Please whitelist ZAM ads?Follow

Why not? It seems like a great idea to me. The only reason to use adblock is because of the risk of viruses. Using the internet without adblock is one of the dumbest things that you could do, other than using limewire to look for CP. Zam hosting ads on their server not only prevents adblock from working, therefore increasing revenue, it also removes the need for it, as there's no risk of viruses. It seems like a perfect solution with no real downside for anyone.

As for polls, you can always always post the code, and there will always be someone who will quote it for you.

Also, from a pm i got from micajah:


He mentioned custom titles, so i know they're at least considering those, but other than that, he didn't say what specifically they were thinking of giving to free users. Either way, they are considering some premium features being given to everyone.

Edited, Dec 9th 2010 9:51pm by ThePsychoticOne

This is exactly what i'm talking about in the post i'm about to make. Even when there isn't something wrong with my posts, someone still just has to take a jab at me.

That and a simple desire not to look at the ads.


I don't think they're hosting ads, just a placeholder begging you to stop AdBlocking them that you see when the ads don't go through.

I AdBlocked it :D

It's not really a complaint, I just thought it was a little ridiculous.

"ZAM is supported primarily by advertisements. Please whitelist us so we can continue to build new features. :)
Sincerely,
The ZAM Team"

Ok, so you have time to develop features that beg for cash, but can't justify providing basic features for free, or build features that would make me want to pay for premium?

I chuckle in the face of it.

I bet it took more time to do than something like adding new smilies for premium members.

Look, stuff like making polls, posting images, avatars, smilies... these are things that 99% of other major forums give you for free, and maybe if ZAM did, they would attract enough non-premium members to bring in the ad revenue they need. I don't know. But I do know that in all my years posting here, there has never been any question or confusion about how the users feel-- that at least some of those features should be standard. Hell, they only JUST RECENTLY allowed you to use the search function without a subscription. It's not a case of ignorance, or not enough people asking. And it takes virtually no effort to make a feature that's available for premium members available to nonpremium members. Give me the admin login, and I can probably do it within five minutes.

Personally, I don't mind in the least little bit. It's 1/500 posts that I miss any of those things. To some extent I even appreciate it. I just think it was a comical move, at best.

I'm well aware, and as I've already noted, probably four times by now, I'm not complaining.

So you've been using the site for years, but haven't supported it by disabling AdBlock or buying $3 premium yet? How about **** off?

tl;dr - Replace the black banners with non-intrusive, non-animating, locally served advertisements. Most of those who block ads will likely respect them.

For what it's worth I understand advertising is a legitimate source of income and a natural trade off. I understand why and have no problem with zam reaching out to those like me who are blocking the ads. I'm glad this is being discussed. I would like to support zam with viewable ads.

So then, you might ask, why I block them? They're (1) often distracting eyesores (2) potentially contain malware (3) slow down site load times.

Ads are everywhere. They're ubiquitous. However... they're typically as intrusive as possible and that's where I get rubbed the wrong way. While the universal view in business is to sqeeze its consumers as hard as possible, I flat out refuse to accept it. Apparently I'm not alone. Teams of people write and maintain addons or web browsers to block ads. Individuals who are fed up seek these tools and take the time to learn them. That says a lot. Ads are too intrusive. Adblock plus is a natural result of long term abuse.

Some organizations understand this. They build non-intrusive advertising into their model. Google, a goliath of a business, is the obvious example. I have never once felt like I wanted to block an ad served through google. They make ridiculous money without squeezing their consumers. It seems to work well on smaller scales as well.

You might say it's tough to find an ad service with non-intrusive advertising which can be served locally and still provide a sufficient revenue stream. I wouldn't know. I do know I wouldn't block ads that had no animation and were served by zam.com. That solves my 3 complaints listed above.

You can try it both ways. Keep your current advertising for those who don't block ads, which is probably the majority of members. For the other still large group of members who do block ads, try an ad-service who will work with you and replace those black banners with locally served, non-intrusive advertising. If done right you might be surprised that members are ok with it.

2) An up to date antivirus software program combined with a responsible site negates this risk to almost zero.

3) This point is wrong, as far as ZAM is concerned. This is the #1 reason we force our ads to load inside of iframes. The ad servers can be completely down and our pages will happily load without pause. If a site chooses not to load ads in iframes, you are right. They can slow down the page loads. Some choose not to be cause ads in iframes are a pain in the butt to implement properly.

We do try our very best to keep the intrusion at a minimum. If we really wanted to crank it up we would have interstials, dashboards every page load (the ads that come up from the bottom), popunders constantly and more ads than content on every page.

It's a very difficult balancing act for us. Gone are the days when someone can make a popular fan website for a game that is popular. They get crushed by their own success. It isn't a matter of it being a full time job for them or anything else. It's a simple matter of the cost of hosting the site. Just the bill we receive every month for the bandwidth alone is approaching 5 figures, for our entire network. Server costs are in addition to that.

We really do try our best to keep the ads to a minimum. Not a week goes by when we aren't working with our advertisers and sales staff to keep the user experience positive. We frequently pull ads that do not meet our standards, if they are remnant (come from a giant pool of ads) or direct sales. Flash ads that use far too much cpu, play sound without the user clicking on them, flashing ads, etc. all get pulled as soon as we find out about them.

Ironically, we can't run google's ads. We would need to hire someone full time just to keep blocking all the gold/gil/isk selling ads that would appear in them.

The purpose of the graphic which people who adblock ads see is not a different method for us to advertise. It is simply to educate and explain why we run ads and hopefully encourage people to whitelist our site(s).

Just to play Devils Advocate, if that risk is even 1%, that's too much.

I feel the need to add point (4): many of them these days feel the need to talk at me. If I have to listen to one more woman yammer on about her dirty windows, I'm gunna scream.

I've never heard a talky add at Alla, but it's the places that go too far that ruin it for everyone with these kinds of things. Sort of like with pop-up windows. Man what a crappy concept THAT was.

I wonder if there's an advertisement theory that is based on an anti-reaction to current advertisement methods. Sort of like wikipedia's exceptionally tasteful personal appeal donation requests (which actually did entice me to toss $35 to a good cause.) I think by gaining people's trust and then NOT LATER ABSUING IT fundraising and other advertisement methods would be a lot more effective.

Edited, Dec 11th 2010 11:53am by Erecia

If you ever find an ad on any of our sites which loads and plays sound without any user interaction, report it and we will remove it immediately.

The reason that I block the ads is because despite what I have read from some of the admins in this thread - they DO slow the site to a crawl. If I accidentally come here after using IE for something work-related, I immediately know it because the scrolling is slow and typing a post is like nails on a chalkboard. I just can't do it - and here at work I have a decently fast pipe.

I find it funny that after ad-blocking the little quip that Zam created, the rating buttons also disappeared. I'm going to leave it that way because I always felt the karma system was mostly a joke anyway so it doesn't matter one way or the other - but this did not in any way encourage me to buy premium nor turn adblock back off. It was cute and silly, but it's just getting exasperating with this site and I am in agreement that you can do much more on other sites without this "in-your-face" approach to get money.

I can't sit here for ten minutes per post because ads are slowing everything down, no matter how much I enjoy the community and admins on this forum.