Ads in posts????

[Captcush]

I've been around these parts for over 9 years now. My post count isn't that high. I read alot. When the board software switched over and existing post counts got reset, I never asked to have mine updated to reflect my true overall posting on this forum. I only mention this because it seems posters with low posts counts aren't taken seriously.

I've noticed *paid advertisements* in posts lately. Never noticed it before. Don't see a way to turn it off.

I understand the need to make a buck and don't begrudge Brandon for wanting to do that. Ads at the top and bottom of forum pages are pretty much SOP across the net. I participate in several other forums in addition to this one and have never seen *paid advertisements* embedded within posts.

The reason I mention this is that when I'm at the bay, my internet connection is limited to a Verizon broadband card with a monthly limit of 5 gig. I have no idea how much monthly bandwidth gets used up with these *paid advertisements* embedded in the posts, but I can tell you that since noticing these ads, I have seriously limited coming to the board to check for posts while I'm at the bay and on my broadband card, because the overage charges are ridiculous.

As I said, Brandon has every right to do what he wants to make a buck. I'm simply conveying that I have reduced my reading here as a result.

[SlateDog]

I experienced the ads within posts when the system was initiallly cut over to the new framework. I have not seen them in posts for quite a well. They just quit displaying for me for some reason after a couple of weeks. I didn't begrudge Brandon and his enterprise for trying to make a few bucks but I admit I found them visually annoying and it did tend to negatively impact the customer experience a bit (so to speak). I am a subscriber so maybe that had something to do with the ads in posts going away (for me) but I am not sure. I was a subsriber before the new framework was deployed and they were there for a while after the cutover but not now, so maybe a policy change or maybe they just quit hitting you with them after you sustain some minumum number of views. All I know is that for some reason they quit showing up in posts that I was viewing. Also, for what its worth, after you calculate your data consumption cost for just being on the site at all, I think the ads will have a minimal impact on the amount of data consumed against a 5GB limit if you are just using it on weekends. YouTube or Netflix could hammer you though!!

[Brandon]

Thanks for the feedback! I've answered this question in a few other thread on this feedback board, here is my response.

Subscribers see less ads and should not see ads in actual threads. We are not set on anything yet and put the ads in the threads to not take up room on other parts of the site which would have bumped the page way down and made it hard to navigate. We did try putting a square ad at the top and it simply make the site look and feel terrible. I thought putting them in the thread would be less intrusive given they show up to the right of threads.

The money that is being generated from those ads is going to a few new things 1) a new Assistant Editor that we hired who will be expanding and allowing us to have regular weekly fishing reports for the whole east coast (these are located on the TidalFish.com homepage), we already used some of the money to add some new features like the chat room bottom of all pages , we added a whole new fishing picture and album gallery, see the Gallery Link at the top of the site or check this fishing pictures link , last weekend we doubled everyone's, at all levels, picture storage, I am working on a video server which will allow us all to post and host videos and lastly for now, we are building a kick butt weather, tide, fishing forecast center. We used to have a good weather/tide center, but it was lost when we launched this new format. I'm sick of not having a good fishing weather site, so I am having us build a good one.

The ads allow us to be able to continue to do the sorts of things above. It's part my fault for not communicating this better, but I do plan to tell everyone in the next newsletter.

As for using bandwidth, I totally get that and am fed up with overage stuff myself. Seems bandwidth should be getting cheaper, not more expensive. Anyway, the ads are not that big in general so they should not be eating up a lot of bandwidth. You'd eat more bandwidth with someone posting a fishing picture in a thread then an ad.

Thanks for the feedback, I hope you understand. Also, I am not set that the ads will stay in the threads for non-subscribers, if I can find a better place to put them I will for sure.

Thanks

Brandon

[Captcush]

Thanks for the explanation Brandon.