[ziplock]

Another provocative ad in the new posts section! I got some questionable looks from a few co-workers today. Great advertisement I guess, but these are starting to verge on NSFW. What's next? ****-Fi?

~ZIp

 

[saint.panda]

I don't know what's next, but I do know that most of my screen, when I log onto headfi, is filled with ads or sponsor forums now. And that is with 1440x900.



And in in the headphones and members' lounge forums, you always have the sponsor forums on top.

And you always have the google ads and the featured ads and the sponsors on the right side.

And I find the changing sponsor logo in the upper right corner to be very annoying even if it's a necessity in light of the amount of sponsors.

This is the screen I see when I go to the forum that I frequent the most. Most people probably see it that way, but I just find it pretty tough that you have to scroll down to see the first meaningful thing on the page.



Ok, I don't how much it costs (both time and money) to maintain a server like headfi, certainly a lot, and I don't know if headfi is supposed to generate revenue or not, but I find the amount of ads increase in the last year to be too much in my honest opnion. If it costs so much to maintain a server like that, I'd be really glad to contribute in a monetary fashion, which was also my initial reason to do so, but now I really wonder whether it makes any difference at all. If the ads and sponsor presence are going to increase anyway, what differences does it make? Perhaps I am oversensitive to this, perhaps this is just normal on the internet, but it bugs me and I wanted to say it.

Further, the presence of manufacturers is much more felt now. Sometimes, it's good because these are good people but impartiality suffers. When you see people bashed for bashing manufacturers, I'm not sure that's the type of openess one has to set the standard to. Certainly, these are things that result from headfi's size and the amount of impact it has come to have on the headphone industry, but I'd hate to see my favourite forum heading into the wrong direction more than it is already.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Duggeh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by saint.panda /img/forum/go_quote.gif And I find the changing sponsor logo in the upper right corner to be very annoying even if it's a necessity in light of the amount of sponsors.

It might be necessary to have it, but its not necessary to have every single picture be a different size, causing the page to spasm up and down with the transitions. Those links to sponsors are also doubled up in text in addition to those pictures. So its 2 identical sets of adverts for one sponsor plus a 3rd depending on the rotation.

I much preferred the listed sponsors links in text at the top banner, as is still the layout in the mall-fi forum

Although I recognise that the sponsors are there in the side bar to keep the featured ads company and that the site needs revenue from the advertisements I wish that the layout were not so claustrophobically intrusive as it is.

I also do not see the advantage of the most recent sponsored threads bar.

 

[M0T0XGUY]

Also, the underlined text ads are a bit ridiculous, although I do understand that only visitors will see them. It sort of gives off the vibe that Head-Fi is just another save-a-space site that people visit by accident or come across on a random Google search - not a unique community of avid audiophiles and music lovers.

I realize that the bill for Head-Fi must be absolutely atrocious, and that these ads most likely provide 99% of the Fi's income, but I also believe that, in the past year especially, the moderators might have gone a bit overboard on the advertisements. Just my opinion of course.

 

[Duggeh]

I don't pretend to know what the difference in advertising revenue is versus the donations made by some members. But what I would like, as a donor, and as donor who will continue to donate, is that donor members do not have to put up with the Google ads at all.