Advertisements On Phoronix

[Michael]

It's not so much the number of ads, but that you frequently allow ads that popup, resize themselves, play sound, are NSFW or otherwise make reading the site a nuisance.

Even when the ads are sensible, they're (deliberately?) placed to interrupt the flow of the article and force looking at them - do the ad operators care about this and pay more, or would positioning them less intrusively be possible?

The only welcome screen / overlay ads that should appear are once per hour and don't even occur every day... I'd say on half the days out of the year there's such campaigns and they're usually geotargeted to US or certain EU countries. Those ads are the most beneficial to Phoronix as they pay usually at least 18~20x over any other standard ad unit.

I'm not aware of any ads that play sound or NSFW.... anything annoying like that is blocked when it's reported to me descriptively -- i.e. ideally the ad URL and name.

[Luke]

I was proposing that link ads show when graphical ads are blocked

I'm not asking people to go out of their way to click ads... It's paid on an impression basis, not click basis.



Fewer ads will just result in more fastly-created articles, less interesting articles, less Linux hardware reviews, and/or the site shutting down. Having just link ads or other basic ads don't pay the bills and generate next to no revenue.

With all the work you are doing for Nvidia, AMD, and Intel they ought to be providing some financial support. The entire computer industtry benefits from the existance of sites like this. I would tell AMD and Nvidia that due to declining ad revenue it was no longer possible to purchase hardware for review and that they would be expected to pony up the hardware if they want it tested. The last thing AMD would want would be for everyone to stick to r600 because that's what all the drivers are tested and developed on! There's be a bit of brinksmanship in this, but nothing beyond what any union has to do.

Think of a car magazine. They do not have the budget to buy every product they test, especially when a single item can cost $100K. No-the makers provide them for evaluation. There are a lot of people making a lot of money on the stuff tested here, even if Linux is 1% of gamers, 1% of an industry that big is a hell of a lot of money. Also in a car magazine (or a computer magazine for that matter) the ads are often very well done to the point of being bonus content. You can sometime look at ads for cases to examine a case you want to buy inside or out and compare it to its competitors.

[Michael]

With all the work you are doing for Nvidia, AMD, and Intel they ought to be providing some financial support. The entire computer industtry benefits from the existance of sites like this. I would tell AMD and Nvidia that due to declining ad revenue it was no longer possible to purchase hardware for review and that they would be expected to pony up the hardware if they want it tested. The last thing AMD would want would be for everyone to stick to r600 because that's what all the drivers are tested and developed on! There's be a bit of brinksmanship in this, but nothing beyond what any union has to do.

Think of a car magazine. They do not have the budget to buy every product they test, especially when a single item can cost $100K. No-the makers provide them for evaluation. There are a lot of people making a lot of money on the stuff tested here, even if Linux is 1% of gamers, 1% of an industry that big is a hell of a lot of money. Also in a car magazine (or a computer magazine for that matter) the ads are often very well done to the point of being bonus content. You can sometime look at ads for cases to examine a case you want to buy inside or out and compare it to its competitors.

AMD is just the main company being uncooperative... Intel, NVIDIA, and other large companies have no problems these days in sending linux review samples. As recently as last week AMD has said that graphics cards are expensive and I am unlikely to get anything worthwhile then and they aren't interested in seeding low end GPUs, others saying I need to write review proposals, etc.

[Luke]

Tell AMD that attitude is another reason to stick with r600

AMD is just the main company being uncooperative... Intel, NVIDIA, and other large companies have no problems these days in sending linux review samples. As recently as last week AMD has said that graphics cards are expensive and I am unlikely to get anything worthwhile then and they aren't interested in seeding low end GPUs, others saying I need to write review proposals, etc.

That they are, and that is a good reason for your readers not to buy a pig in a poke. I have advised people for years not to buy anything for Linux without first checking online how it behaves in Linux. If Phoronix either closes or is forced to ignore AMD's new cards, reviews on both open and closed drivers might be run by others and posted elsewhere, but then again, maybe not. No reviews=no sale, due to unacceptable risk. If someone works at twice minimum wage, a $500 video card is a whole week's pay, maybe more after taxes. A $75 card is still 5 hour's pretax earnings at that same income level.

[mcgreg]

I've bought a Asus R9 270X recently. you might tell AMD that (also) because of your articles people buy the cards. This is a fact.
Honestly if they give a shit on you, you should do the same. For example if they won't support you, you will stop writing ANY article about AMD products.
Then stop writing for a month or so and see what happens.

[curaga]

For example if they won't support you, you will stop writing ANY article about AMD products.
Then stop writing for a month or so and see what happens.

That would hurt Phoronix more than AMD...

[mcgreg]

Thats why I said test it for 1 month. Michael should see pretty fast if he looses to many viewer and on the other side and perhaps it will be even better.

[teeedubb]

but aside from that, yes, that number of ads is necessary to compensate because of other people using AdBlock...

I think there is a chicken and egg problem here - I have disabled adblock for this site (as I do for sites I enjoy) and I do click on ads to support these sites, but the ads on phoronix are having a negative effect on my browsing experience and are making me want to enable adblock. There is too many of them and they slow down the browser and probably dont do any favours to battery life/cpu usage.

Take a look at arstechnica.com - they have ads but not overdone and in your face.

[log0]

While checking phoronix yesterday and today I've been redirected to:

http://www.uploadingg.com/DE/index.php?dv1=81848133&dv2=&dv3=&dv4=LSW-DE&sec_id=qWJ8vBQjIEzEzreLCle6C9JQY3RSCcekD38jf3J0CZCofAvePBs0C3Cnvk8a7kXeNX%EB%EB&marketing_fid=MTM5OTQ3MDk1Mi0xMzkyY2ZhYzljYTdlYjQ3YmU2NjQ2NTlhNjE2OWVjMA==

FF29, add blocker disabled, and no I didn't click on any of the ads.

[log0]

Another redirection to when visiting phoronix again:

http://update4.newflashplayer.us/Player1/C/update-de.php?installer=Flash_Player_11_for_Other_Browsers&browser_type=KHTML&dualoffer=false

I am sorry but this crap is ridiculous.