[Closed] Three to introduce Ad Blocking

Intrigued Three cusutomer here...

I suspect the main reason is that it will massively reduce the BW load for web pages, which will effectively increase network capacity. Most web pages are a few 10s kb of content and then 50Mb of crap adverts.

I suspect the main reason is that it will massively reduce the BW load for web pages, which will effectively increase network capacity. Most web pages are a few 10s kb of content and then 50Mb of crap adverts.

This +1

I don't mind adverts, but it's like junk mail, except you have to pay the postage.

+1

I have to install Opera Mini when using my phone abroad to minimise page sizes. And it doesnt work particularly well with STW site.

Nice idea, if the advertising wasn't so overblown it wouldn't have become the issue that it is. Even this site is a right pain in the arse to log back into if I've been kicked out.

Very smart move, the more I think about it. The cost for 3 to 10x network capacity through new cell sites would be billions, whereas blocking adverts probably costs a 100k in license fees for a SW module in their core and gets the same effective capacity boost to the network. I can see other MNOs following suit....

Although it won't do anything to make video more efficient...

Most web pages are a few 10s kb of content and then 50Mb of crap adverts.

This is one of the main reasons I stop everything but essential stuff from appearing. I have limited data use and refuse to throw it away on stuff in which I have no interest.

Go on, I'll ask. What's Freeloading?

What's Freeloading

It is what the forum censor changes a certain two words to. Check the page URL for what the OP actually typed

What's Freeloading

It's what any sensible person installs in their browser so they don't see adverts!

[url= http://singletrackmag.com/terms-and-conditions/ ]Our policy on freeloading[/url]

Ah-haaaa, gotcha

This website is going to be better to use then.

Although it won't do anything to make video more efficient...

That's where the CDNs are working hard to make it more efficient. Deals between CDNs and the operators to put content as close to consumption as possible to stop it clogging up large sections of the core infrastructure and backhaul.

Even this site is a right pain in the arse to log back into if I've been kicked out.

Bookmark http://singletrackmag.com/wp-login.php?redirect_to=forum/forum/ and it'll take you to the forum if you're logged in and an ad-free login page if you're logged out.

That's where the CDNs are working hard to make it more efficient.

Although on a Mobile network the main bottle neck is always the 2G/3G/4G airlink, which a CDN can't help.

Although on a Mobile network the main bottle neck is always the 2G/3G/4G airlink, which a CDN can't help.

And I bet somewhere someone has a product that downloads ad packs locally to device when on WiFi and uses them to replace Ads from webpages 🙂

As if by Ironic magic.

I now get an advert, to say that the advert by such and such will load in 90seconds, 89, 88, 87

As if I really want to sit there watching Peter Kenyeugh making stir fry with quorn for over a minute before some lifestyle coach comes on to tell me how to break up with someone healthily.

How much bandwith is actually reasonable to takeup in order to load a few lines of text on a forum? I'm never going to click on the fekin thing except to mute it.

Not sure whether this is actually a positive move for consumers:

++
Less data bandwidth for the user
Faster load times
Clutter free sites

--
Increase in pay-walls for sites that rely on advertising for free content
A potential step away from 'net neutrality'

It's the alt one that really concerns me. The next logical step for 3 would be to only allow adverts through from those that pay them an extra fee to do so.
It is a similar step to what ISP's have been trying to do for years, which is to throttle speed of access to sites (such as Netflix) unless they pay them for 'priority' bandwidth.

I'm firmly against any such measures as it hurts net neutrality and impacts on our choices as a consumer through the stifling of start-ups and new market entrants.

"Our policy on freeloading"

Unfortunately it won't be long until everyone has installed the ability to block ads, so there won't be any users who see the ads.

I am sure this is an ever decreasing circle....... ads start, people don't click on them much, more ads appear, still it's not enough........... more and more ads until site is unusable......people get put off site as it looks like cack...no new subscribers....more ads etc etc etc

Can ad-blockers be detected by the website at all?

"Our policy on freeloading"

Unfortunately it won't be long until everyone has installed the ability to block ads, so there won't be any users who see the ads.

I am sure this is an ever decreasing circle....... ads start, people don't click on them much, more ads appear, still it's not enough........... more and more ads until site is unusable......people get put off site as it looks like cack...no new subscribers....more ads etc etc etc

Can ad-blockers be detected by the website at all?

Depends how you monetise ads - some sites sell on a cost per thousand page impressions (charging for "views" of the ad), some charge on a cost per click basis, some on an affiliate basis against purchase after dropping a cookie. So dependent on the strategy of the site, more ad inventory may or may not be the right way forward.

And yes, ad blocker blocker tech is now out there thankfully. People need to be paid for making content, so you ether install paywalls (which frequently harm user numbers and resultant revenue down the line) or monetise via ads.

Blocking ads as a user is exactly the same as nicking a mag from the newsagent.

Blocking ads as a user is exactly the same as nicking a mag from the newsagent.

Hang on, the police are at the door, someone must have grassed me for running adb10ck.

Blocking ads as a user is exactly the same as [s]nicking a mag from the newsagent[/s] fast forwarding through the adverts on Sky+.

"Blocking ads as a user is exactly the same as fast forwarding through the adverts on Sky+."

Thats it exactly I would have thought - which is why it's annoying that catchup TV from Channel 4 makes you watch the ads!

Blocking ads as a user is exactly the same as nicking a mag from the newsagent.

No, it's exactly the same as taking a free copy of the metro from the train station and cutting out the adverts before reading it, just less effort.

Blocking ads as a user is exactly the same as nicking a mag from the newsagent.

Only if by reading so many adverts you get access to the "premium content" or it enables you to read pages of the magazine.

Which it doesnt. So it's not at all.

Blocking ads as a user is exactly the same as nicking a mag from the newsagent.

Aaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha.....

Talk pish. Plenty sites manage without ads, many of them higher traffic than here. Its just greed a lot of the time imo.

Its just greed a lot of the time imo.

Oh christ. I can hear STWMark's violin of poverty warming up already...

Nice idea, if the advertising wasn't so overblown it wouldn't have become the issue that it is

This. I work in Marketing and I don't believe in upsetting or nagging my customers into doing business with me. It damages the brand.

The thing that STW won't allow me to mention is a natural reaction to excessive advertising which is considered a nuisance. If we as an industry had been more thoughtful about how we use the technology available then we wouldn't have created a problem to which consumers needed to find a solution.

I agree that there are lots of business models for whom this is a problem, but if your proposition is strong enough (and for me, STW is) then you will find that people will be willing to pay for your service and you won't need to ruin the customer experience with excessive advertising.

The beauty of capitalism (when it's working properly) is it gives you the opportunity to adapt to emerging challenges, and continue to thrive...

I work in Marketing

GET HIM!

[img] [/img]

I can hear STWMark's violin of poverty warming up already...

Yeah, they had to chop it up for firewood to keep the poor staff from freezing 🙂

Personally I don't mind paying for quality content eg Newspapers / STW etc.

"Blocking ads as a user is exactly the same as nicking a mag from the newsagent." what absolute bollocks 😐

Thats it exactly I would have thought - which is why it's annoying that catchup TV from Channel 4 makes you watch the ads!

Yes. C4 have always been a pain, now they have finally started supporting chromecast, they are now forcing a login to the app. Ive given up & get what I want off torrent instead.
I watched the channel5 catchup the other night for x-files, no ads! Its was a pleasant surprise.

many sites will not be viable to run if everyone block ads, should be pretty obvious really.

many sites will not be viable to run if everyone block ads, should be pretty obvious really.

Their proposition's not strong enough then. Commerce works when customers are willing to pay for a good or service. If your good or service is something customers aren't willing to pay for and you have to find some other way of driving revenue then it's not a working commercial proposition is it?

I suspect that the advertising-instead-of-charging business model is something that has allowed a lot of sites to survive who, really and truly, have very little utility to offer.

If your good or service is something customers aren't willing to pay for and you have to find some other way of driving revenue then it's not a working commercial proposition is it?

Registered: December 24, 2008

I agree that there are lots of business models for whom this is a problem, but if your proposition is strong enough (and for me, STW is) then you will find that people will be willing to pay for your service and you won't need to ruin the customer experience with excessive advertising.

I remember when all the adverts on here were bike shops and there was always the odd space with the 'if you want to advertise here call...'.

What this ad-blockering could mean is the resurgence in online 'magazines' where there is actually worthwhile content rather than a comment on a press-release. I think an MTB weekly mag would probably do quite well, and it could be pretty huge if you gathered together a lot of currently generic online content and actually had a decent article around it. Charge £1, stick ad's in too (embedded as images, so properly paid for rather than based on cookies and stuff). It would be more current than a monthly mag, deadlines wouldn't be as harsh as it could be as big/small each week as you wanted.

[edit] STATO - Registered: January 19, 2009, and never going to pay for a [u]free forum![/u] [/edit] I don't run ad blockers either in case you wondered, that's how I support.

I'm going to remove the censor block on 'that word' as it's now such an issue that it deserves discussion.

Without going into great depth.. yet. My standpoint is conflicted.

We display too many ads on this site from your pov. It's too much. But we need them.

We charge 4p per day (£15/year) to allow you to switch them off (In fact we are about to make 'off' the default position). In addition to that your 4p gets you unlimited access to our magazine plus apps plus deals and we have members of staff who's principal job is to try and find more benefits to add to that tally.

For 9.5p/day we'll also send you a printed copy of the mag 8 times a year too, in addition to all of the above.

For that we will provide you with magazine content plus daily news, reviews and columns to entertain and inform or annoy you.

We are not raking it in. We are surviving.

But I'd still not blame anyone for installing advertising blockers (I've not turned it off yet).

Ads are mostly dreadful and we are trying to develop new ways to monetise our content in a way that doesn't piss you off. But there will always have to be ads of some kind or another. The entire publishing industry is juggling that particular onion right now.

There is a way forward. Apps for one. You can't block ads in apps (yet), which is sort of Apple's whole point of allowing you to block them in it's browsers. The thing about apps is that there simply isn't room for loads of ads for a start and yet they are more effective and annoy users less. But the advertising world has yet to catch up and pay enough for those ads to make up for the loss of the annoying ones. So, publishers like us are going to make less money while we migrate everything over to mobile.

But, the future is looking bright from a user pov. You guys are going to see less ads not more over the coming months (everywhere, not just here) as publishers move to other platforms. Facebook launch Instant Articles to all Publishers on the 12th April - That date is a big one in our diary. That system comes with built in monetisation from a very strict set of advertising rules - 1 ad per 350 words - no flashing ads - very low file sizes - no popups or interstitials... But... as publishers we get a huge audience so shoudl eb able to make it work financially. Fingers crossed.

Anyway... 4p/day.. Come on! We're cuttin' us own throats.

Please give it a go.

Can ad-blockers be detected by the website at all?

I don't know whether or not STW specifically has the technology installed to detect them (I don't have access to the code base / running gear), but I do know that it's very definitely possible. Plenty of other sites do it, it's perfectly straight forward to either display some sort of "please reconsider / whitelist our site" message or even just block the site's content completely.

So really, we should consider ourselves lucky that it's not doing that currently. It's absolutely what I'd do if I was running a site that was dependent on ad revenue for its survival.

Thanks being open about this Mark.

[quote=Mark ]Anyway... 4p/day..That

I can see why folk who barely use the forum might baulk at a whole £15 per year but many of the non-Ps are on here every day. Whether it's garnering advice on bike or non-bike stuff, learning about the latest wood-chopping techniques, getting support from other forumites or merely having a laugh at the stupidity of it all, I really can't see any better value out there 😆

Can ad-blockers be detected by the website at all?

yep, some sites do eg The Guardian detects ABers and then displays a banner asking you to pay £5/month to support the paper.

Some sites just refuse to show any content and ask you to switch ABers off. I just go to another site, no content is worth crappy ads IMO.

Some sites, like the Economist, still have Ads with paid content, which is even more annoying. If I'm paying money for the content I don't want to see a single Ad ever!

I'll also add that our classifieds is totally free - It's not sophisticated of course but it does work.

We have a donation system in place with signs encouraging users to make a small donation all over the (literal) shop.

I can't remember the last time we had any donation at all.

If I'm paying money for the content I don't want to see a single Ad ever!

Tell that to Sky/Virgin Media.

[quote=Mark ]I'll also add that our classifieds is totally free - It's not sophisticated of course but it does work.
We have a donation system in place with signs encouraging users to make a small donation all over the (literal) shop.
I can't remember the last time we had any donation at all.
You should have had one last week - for a seatpost I donated to someone.

My apologies to you sir and thank you 🙂

So really, we should consider ourselves lucky that it's not doing that currently. It's absolutely what I'd do if I was running a site that was dependent on ad revenue for its survival.

I try and bung in £5 or £10 at least once year for the classifieds.

My apologies to you sir and thank you

Bluff called, unlucky.

Tell that to Sky/Virgin Media.

So the cost of the service there is born by a combination of revenue streams (which stands to reason, any business with a single revenue stream isn't going to survive very long.

Sky etc charge a subscription and still show adverts because the combined revenue is what pays for the service (and profits ofc). So:

If I'm paying money for the content I don't want to see a single Ad ever!

What you're proposing here in effect is a tiered service. A base rate for access to content, and a more expensive subscription to make up the shortfall in lost revenue for an advertising-free service.

You might want to not see ads but if Sky (say) went, "you can have an advertising-free service for an extra tenner a month," how many would seriously take them up on it? Not may, I'd hazard.

Id make a forum that was more easily usable on mobile devices given how popular they are

Classic source of conflict. Why would we do that when that would more than halve our ad revenue?

I agree.. it would be lovely. It would be more usable and just nice. But we'd be poorer.

In fact it's sort of a moot point since I've got our mobile site on my phone right now (testing) and you will all soon get to play with it. We are going to take a big financial hit with that since the revenues for mobile sites are much less than desktop sites (even desktop sites on mobile).

My gamble is that in the long run we'll win - but we certainly won't in the short/medium term.

Well I don't pay Sky/Virgin anything (for TV) as I don't want their content at all! Quite happy to pay a TV license for the BBC though....

Classic source of conflict. Why would we do that when that would more than halve our ad revenue? ... We are going to take a big financial hit with that since the revenues for mobile sites are much less than desktop sites (even desktop sites on mobile).

OK - what the hell is this shit? 😆

"Shopping link added by SkimWords???"

Something that's been surreptitiously added to my PC/browser?

I'm very sympathetic to your reasoning STATO.

Ha! I just switched that on to see what effect it would have 🙂
You see.. Looking for non annoying ways of monetising the site in lieu of annoying flashy bandwidth sucking ads.

[quote=Mark ]I'll also add that our classifieds is totally free - It's not sophisticated of course but it does work.
We have a donation system in place with signs encouraging users to make a small donation all over the (literal) shop.
I can't remember the last time we had any donation at all.

Hmm I gave stuff away free to someone on the understanding they made a donation to this site. Must ask for proof in the future.

Phew - I've not been infected by that last [s]porn site[/s] forum I visited 😳

What you're proposing here in effect is a tiered service. A base rate for access to content, and a more expensive subscription to make up the shortfall in lost revenue for an advertising-free service.

That is what you have already on STW with premium users (which is very good value).

I can't remember the last time we had any donation at all.

I still don't understand why you don't make placing an Ad available only to Premium users....

While you're here, Mark. Why are the sidebars now black? Bit bleak.

I still don't understand why you don't make placing an Ad available only to Premium users....

Agreed.

Why are the sidebars now black? Bit bleak.

Careful now...

Careful now...

[url= http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/is-it-just-me-or-5#post-7517641 ]BLAAAAAAACK![/url]

Why are the sidebars now black? Bit bleak

They had to turn the lights out to save a few pennies.

Oh god, we have those skimword things now like MTBR etc.
Lets see if this works;
Rampant rabbit vibrator.

because there's a campaign due to start on Monday that requires the background to be black. Maserati are back with a new ad for you 🙂

It's capped at 1 in 24 initially so you will only see it once a day. It's a clever ad actually... as ads go.

The classifieds is for all because of the simple maths involved.

If it was members only then it would be a marketplace for approximately 7000 people maximum. Page impressions would be in the hundreds per day tops. The range of products available and the potential market of buyers would be too small to sustain a useful market place.

Sites like ebay work because of the simply huge audience that comes to them. Close off that audience and everything shrivels up. Our classifieds works because it is open to all. We just need to find a better way than display advertising to earn money from it.

skimwords?

I'm trialing it.

I'm going to measure your moaning against the revenue it brings in and make an appropriate decision 🙂

BTW STATO
This..

STATO - Registered: January 19, 2009, and never going to pay for a free forum! I don't run ad blockers either in case you wondered, that's how I support.

Is absolutely fine. It's my job to find the balance so that every user, whether subscriber or just a non paying regular visitor, contributes in a sustainable way to our existence.

Skimwords. Try Spider-Man.

Skimwords. Try Spider-Man.

*flicks a few switches*

aha. those things.

*flicks a few switches again*

no moaning from me 🙂

Skim words are not too bad. It's just depending on what is posted they can throw up some interesting sexy lingerie donut whip sausage monkey hammer axe lube plug.

^ gone and got myself one of them P's.

I subscribed to the mag for several years and bought it from issue 1, but my sub lapsed a few years back when I virtually stopped riding.

sexy lingerie donut whip sausage monkey hammer axe lube plug

Sadly, nothing

SkimWords eh?

Is this a signalling for the return of the Bravissimo ads? 🙂

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Mark, why not make the mobile app a P only thing if it's gonna affect revenue so majorly?
I find the site fine to navigate on mobile but then I have a browser that reflows text properly.
Don't mind the ads either.

Thanks for switching on skimwords and making me waste the last half hour looking for malware on my system. Disguising links to make it look like a poster has put them there. Stay classy STW.

Back in the early days of the Internet, there was plenty of content.. Some sites these days are atrocious.. You have to put up with ads before you can even see if the content is what you are looking for.. And the content is often substandard resulting in a swift back click and a four letter word.

I can tolerate unintrusive small adds, in small amounts, but the kind where you are forced to watch video or listen to audio or get pop ups.. I have no sympathy for.. Aside from being highly annoying, they are a security risk, and as 3 point out.. Use a lot of mobile data which slows thier network down and costs the end user in terms of data usage.

I run ad blocking on all my devices for security and privacy reasons.. Not having to look at as many ads is a happy bonus. Having your isp block ads as well is most welcome.

Are 3 doing it for partially selfish reasons? Of course, but thier customers will mutually benefit.

Very very good news. What will be intriguing is if they roll this out to O2 after the merger ?

I am a Three customer and I biught an ad blocker as soon as it was possibke after the release of ios9. Web sites like the Guardian are so much better now.