Text link ads

Brett took it with him when he left.

 

Personaly i've always liked the way Bit-tech was layed out with the ads blending in so that you sometimes dont notise they were ads (aint that the holy grail of marketing?). Some were even relivent and worth clicking. Even the i7 launch page spread was well done.

Bit-tech is an online magazine for knowledgeable people and enthusiasts. Dennis's own description of the site says so.

The use of IntelliTXT which is well known to offend most people is an insult to its readers who know full well how to easily block them, but regrettably also nukes all other ads on the site (and hence no clicks).

It is evident that someone up there has no idea about the target audience of bit despite thier description of us. We are harsh, demanding and dont really tolerate incompetence. Even Dennis realises that its us that people turn to for buying advise. Its ironic that they cant read there own product page...

 

I dont mind them its paying for the site and staff after all, if i read custom pc i pay money so why should i not help you make money with advertisements.

 

something you may want to consider in your report (if you haven't already): pissing off the core users doesn't just lose the traffic of those core users. we send a lot of other people to the site, through submissions and votes on the social news sites (digg, reddit), and tips to the high-traffic blogs (boingboing, engadget), which results both in traffic from those links, and traffic from other smaller bloggers who pick up those links. we don't just do this because the content is good, we do it because we love the site and want to see you get the traffic and the revenue, and because the site is run by good people that we want to help out. even if you don't piss off the users enough to drive them away, you're going to be losing the link-love.

 

Supertoad: It'll be better if you write an email to Tim (tim.smalley@bit-tech.net IIRC) like I did, it's a better situation for Tim if he can go with community input.

 

A horrible, horrible 'feature' that interferes so much with my reading of an article that I actively avoid sites that use it. Did I mention it was a bad thing?

 

I hate them with a passion, and will adblock them without hesitation. Just being honest - sorry!

 

Sorry for the late vote.

I mouseover them accidentally and that really interrupts the reading in a very bad way.
I don't mean to play terrorism to make BT do as I please, but it would slowly make me visit less due to discomfort. Maybe that's why I haven't seen this type of ad recently..

Stick with the banners without Flash or heavy stuff. It's not like I have flash installed here at work, but it can make our PCs slowdown when surfing with several tabs.. Even in our non-IE browsers.

Good move in asking!

 

I've even signed upto the forum after years of lurking to say "NO"

I feel it gives the whole site a cheap cashing in feeling.

ESPECIALLY when reading the "complete guide to left for dead" and being shown vocal films for nicoette inhalers everytime my cursor brushed over "Smoker"

On the lighter side (See what I did there! haha) at least I'll actually be posting and contributing to the forum now!

 

I actually got a relevant advert today.

It highlighted the word "virus" and the popup was a Resident Evil 5 advert, although the actual creative was rubbish because it wasn't obvious it was RE5.

 

Right this is taking the micky. You use your mouse to follow your reading and WHAM IN YOUR FACE IM A POINTLESS ADD TO PISS YOU OFF.

Seriously BT I have been reading for years and this is making me go else where.

One of the only reasons i got your site in my favs is due to the fact you dont have these ads.

Now you do its pushing me away

 

look. i dont mind background ads. IE, at the top or bottom of the screen.
I dont mind sideboard ads. ie, ones that are to the edges of the content i actually want to look at. (so long as it's not that annoying talking smilies ad. *shudder*). i dont even mind "click thru" ads. ie, you click the "next" link somewhere, and instaed of ending up where you were going, you're looking at an ad, with a "continue to content" button. Ok, those ones are slightly annoying, but at least you know to expect them.. right.

what i wont stand for however are (in order) intellitxt (and / or Any other mouseover popups). they're just too invasive. you tag them accidentally. ALL the time. especially when using mouseless browsing (ie, just the scroll wheel that's on the side of this keyboard).

popups. These are just all banned. even to the point where when i WANT something in a new window, i have to turn my popup blocker off.

Popunders. Get entire site blacklisted, and i dont go back. there's nothing worse than browsing a website, and then having to spend 10 minutes closing all of the popunders. Not as bad as intellitxt (where you have to spend 10 mins trying to close a mouseover popup just to get to the bottom of the page!)


Seriously. we dont mind banner ads. we dont mind mid content ads. we con probably live with click thru ads.

but really. Intellitxt? no thankyou.

 

NO,No,no - THANK YOU

The day Bit-Tech has text ad crap is the day I delete it from my fav folder...

Did I say NO...?

 

bit-tech is to good to remove it from fav, just add *intellitxt* to the block list or blocked zone in IE/opera, any addblock program will already have it on its list (mine is turnded off on ie7 unless i am in an very anoying web site) i use Opera as my prime browser

like hardocp (they ban just for talking about there adds that just reminds me to block all there adds for banning me last time) i just blacklist it in opera so i would never see them on this site or any site,

they are the worst type of adds you can use as well as that some agane like hardocp do it in forums as well

your web site adds right now work well

you could of done with an 6th option on the poll as i picked block all adds but i would only Block *intellitxt* domain and not the other adds on the website

 

Making an update to how I view this site with Firefox.
AdBlock Plus has been given the Green for Bit-Tech
NoScript blocks intellitex, google-analytics, and DoubleClick.

Those three are mandatory for me to block in my book.
I'm very happy with the way things look.
Hope Bit-Tech can receive all the support it needs with this arrangement.

 

I only tend to read the content and don't participate here very often, but I would hate to have intellitxt ads inline.

Although, being as you are now owned by Dennis Publishing, chances are you will soon have a website where it is difficult to view anything apart from the ads, like the CustomPC forums have become.

 

I voted for not visiting as much if they continue. They pop up by mistake at least half the time I am reading an article. On sites I frequent such as bit-tech I make a point to click some ads now and then to support the site, but I will now be blocking all ads on this site until I hear these in text ones are gone. I would be perfectly willing to tolerate them on two conditions:

1.They popped up only when they were clicked on, like a link, but still in front of the page not on a separate one. As I mouse over what I am reading, it is intolerable to have them pop up whenever they are moused over.

2.They were actually relevant to the text, which so far I have not seen once. If I ever saw a text in an article of something I was planning on buying, I wouldn't be confident it would actually be an ad for the same thing. This makes them even more useless and tasteless.

I know Bit needs ad revenue to survive, but these are tasteless, and they really cheapen the site in my book. With a readership this technologically inclined, it seems to me that the blocking of regular ads will cost more than will be gained by these new ads, assuming you only get paid when they are clicked on and not when they are moused over. My post count may not be high, but I've been reading for years, and I would hate to see bit-tech go downhill after this acquisition.

 

Is it me or are text adds now being used by Bit-tech....................?

For the sake of GOD get rid of them..................!

I will only put up with it for so long, then I will do one of 2 things

1) feel less inclined to visit Bit-tech.
2) Install, configure text add blocking.

What is the policy - from the vote it is CLEAR that WE DO NOT WANT THESE TYPES OF ADDS...!

thanks

 

I just de-whitelisted bit-tech from adblock, and now the text ads are gone. Unfortunately so are all the other ads (which I didn't mind) so that's a loss of revenue for the site. I'll whitelist again as soon as bit-tech announces that it has removed all text ads and won't use them again. I urge anyone else who feels strongly about this to do the same.

EDIT - for those that haven't spotted it, there's a bit-tech text on the words "dual-core" towards the top of this page - http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cases/2009/02/25/antec-nine-hundred-two-902-review/4

 

Still no IntelliTXT ads for me with FF3.1 but what the hell was that ad bar that showed up right at the top?
I could close it [good] but why was it there in the first place?