I've Had Enough & Today Everyone Has The Phoronix Premium Experience

[KBentley57]

I'm not a subscriber, and I browse the internet as a whole with adblock, but I do toss a $10 tip every now and again because I like what you've got going on here. I'll add a +1 to having a permanent donate section somewhere near the top of the page. Every time I donate I have to find the paypal link in a story. If it were easier to donate, I'm sure it would help a tad. Also +1 on taking a day off. If I were going on 3 years without a solid vacation I would be getting -1 work done.

[cjcox]

Do something good for the world... buy phoronix premium. It's more than worth it.

[Dukenukemx]

Maybe it's time for advertisements that you put on the site that appeal to linux users. Like Raspberry Pie like devices, or Mint machine boxes. With no sound or animation please. A simple jpg or png will do fine.

[allquixotic]

Just subbed up again for a year when I saw this post. Crazy to see Michael in a panic like that. I was just looking for info on Unity 8 Mir with Nvidia driver.

[Luke]

Maybe it's time for advertisements that you put on the site that appeal to linux users. Like Raspberry Pie like devices, or Mint machine boxes. With no sound or animation please. A simple jpg or png will do fine.

Part of the problem is that internet advertisers have gotten hooked on the current 3ed party network/tracking model that seeks to match users rather than content. This is like subscribing to a print magazine which has no ads of its own, and where the mailman is expected to insert advertising pages based on your address and what else is in your mailbox. That's not how magazines actually work-they print the ads directly on the page, and they are placed to be relevant to the page in question or those next to it. In the old days when I used to race cars, over half the ads in the hot rod magazines were hardcore tech ads from those selling components, and were in fact a substantial part of the content and value of the magazine. This was rather like letting sex workers run their classifieds on a porn video site-the ads matched the content. There was a parallel though to the current Internet: the big alcohol and tobacco companies paid far more to run their shit than than any chassis builder or component vendor could ever hope to match. Booze ads in a racing car magazine were the height of inappropriate advertising.

Nvidia would have a pretty good chance of reaching their fans here with ads that (like a magazine) were native to the page itself, part of the text and set of images, and where Nvidia's ads were part of the Nvidia centererd articles. Same for AMD, Intel, etc. This is a new model for online , wonder if Phoronix is big enough to approach the big hardware vendors about a "special deal" in light of all the free work they get from Michael. Hell, when a print magazine has an online edition, the native ads stay as they are part of the content itself. They pose no risk to the user and work anytime the magazine itself is not blocked. The advertisers had better well be paying for those extra views.

[F1esDgSdUTYpm0iy]

You do good work, but there are other websites with owners in a very similar situation to yours who are doing fine and have really polished content.

I think Michael is caught in a tug-of-war between trying to generate revenue, to keep Phoronix afloat on one end and producing solid, polished content on the other. It's a tough tug-of-war to fight.

[johnc]

Advertising departments don't think twice about spending a ton of cash on TV, radio and print advertising. But when it comes to the web, they think they should get like a million views for a buck.

Right now website advertising is just a tough business model. If you can convert a decent portion of your page views into click-throughs, you could get by. But by impressions alone it's practically impossible, and only getting more challenging.

[Spacefish]

Aw.. You get single page articles when subscribing? I wondered why you even split your articles into many pages.. Wrote myself a small Inpage Script to automerge these pages.. Didn´t see the advertisments on each page, hence adblock..

[Azrael5]

I prefer advertising rather than paying money, preferably specified advertises of hardware and software. However you could issue a paypal logo where to get free offers.

[Jhackler]

Perhaps running fund raisers like Wikipedia does and instead of removing ads only for subscribers make having a phoronix premium subscription provide premium features for the bench-marking suit. Stuff like storing and comparing results and other web based features, or making new features premium first. Then decrease volume of articles, while staying semi regular with the updates.