Ad blocking = No longer welcome at matrixowners.com

[kostby]

This friendly message greeted me when I tried to log-on to Matrixowners.com last night: Quote » It has been detected that you are using an ad blocking software. Matrixowners.com provides a service at no cost to you. We do this by collecting ad revenue. If you simply cannot bear to view ads while using this free service it is suggested you go somewhere else.Maybe I should post this in the HUMOR forum here, because I posted my request to be removed from mo.com, and when I viewed my posting, here's a screenshot of the ads that were running next to the 'Quick Reply' window!!!Now THAT'S hilarious!!!BTW: I do have IE6 with the popup blocker, but it's not even turned on!

[ragingfish]

Eh. MO isn't what it used to be anyway.To hell with them I say!

[ColonelPanic]

Sheesh, that's a real friendly message they sent your way. I don't even remember if I have an account over there. Can't say I frequent that site... I second Raging's "To hell with them I say!"

[PhillyVibeGT]

Oh yeah, they seem like very nice people over there, although I have never been over there, other than thread redirects to look at something....maybe they are upset that they don't drive Vibes.

[Mr. Poopypants]

I say F THEM!

[damronjr]

It's their loss. When they get down to 5 members maybe they'll rethink their little strategy.

[joatmon]

there's a thread over there about ads, and in it the guy who runs the site says:"This site depends on ad revenue to survive. So if you can’t bear to view a few ads to use a free resource then leave the site. I am serious I don’t want you as a member."Sure is a great way for a site admin to make people feel welcome. If genvibe needs to increase ad money, just let us know and we can start an ad clicking campaign. I think the sentence that appears in the forums here more than any other is "welcome to genvibe" That's pretty cool.

[rasermon]

e996sh better make a fast decision or risk the lost of more members.Very unprofessional!!!

[Baltovibe]

Quote, originally posted by rasermon »e996sh better make a fast decision or risk the lost of more members.Very unprofessional!!! Looks like he already did!http://www.matrixowners.com/fo...09130

[Mr. Poopypants]

It is still kind of a "Give me money or go away" message.

[Mr. Poopypants]

I must once again, give a standing O to all the admins and mods of this site for keeping it up and running. This is such a valuable resource for all Vibe and Matrix owners, and I may as well give a quick HELLO to all the MO users who will be coming over here.

[Kari]

I don't see how popup ads would bring in any more revenue than Google in-text ads anyway. I never click on a popup simply because they cannot be trusted and they often lead to scams. Not to mention that popups on a message board are annoying as hell, because you're viewing so many pages in a succession.Yep, screw them...not getting a red cent from me. I only surf that site when I'm bored; guess I won't be doing that anymore.

[PhillyVibeGT]

Quote, originally posted by Mr. Poopypants »I must once again, give a standing O to all the admins and mods of this site for keeping it up and running. This is such a valuable resource for all Vibe and Matrix owners Thanks guys, this site has opened a new world to me and my Vibe, keep up the good work.

[ColonelPanic]

Quote, originally posted by joatmon »If genvibe needs to increase ad money, just let us know and we can start an ad clicking campaign. I think the sentence that appears in the forums here more than any other is "welcome to genvibe" That's pretty cool. Heck yeah! And I'd go a step further - I'd be more than willing to donate a buck or two to this place if the need ever presents itself. I sure wouldn't donate to those other guys. You just can't beat the people here, I haven't found an automotive forum this good in many years. Not to mention tons of useful info. We rock.

[Baltovibe]

Quote, originally posted by Kari »I don't see how popup ads would bring in any more revenue than Google in-text ads anyway.Is "Goooooogle" associated with Google?

[tnpartsguy]

there are other ways to fund a site

[rasermon]

Quote, originally posted by Baltovibe »Is "Goooooogle" associated with Google?Did a WHOIS search on goooooogle.com (6 o's).Domain Name: GOOOOOOGLE.COM Administrative Contact Domain Admin: web100p2@verizon.net Domain Admin 19744 Beach Blvd # 428 Huntington Beach, CA 92648 US Phone 413-521-7369 Fax Technical Contact Domain Admin: web100p2@verizon.net Domain Admin 19744 Beach Blvd # 428 Huntington Beach, CA 92648 US Phone 413-521-7369 Fax Billing Contact Domain Admin: web100p2@verizon.net Domain Admin 19744 Beach Blvd # 428 Huntington Beach, CA 92648 US Phone 413-521-7369 Fax Record updated date: 2005-01-01 01:23:25 Record created date: 2002-05-16 Record expires on date: 2006-05-16 Database last updated on: 2005-02-18 14:38:14 ESTWHOIS search on goooooooogle.com (8 o's). Registered through: GoDaddy.com Domain Name: GOOOOOOOOGLE.COM Created on: 15-Nov-02 Expires on: 15-Nov-05 Last Updated on: 04-Feb-04 Administrative Contact: , service@goooooooogle.com +1.51064461 2125 Milvia Street Berkeley, California 94704 United States Technical Contact: , nocontactsfound@secureserver.net +1.51064461 2125 Milvia Street Berkeley, California 94704 United StatesWHOIS search on google.com (2 o's).Domain Name: google.comRegistrar Name: Alldomains.comRegistrar Whois: whois.alldomains.comRegistrar Homepage: http://www.alldomains.com Administrative Contact:DNS Admin (NIC-1340142) Google Inc.2400 E. Bayshore Pkwy Mountain View CA 94043 USdns-admin@google.com +1.6503300100 Fax- +1.6506181499 Technical Contact, Zone Contact:DNS Admin (NIC-1340144) Google Inc.2400 E. Bayshore Pkwy Mountain View CA 94043 USdns-admin@google.com +1.6503300100 Fax- +1.6506181499 Created on..............: 1997-Sep-15. Expires on..............: 2011-Sep-14. Record last updated on..: 2003-Apr-07 10:42:46.http://www.networksolutions.co...jhtml

[joatmon]

I see ads here on genvibe from the six-O goooooogle

[rated_w]

I went to matrix owners before and posted a hi.. not one person responded..

[Baltovibe]

Quote, originally posted by rasermon »Did a WHOIS search on goooooogle.com (6 o's).When I look at the redirection link on the "Ads by Goooooogle", the base URL is http://www.googlesyndication.com .Whois gives:Registrant:Google Inc.(DOM-279516)2400 E. Bayshore Pkwy Mountain ViewCA94043 US Domain Name: googlesyndication.comRegistrar Name: Alldomains.comRegistrar Whois: whois.alldomains.comRegistrar Homepage: http://www.alldomains.com Administrative Contact:DNS Admin(NIC-1407322) Google Inc.2400 E. Bayshore Pkwy Mountain ViewCA94043 USdns-admin@google.com +1.6503300100 Fax- +1.6506181499 Technical Contact, Zone Contact:DNS Admin(NIC-1340144) Google Inc.2400 E. Bayshore Pkwy Mountain ViewCA94043 USdns-admin@google.com +1.6503300100 Fax- +1.6506181499 Created on..............: 2003-Jan-21. Expires on..............: 2006-Jan-21. Record last updated on..: 2004-Dec-20 03:22:23. Domain servers in listed order: NS1.GOOGLE.COM216.239.32.10 NS2.GOOGLE.COM216.239.34.10 NS3.GOOGLE.COM216.239.36.10 NS4.GOOGLE.COM216.239.38.10So maybe Goooooogle is associated with Google?

[rasermon]

Quote, originally posted by Baltovibe »So maybe Goooooogle is associated with Google?From my research and the link joatmon sent me it seems soooooo.http://www.webpronews.com/insi....htmlI don't care for 6-o's though.

[Mr. Poopypants]

Personally, misspelling does not constitute "Cool" Let us not forget the great spam that offers you |iagr@, and P@rn. Misspelling leads to mistrust.

[rasermon]

This is only a guess, but it might be a test by Google to see if they can bypass adblocking software by changing the text. Of course it wouldn't be hard for the adblocking software to pattern match all possible reptitions of 'o'. But they might just be testing to see how well it works before coming up with a better solution.

[Mavrik]

MO is over rated. I had fun there of course, meet some of the members to, really cool. But as for ads, I have yet to have clicked on an add I saw anywhere, blocked or not, they make NOTHING off me lol.

[ColonelPanic]

Quote, originally posted by Mr. Poopypants »Misspelling leads to mistrust.Yep, everyone might as well start spelling like a h4x0r, since apparently that's cool... lol!

[AzFusionGT]

I agree with ColonelPanic. This site rocks! The people here are a higher caliber than people I've encountered at other sites. Rated_w: I've had that same experience. I thought that all the sites would be like genvibe, but sadly they are not. I've had such great experiences at this site, that, although I don't have pics yet, I put genvibe.com decals on the side rails of the cargo rack on my Vibe. Gotta get the word out, and let others know what a cool site this is.Yes, ColonelPanic, We Rock!

[tecton]

yeahso basically here is what happendyou have a site thats freestarts costing 2-300$ a month for bandwidth and spaceso he sticks in some ads to pay for it, keeping it free for the end userat this point everyone should have shut their mouthsnope....someone went and said "ILL JUST BLOCK THEM HYUCK"now you pissed off the admin, he knows his ads arent getting hitseveryone shoulda kept it shut, and just blocked the ads on their ownthats what i did, thats what alot of people diddont bag on MO cause someone doesnt want to pay out of pocket for you all to talk to each otherto the original poster 2 things1, how is it hypocrytical?2. what do you expect to have happen "im going to circumvent your source of income and blatently steal service from you when you intend to have my view an ad as payment for use"

[joatmon]

I don't think the problem was with the ads themselves, but more the way that the site admin handled it. It's ok that the site has ads, and that the ad revenue covers the site operating costs and provides profit for the guy who set it up and runs it. No problem there, people seem to like the site, there is a devoted membership. However, it seems like a bad marketing strategy. i think that a polite request to ask people to not use ad blockers while at his site, or even a direct appeal to the membership to click on the ads more to help raise money for the site would have gone over a lot better. The "display the ads or you are not welcome here" message may be accurate of the site admin's attitude, but the message is like saying "You are worthless except for the money you earn for me". As a marketing strategy, the "please help" message would get a lot more ad clicks, and would help strengthen the sense of community that adds a lot of value to these kinds of forums by getting the membership to feel involved in keeping the site aound, - every member is important. I don't mind the ads, but this all makes me want to get the ad blocker plug in and only use it over at that other site.

[ColonelPanic]

Absolutely, I agree with you! These sites take such an enormous amount of money, resources, and time to stay alive. There isn't anything wrong with advertising in order to help cover some of those costs.However, as was mentioned in the first thread:Quote »BTW: I do have IE6 with the popup blocker, but it's not even turned on!So, he wasn't knowingly or intentionally trying to prevent the site from getting the revenue required for survival. I found the message a bit harsh and uncalled for - I can't imagine myself sending anything like that to even the biggest freeloader on the board who wants something for nothing. I don't know why he received the message - perhaps his browser was not reporting its capabilities to the server properly, maybe the server didn't detect the browser properly. Hard to say, I don't use MSIE, don't know how exactly MSIE reports itself, nor do I know the depth of information that the server collects from its visitor's browsers. Sounds like a good theory though. But what's important here is that it does not seem that there was any attempt made to circumvent the site's system for revenue generation.I mentioned above that sites can use advertising to help with the cost... But not sure how effective pop-ups will be in the future. This is just my theory, maybe MHO as well - the end of the pop-up advertising era is just over the horizon. For several years now, many of the browsers I have used have had the capability of blocking new windows that you didn't request by clicking on a link. The guys like Opera, Mozilla, Firefox, etc. were far ahead of the game compared to Microsoft and their Internet Explorer - some even years ahead. But that's just not enough market share to make that large of an impact, I would imagine. Now that Microsoft has finally realized that the blocking feature may very well be something the end users want, they've finally implemented it. Better late than never. Now that MSIE users have the option of using this feature, I think the cash flow from the pop-up ads will drastically decline. With 90%+ or whatever market share MSIE has, there's no way sites will be able to rely on these type of ads. Even if half of visitors have the ads blocked, that's still quite a chunk of change. No dobut that has the potential to have a negative impact on the site. And I can see why an admin wouldn't be a happy camper when they lose a big percentage of their cash flow overnight.So, I think it would be better to just rely on a simple banner ad just like we have above. Less likelihood of it being blocked by your visitors. Of course it's still possible depending on the browser - some will let you deny loading of images from a particular server. But that may be something that isn't as widespread as pop-up blocking since it isn't anywhere near as annoying for the most part. Times are changing, and strategies for bringing cash into the business should change along with it.And if that still doesn't pay the bills, if you offer a quality site that your visitors value greatly, you'll easily find enough people to help you out any way they can. I know I'd be among the first to lend a hand to keep things afloat if the site was an important part of my life - like this place.Just my $0.02 that I gave gvc by clicking on an ad.

[rasermon]

I see a donation button is in place now with a more professional attitude. http://www.matrixowners.com/forum/about36782.html

[ragingfish]

Damn, the ads are EVERYWHERE on MO! Inline in threads, down at the quick reply box, up top...Thank god for GV, I'd kill myserlf if I had to look at that crap all day.

[kostby]

At the risk of adding another 1000 gallons of gasoline to the fire and extending the life of this thread way way beyond what it deserves...Simply stated, I will not visit, lurk, or post on matrixowners.com again. From other messages posted in this thread, e996sh has apparently removed the popup blocking code detection, the offensive message, and is now actively soliciting 'donations' to support the site. e996sh IS FORGIVEN, and THIS thread should be locked, now and forever. AMEN.In fact, I'm going to REPORT this post the the moderator(s) as soon as it's posted! LOL----------------Since there were a number of issues and legitimate questions raised in the postings that followed my original post, I'd like to respond...I've had discussions with my son about how some day really soon, the true cost of 'THE INTERNET' (computing power, storage, bandwidth, and personnel cost of supporting and administering all that hardware) is going to 'HAVE' to be paid for by a) subscriber fees, or b) taxes, or c) both a and bd) some other revenue stream I can't think of at this hour of the morning.-----------------CHRONOLOGY:When I visited matrixowners.com early one morning last week, I first encountered the terse 'popup blocker' message that was part of my original post in THIS thread, in it's own window. It was in very large text, probably 24 points tall. Next, I opened the 'Last 100 posts' window, very near the top, I saw the original thread (I'm know I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like "Ad blocker = banned from site".) It seemed to indicate that if you used a popup blocker you would be banned from the site.I immediately opened the thread, because I took offense, since I had never seen*1* ANY indication that my IE6 popup blocker was actively blocking ANY ads from matrixowners. Not wanting to 'STEAL' from matrixowners.com, I immediately posted a request that the admin delete my user id, registration info, and all my posts (again, I'm paraphrasing.)Quote, originally posted by tecton »to the original poster 2 things1, how is it hypocritical?I clicked 'post' on my reply. IMMEDIATELY, the context-sensitive filters in the Google ad window at the bottom of the matrixowners screen showed ads for FOUR POPUP BLOCKERS! I found THAT to be an odd and ironic form of hypocrisy.Why? The admin does not want site users to use popup-blockers, but yet here's an ad appearing immediately with FOUR of them to be advertised! I quickly did a screen capture, and posted my second, and FINAL message on matrixowners, criticizing the hypocrisy I just mentioned. *2* Then, WHILE STILL UPSET, I posted the message which begins this thread, because I was utterly shocked by the stark contrast between the friendliness of Genvibe admins and apparently malice of Matrixowners admin e996sh.----------------Quote, originally posted by tecton »to the original poster 2 things2. what do you expect to have happen "im going to circumvent your source of income and blatantly steal service from you when you intend to have me view an ad as payment for use"PHILOSOPHY:I have no problem paying to become a legitimate, registered 'user' or 'subscriber' in order to view, lurk, and post on a website that I find useful. *3* Conversely, if I don't use it, post, or even LURK on it, I DO NOT expect to be asked to pay for it.I DO expect a bit of common courtesy before being called a thief and deemed 'unwelcome', simply because of the software I choose to run on my computer!If a web site depends upon revenue generated by registered users or subscribers to the site through 'CLICKTHROUGH', I would expect a bit of common courtesy in notifying me of that fact. If 'clicking' the ads pays the bills, then LET ME KNOW, and, preferably, GIVE ME A QUOTA to click! If a website depends upon revenue generated by PAID SUBSCRIPTIONS, I would expect:1) A clear indication that some or all of the site content is restricted to paid subscribers ONLY, (e.g. RushLimbaugh.com has both free and 'subscriber' topics on the site)2) The fact that the site is a PAY site is CLEARLY STATED when you register and when you visit the home-page of the site, and3) The length of the subscription and amount of the subscription fee is clearly stated WHEN YOU REGISTER, and indicated again WHEN YOU RENEW.HOWEVER, 4) IF I am truly expected to only 'DONATE' to provide for the operation of the site, then I'll choose WHEN and HOW MUCH to donate. PERIOD. If the site is not depending upon 'paid - subscribers', but upon what is essentially people contributing out of the goodness of their hearts, then it has NO control over when or how much I donate, or if I donate at all.I'm not automatically expecting a full financial disclosure from EVERY company operating EVERY site, although a truly progressive company might provide a link to it.Examples: I have subscribed to WSJ.com (Wall Street Journal.com) when the information contained there was of value to me in my work. When the info was no longer of value, I stopped subscribing.I currently subscribe to RandMcNally.com. I find the use of that site for maps, vacation planning, and trip routing to be of value, despite the fact that it's limited to United States destinations. (Canada is excluded!)AND FINALLY, If a website is 'FREE', then I assume it to be exactly that: Free. Period. End of discussion.That doesn't mean the site operator can't change his/her mind, and become a pay site at whatever time and by whatever means he/she decides is best. BUT, if that happens, then I expect to be notified in advance, and to have the opportunity to choose to subscribe, or stop using the site within a reasonable period of time (7 days would be nice).Example: I used to subscribe to a free daily email meditation called 'On A Journey', published by former Episcopal priest Tom Ehrich. When Tom moved from a free to a paid-subscriber-only format, he gave 30 days advance notice, and encouraged everyone to sample the new format before deciding to subscribe or not. I chose not to subscribe.----------FOOTNOTES? Yes, after reading this post, I found the need to include footnotes to further explain a few things! *1* Regarding my computer and IE6 blocking pop-up ads at Matrixowners.com:1) I was NOT intentionally blocking popups from the matrixowners.com site.2) IE6 gave me NO indication that I was blocking pop-up ads from the site.3) Thinking back, IE6 has ALWAYS alerted me with a sound, an icon, and a one-line message at the top of the active window, when pop-ups ads are blocked at MANY other sites I visit, so I guess that my popup blocker is somehow 'active, although I've never taken specific action to enable it or disable it since I installed IE6.*2* Yes, I understand that the site owner, by agreeing to display Google ads (and, I assume, collect revenue in some form from Google and/or its' advertisers), has NO control over what the site user types, or what Google displays as a result. That's unfortunate.*3* The primary reason I visited matrixowners at all over the last 12 months was to converse with Genvibe members who were posting on matrixowners more than on Genvibe during the hours I was on. IIRC, I posted a total of 66 messages in the nearly 12 months I was registered. Draw your own conclusions about my postwh*ring.

[ragingfish]

WOW kostby!That's a stang-like response!