Hi All --- We've always wanted to present a CG site with no internal advertisements that distract from the art work and clutter user portfolios.  But, to run the site we obviously need a revenue stream. 

We've been toying with the idea of offering large companies an opening road block 30 second video on entrance to the site.  This would only be experienced by each entrant once in every 24 hours.  In exchange for this, the site would be Ad free.  We would also re design the site so that the unused space would be converted to editorial, like software reviews and 'the making of' etc. that would give users more relevent CG oriented information.

I need your feedback!  Would this type of concept work for you, or would you not tolorate the 30 second per day inconvenience?  We don't want to discourage users from visiting the site, but we do want to present a better user experience when users arrive.

Please let me know your thoughts on this idea.  We won't take any action until we hear from our users.

Thank you very much!

 

David
ShareCG Admin

Hello David,
  I have a slow modem connection.  Due to ShareCG’s policies to terminate uploads and downloads after a specific amount of time, I have about a 5mb limit on file transfers, and with several attempts per 5mb transfer, a single transfer can cost me many hours before I eventually give up.  Although viewing the video may only take 30 seconds, downloading the video to my PC could take 15 minutes to an hour (It depends on the file size).  I would have to close my account if it started taking me 15 minutes to an hour every time I wanted to login in.
                     -David

Hi David .... For video uploads we use a progressive system that isn't supposed to ever time out.  However, what might be happening is a that since you're on a slow connection the network hiccups and looses data somehow and has to reset.    The Only time-out we have on our servers is for straight downloads, like when you directly upload an image without using the progressive upload system, and it's set for 40 minutes.  We don't want to loose you, or anyone, as a user and want to get to the bottom of this somehow.  If you can email me directly, by clicking the 'contact us' link below, with more detail we'll try to replicate your problem somehow and see if we can find a technical solution for this.

Personally I wouldn't care much either way since I don't hang out here much anymore. But I can understand why a lot of people would find this a big stumbling block. A 30 second ad on the internet is like a half hour infomercial on TV. I would limit adverts of this nature to no more than 15 seconds and try to keep them under 10. We are dealing with the ADD of the world here and most just won't sit still that long to get onto a site like this. They'll just go somewhere else. JM2C

DAD

A 30 second ad is a very long time, internet wise, but I do like the idea of ad free for the rest of the site.  The animated ads in particular are a huge nuisance for me when my connection is having issues. 

Perhaps a cut down to a 10 or 15 second front door ad, or possibly, let a single company sponser all the ad spaces with flat, non moving ads that link to their 30 second ad or web page? 

The "front door" ad, also, may be confusing to people.  They may wonder where in creation the link they clicked led them to. 

Hi ... I just wanted to let you know that we are reading your responses and are taking them seriously.  Thank you, and keep them coming!

I don't know what most people would do. but I almost always close the page when I come apon a site that forces me to sit through a video. Mainly because I'm on dialup. and even a small video takes too long to play. If a page takes more than a couple minutes to load I close that too and any page with a video takes too long to load. I suspect that if broadband were offered where I live that might be different. But that is just my own preferance and there are probably quite a few who would feel the same. I'm not really saying I don't like the idea. but I felt I needed to give a point to consider.