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I really can't stand IntelliTXT. It makes sites look like they are being ran out of someones basement where any income they can get is the goal.
I understand that advertising is required to help cover costs and I don't mind banner ads (I've even clicked a banner to buy something to support this place, not that the ad influenced me however), but IntelliTXT would simply make me stop reading.

 

I don't mind them and I might find them useful.

Can someone please vote for this, it looks lonely

 

The second someone votes for that option is the second someone from Dennis has signed up to the forum.

 

Bit-tech is the only tech site that I still visit, friendly members, informative articles, non b******t reviews and staff who care about the site and are not there only for their pay check. For this reason it is the only site that I do not instantly block the adverts, but if this is the way that Dennis Publishing wish to take the site then all adverts will be blocked without hesitation, if I even visit the site again.



It seems to me that Dennis publishing saw the numbers of users and thought "cash cow"

 

I don't see the argument against the adverts though, unless traffic goes down. Those savvy enough can block them, I'm sure Dennis can handle that, as long as enough people don't (know how, don't care etc), and traffic goes up through the extra revenue or just money being pumped in to improve content etc. Doesn't everyone win?

 

It's not against adverts, I used to allow all adverts on bit-tech, however at the moment I have blocked all ad's because of these awful, confusing and annoying intellitxt ads.

 

I don't use any form of adblocking beyond what firefox does on its own, but I would if text link ads became the norm. They're one of a very small number of things that can make me stop frequenting a site.
The ones that have appeared on BiT so far have just been one word per article, which is tolerable I guess. One would have to be a seriously whiny ho' to complain about that, especially if there's always one and one one per article (because then you'd come to expect and avoid it, problem solved.)

It'd be nice if they were limited to news and announcements, though - somehow they'd be more annoying in reviews, maybe because they're multi-page and less industry-related.

 

Huh.

Seems they've started cropping up. Have fun with that.

 

It'd likely come through me as your local Dennis representative.

 

It's been about a week since these trials started, any word on how the feedback is being taken? Is it being taken?
I find the whole idea of trialling this odd. You can't have been expecting any positive feedback. Does that mean that Dennis requires a certain amount of negative feedback to change their decisions?
Seems to me like a whole lot of corporate bureaucracy, and it sounds like you lost out on some ad revenue in the process (ironically).

What was the benefit of being bought out again?

 

It's not a trial, it's something which Dennis did without consultation, which is why Tim decided to get feedback, I think he knew we wouldn't like it and is fighting for it to be removed.

 

Internal conflict scares me

It ought to be an easy point to make, 50% of the userbase would use BiT less often because of them.

 

I'd like to change my vote actually.
I've never used Adblock up till now, but it does get rid of them IntelliTXT wotsits!

 

It's something that I am in the process of putting a fairly comprehensive report together on ready to present next week - if it's just a few people saying "this sucks," then I believe that isn't compelling enough evidence. That's why I've said the more evidence I have, the better it is for everyone. Unless I've missed an email, I've responded to all with a rough outline of my intentions - I'm sorry I haven't had time to communicate them fully in the forums.

In short, I wanted to make sure I have a decent amount of evidence before saying "hey, I told you the community hates this stuff - here's proof."

 

I understand that advertising helps bring in money for the site, and in past years more and more adverts have been creeping into are beloved site, i not just on about the forum, on about the whole thing.

For instance as i type this Orange is advertising me a contract deal for £30 a month looping around and around telling what a deal, buy me!

For me going online is an escape in many ways from advertising, i stopped watching TV most evenings because once a good programme comes on, 10 seconds later i have some gimp trying to sell me crap.

So when reading a quality review or article on bit, the last thing i want to see is a load of bullocks about crucial memory being a cheap upgrade. The joke is one day bit might be recomending one brand of memory, but the dam text link satan cum system kicks and highlights the word memory and tries to advertise another brand!

How confusing could that be!


Thinking about it bit-tech dosen't require advertising, there reviews recomend what is the best purchases availble in the market. There 'What hardware of the month' articles is selling the hardware.

Forum members trust bit-tech staff, hence the reason why we are still members. Yes the modding has decreased and its all hardware related now, but i blame that on members more as we keep asking for the reviews! lol!

Each review is lovingly crafted, to be as in depth as possible, something i dare say Custom PC could learn from, i read a review of a motherboard in the magazine and still find myself thinking i've learn't nothing special about said item. Hence why i stopped buying there magazines each month, i pick one up in the shop and have a browse, but nothings changed.

Maybe i am just a gruppy old git....

Bit-tech had a good thing going for a while, quality reviews linked to free delivery from Scan for its members. Now i believe we are left with quality reviews infected with txt ads....

 

I do find it funny you advertising Kaspersky after writing a news post about how they couldn't even secure their own servers from attack?

 

That's quite unfair, Burnout21 - the reviews are still quality, with a good range of expertise on a wide range of products. I read many other subject-devoted sites that go horribly wrong when asked to step an inch out of their field - yet at Bit we have a computer site that manages to review, for example, audio products with a lot of the sort of info and insight an audiophile would expect.

It's just a shame the intellitxt ads seeped in, and even that was against the wishes of the staff.

I found I missed the site if I used it less - I've installed AdBlock for the first time, instead. I'm afraid I'm opting for site-wide blocking rather than specifying intelliTXT, since a) I don't think the latter would be of any consequence to Dennis, and b) I don't know how yet

I'll whitelist the site (or more likely just uninstall it - I just avoid other sites with intrusive ads, and have no objection to regular banners etc.) if I am made aware that the text ads have gone.

 

Oh, and LeMaltor - one of my other loved aspects of the site: They don't unduly favour their advertisers!

 

How do you think the bills are paid? We don't charge you to read our content, we don't charge manufacturers whose products we are reviewing and we aren't selling our content (or our souls, for that matter) to the highest bidder.

Simply put, without advertising bit-tech would not exist - we are 100 percent reliant on revenues generated from advertising to pay the team, to pay for the development time put into improving the site and to pay for the servers and hosting so that we're not running off a 486 on a 56k connection to the internet.

That doesn't mean we have to rely on IntelliTXT advertising specifically in my opinion... it just means we couldn't run ad-free without charging more than at least 95 percent of you wouldn't be prepared to pay.

 

So you sacked Jamie?