I’ve heard enough scuttlebutt about noisemaking ads, malware, flashing ads—no way am I looking at them, let alone clicking on their links. If the SDMB had well-vetted ads that were actually of interest to the kind of people that post on the board, I’d be delighted to turn off my ad blocking and click on some links. From comments I’ve read here and elsewhere about the ad service on the board, I’m not willing to risk accessing the site without a full suit of armor, so I have no idea what kind of advertisements do appear, but from context I’ve formed the impression that they’re just the usual garbage one might find on any public message board.
What would really bring in the $$$ would be the SDMB getting reimbursed for click-throughs on the links Dopers include in thread content. I’ve found some of my favorite sites, shopping and otherwise, through suggestions in posts here. Not sure how that would be possible, though.
Ed has said the board is financially stable. They operate on a very small positive balance, IIRC. However, I do not know the percentanges of that income - how much from ads, how much from paid memberships, how much from custom titles, etc. I would suspect that the paid memberships are a significant chunk. Without any information at all except the prices of memberships, I would totally WAG something like 60% paid memberships, 35% ads, 5% custom titles.
But that’s just my totally uninformed guess based without any experience whatsoever.
They used to have google text ads here, but they were removed due to their unpopularity. Ironically, I liked them and would invoke them if a check box option was provided. Admittedly, I’m a rare case.
I would click on them occasionally. I’m unlikely to click on a graphic ad. My ad-aware settings are on low and I use flashblock to handle moving ads. I support internet advertising as long as it is non-intrusive, subject to good sense. I run anti-spyware apps periodically to clear my cookies.
Bozuit: Realistically, they can’t release their numbers. The board has gone through at least 3 ownerships over the past decade or so. Try some math though. The board currently has 6,892 active members, those who have visited within the last ___ days. Round that to 7000. Assume they earn $7.50 per member, which is half the standard membership rate and equal to the discounted charter rate. That’s $52,500. That would be nice for a hobbyist, but won’t cover a single professional salary + benefits for one year. But it might keep the suits off their case. This board is a little like Marvel comics in say 1985. Sometime in the distant future (i.e the past 10-15 years), CGI might advance to the point that their properties could become really, really valuable. Similarly, this brand might be worth big bucks someday… or not.
If you double my figures, it’s still not a huge amount of money for a business. But anybody pinching pennies should probably direct their funds elsewhere, IMHO. PBS is a fair analogy.
Actually, increasingly we’re getting action from companies asking us to remove such links.
Apparently Google is policing this situation up, I guess there’s been a lot of abuse. (Gee, however could that happen?) They’re requiring advertisers to clean up their history of backlinks. We routinely get requests to remove links from old postings because Google has threatened them over the situation.
Exact financial figures are not made public – the Straight Dope has been privately owned and the parent company has not had to report numbers – but the site is expected to pay for its own expenses and even make a profit.
Last we heard on this subject from Ed Zotti the site was operating at a slight – a very slight – profit.
Actually Google ads were turned off for subscribers because the promise was that subscribers would see no ads and that means no ads at all on the message board.
If you’d like to see them all you have to do is log out and look at the site without signing in. If you click on them, that’s even nicer, thank you very much.
Suddenly… membership? Did someone buy one for me? I’m a little surprised. I’ll reimburse whoever it was because it’s not like I absolutely can’t find $15 and I’m not really the most deserving member (“abrasive” wouldn’t be an unfair description). I feel like I’ve conned some kind person. But thanks!
That’s kind of … sad, really. I guess I can understand it given the vintage of this board, but it seems like a lost revenue opportunity for message board communities like this if Amazon (for example) can’t give you guys a quarter when I use a link from a thread to give them $15 for a particular book. Hell, it’s not just sad, it’s un-American!
Ha! That’ll teach you. (No, it wasn’t me; Mr. Zotti and I have a difference of opinion about methods of payment.) BTW, “abrasive” really doesn’t rank around here. Now that you’re a member you’ll have to ramp it up.
Be grateful – at one point the time between searches was 5 minutes.
(There IS a script you can add to your browser if you want to use avatars, though. You don’t have to be a member to use it, either)
