dropping and the content isn't being paid for like it used to be.. So paywalls are appearing; Anti Ad blocking systems are being installed (C4 OD). And the latest 'new thing' is Native Advertising. ie getting advertisers, companies and marketers to write content for websites.

And Singletrack is looking into all of these.. In fact the Story on our front page for the Epic TV Job is 'Native Advertising'.

I'd love to run an ad free website. We could if enough readers felt it was worth paying £15/year for what we do. ie. 4p/day.
That is such an insignificant amount of money for the content (and I include the content provided by this forum in that) that is surely only the attitude that still prevails among all of us that the internet is free that prevents this from happening.

Bargain that, lunch costs £15pd here in Shiney Town 🙄

People are prepared to pay for content if the package is right, eg Spotify, The Times, FT etc....

Likewise I only subscribe to the STW Mag as a way of paying for the forum. Have to confess I don't actually read the mag any more.

And that is perfectly fine. The mag is a single element of what we do and we don't expect that every subscriber has to like the mag to be a subscriber. That's why until now there was the £1.49 option for just Premier site options. However, I think we can afford to roll in access to all our digital options (mag archive and App) for that price now. The intention is to increase our revenues by creating more sales of a quality product at a reduced price. This is the big gamble 🙂

I'd really appreciate it if more of you thought it was all worth £1.49/month or £15/year 🙂

And that is perfectly fine.

He's crying on the inside 🙂

I have to admit that despite having the "Digital Sub" I rarely read the magazine these days as well.

But if it's any comfort Mark that's a reflection on the spare time I have to read magazines these days and NOT a comment on the quality of the mag which I always think is pretty good when I actually do read it.

I'm happy to keep my sub on to help support the forum.

We sell 10 - 12k copies of the mag each issue.
Google says we reach 1.6 million uniques a month with our website.

I do not kid myself that the mag is universally loved by all. It's a part of what makes Singletrack 'Singletrack' but there are other parts and I don't expect that all our readers should love all of it. My job is to make as much of it worth the subs fee as possible.

🙂

Thanks Mark. I find your occasional insights into the running of and financing of Singletrack quite interesting.

Nothing is free. Someone has to pay for it.

...and if you're not paying then in the customer/product relationship you're not the customer!

Know what I'd love to see? The clasifieds becoming a subscriber-only feature. From a moderator perspective, that'd remove a vast amount of arseache.

That's slash the traffic though surely?

It might help keep people honest.

My understanding is that the classifieds were intended for forum users to help each other out by selling odds and sods. There's a lot of "classifieds only" users these days, which seems at odds with the ethos of the board to me.

Just IMHO, though.

Perhaps rather than Subscriber Only they could only be available to people with a certain number of main forum posts?

Or maybe make them Subscriber Only to sell something, but anyone can buy stuff and reply to threads there?

Know what I'd love to see? The clasifieds becoming a subscriber-only feature.

But if you weren't a subscriber at that point then you'd get the new customer only offer. Gifts at signup are available to all so long as you have been lapsed more than 3 months.

What about a new "subscriber" classifieds? More than a certain number of main forum posts will just result in Freeloaders posting crap (which i'm sure we can differentiate from normal posts 🙂 ).

I like the mag and subscribe but if I didn't I'd probably pay the cheapy "help the forum" fee, particularly if it meant I could access "slightly less likely to get ripped off" classifieds.

Stu.

There's a lot of "classifieds only" users these days, which seems at odds with the ethos of the board to me.

It's long since left the days of 'Ethos'. STW Towers is a ruthless, international mega-corp, exploiting the naive mountain biking public by pretending to be a bunch of Hippies 'op North.

(possible some of this might not be true)

Looking forward to getting my P back when the paperworks done
so my aging original Ipad can use the site easier

If you want to shape the future of Singletrackworld then you could do worse than go register over on grit.cx and see how that site works. That's the testbed for the next version of Singletrack so tell us what you like and what you don't like over there.

If we're in for a free for all comments thread then:

Classifieds, make em' pay a £5'er to advertise or Subscribe (P) not freeload. If you are a (P) then it'll be free.

Clip the sodding links to eBay ad's.

Photos of goods only, then a description.

B'out it from me, don't change it anymore. I like it here.

Ah, that's STW Mk2, which will have all those new features we're getting in 2007?

FFS...

😉

But if you weren't a subscriber at that point then you'd get the new customer only offer.

(2) Readers need to change their assumption that they have a right to read the content on a website free of ads if they so choose.

Unfortunately, as the article alludes to, that horse has probably bolted for anyone who already uses filters.

If a user no longer sees any adverts (1) they're not very likely to take a step 'backwards' to having to see them even if they behave much better, and (2) they're unlikely to know that they behave much better as they won't see them in the first place.

I know you and I have had this discussion many times (hence my mildly amusing tag), but on here I want to participate in the forum and read about bikes. As I'm not in a position to be buying anything new bike related at the moment, no amount of advertising will change that, so no net loss to you were I to not allow the adverts down my internet connection, using my data, onto my screen. Also, as I'm on a bike website, I'm unlikely to be receptive to yet another singles ad (and I suspect my wife would make me somewhat less receptive were I to be).

I appreciate that I am far from your only past and potential future customer, and am certainly not your only web visitor, but I suspect I won't be alone in my reasoning. As more people become aware of the ability to turn averts off on the internet, more people will do it.

A subscription model would be better, just slowly migrate so that you have to have a 'P' to post in classifieds, then post in the other forums. Free to read anything, to attract new members.....

The Ad based model can't last.

It seems to me that the forum which should be a sideline has massively outgrown the popularity of the mag.

Well strictly speaking the forums came first 😉

http://web.archive.org/web/20000619164009/http://www.cgi2go.com/boards/index.cgi?user=GoFar

Zokes, that would make sense if ads paid by the click, but they don't - they pay by the impression (CPM is the terminology). So you blocking the ads DOES cost us revenue, whether you respond to the ads or not. And the more people that block the ads the more resources we will be forced to put into preventing those people from viewing the content.. and that will inevitably mean accessing the forum. Just like the Times, publishers like us may look to a smaller but higher paying audience to pay for the content.

Wrecker: It's not an asset if it doesn't earn money, no matter how big the audience. We have 1.6 million uniques a month. Singletrack is one of the top 1% of websites in the world in terms of traffic (yes really!). If you come here for the forum only then the forum has value and I will look to ensure that we monetise that value. Currently registrations cost nothing in terms of cash from the reader and for that you can participate fully in the forum. That may have to change in the future and if that means fewer people in the forum but more cash in our account then that is something I am bound to consider.
People turning off the ads and then continuing to use the forum is the main force pushing me to look at other options.

Zokes, that would make sense if ads paid by the click, but they don't - they pay by the impression (CPM is the terminology).

So, indiscriminate spam would have the same effect? How about some technology that just makes all the ads transparent. You get your CPMs, and I get my screen...

Because that would be dishonest.
So how about you agree that the ads being in your field of view are worth the price of entry? The choice is still yours of course and if you think the price is too high you don't have to use the forum. But you can't use the forum without paying for it in some form or another.
We present you with two options..
1) Pay no money to us but accept the ads
2) Pay money to us and remove the ads

This option...
3) Pay no money to us and block the ads
.. is unsustainable and we'll try and prevent that.

Normally I'd hesitate to make this comment, but since we are discussing this, zokes comment suggests another option
4) Pay no money and accept the ads but hide them

It might be dishonest, but you'd never know 😈

3) Pay no money to us and block the ads
.. is unsustainable and we'll try and prevent that.

Even that won't work long term, right now it's quite easy to detect if Ads are blocked, but it would be easy to make them totally invisible to the website and if enough sites start blocking blockers, the blockers will just get smarter.....

BTW.. Subs to the site are now £1.49 for EVERYTHING!
ie. Mag archive AND App access. For £1.49 you get 13 years of mags plus the latest issue.

We previously only allowed mag archive access to the £2.99/month subscribers and app access was annual subs only.

Any existing subscribers paying more and getting less are having their accounts adjusted over the next few weeks and you will get an email shortly to explain how you will be paying less and/or getting more from now on.

That's interesting. I recently got to use the app on a 7" tablet and was really impressed. If I moved to digital-only, do STW make more or less money altogether?

that would make sense if ads paid by the click, but they don't - they pay by the impression (CPM is the terminology). So you blocking the ads DOES cost us revenue, whether you respond to the ads or not.

I've always justified doing That Which Shall Not Be Named using the two-pronged "I pay for a subscription" and "I wouldn't click on them anyway".

I'd not realised the ads were per impression not per click, so I've just whitelisted this domain.

I'd not realised the ads were per impression not per click, so I've just whitelisted this domain.

Given that big P by your name, has it made any difference to your experience? Because it probably hasn't made any difference to their CPM!

People turning off the ads and then continuing to use the forum is the main force pushing me to look at other options.

Autosport seem to be going down the route of premium and free content (just like here) but then also limiting the amount of free stuff you can access each month. Of course, you can get around it (cookies) but most people won't and I have come close to buying a digital sub (but it's just a little too expensive still).

(FWIW I am actually a ST mag subscriber... need to get that sorted...)

Back to the OP...

If add blocking is a bad as napster (I assume the old good napster!) then what is recording TV on Sky+ and fast forwarding the adds?

I'd not realised the ads were per impression not per click, so I've just whitelisted this domain.

Given that big P by your name, has it made any difference to your experience? Because it probably hasn't made any difference to their CPM!

I'd thought that even subscribers with ads turned 'off' still got some, but it turns out that they don't.

Sky is a subscription model. They get paid via your subscription whether you watch the ads or not. Sky are exploiting the best of both worlds in that they are earning revenue by charging viewers AND advertisers.

nemesis.. If you are a mag subscriber than you get Premier already. That means you can access the digital content as part of your existing subscription. If you need help getting that all working then subs@singletrackworld.com will sort you out.

Thanks Mark, I know, just need to get it sorted out...

It's not an asset if it doesn't earn money, no matter how big the audience

then what is recording TV on [s]Sky+[/s] freeview+ and fast forwarding the adds?

Wasn't aware of the CPM model either, another schoolday eh?

*plus a healthy profit obviously

The forum is built on top of free open source software and free content provided by its users. It's not all bad in this new world.

I can't help thinking that more ad-revenue would result from less obtrusive ads, that is if more revenue results from a click through, I'm not sure which model STW use. Or..maybe a cleverer algorithm that looked at the users posting history.

then what is recording TV on [s]Sky+[/s] freeview+ and fast forwarding the adds?

The ReplayTV boxes (from the early days of PVRs) used to be able to detect ads and skip them, but they went bust. I believe TiVo experimented with the same feature for a while. Not sure if they still have it now. However there are add-ons available for homebrew PVRs like MythTV that do automatic ad-skipping.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_skipping

4) Pay no money and accept the ads but hide them

It might be dishonest, but you'd never know

Dishonest perhaps, but is in effect what every single smartphone user does already with a simple double tap to zoom to the text they want to read the moment they open a page.

And as pointed out above, it's an obvious next step for 'filtering' software if sites push back too much on outright blocking.

As an aside, paywalls may work for sites where consuming is the main form of 'product'. However (and correct me if I'm wrong), a major part of this site's traffic is the forum, and behind a paywall, it may have substantially fewer contributors, despite the reasonable price discussed above.