Banner ads on SecondLife.com

[Ciaran Laval]

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NeoBokrug Elytis wrote:

I would still have the same objections because I pay more than a couple thousand USD to LL per month. If my business isn't enough, then they need to do things that attract and retain people, rather than push them away. In my own opinion, the ads do more harm than good. You don't see WoW, IMVU, or even any other 3rd party grid with ads on their home page. It makes you look amateur.

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I don't use IMVU but I read somewhere that Ads are an issue there, IMVU, WoW do advertise via Adsense, I've seen ads for both of them.

When Livejournal introduced ads some years back, paid members didn't see them, I can see some merit in that argument. I don't see as much merit in the idea that a company should carry no advertising, most companies advertise to us, I guess the key difference here is that they usually advertise their own products and these adsense adverts are rather random.

The main point I'm trying to make here is that advertising in itself is not a bad thing, it's the way that you do it. Inworld many of us, me included, complained about ad farms, they were a nuisance, but that doesn't mean I think advertising is a bad concept, delivery is crucial.

[Phil Deakins]

They aren't AdSense ads

[NeoBokrug Elytis]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Why don't you stop whining about something that doesn't affect you and is no concern of yours?

 

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You're right -- It doesn't affect me.  I use Adblock plus, ScriptSafe, and Do Not Track Me chrome extensions.  However I was making valid points, and hypothetical cases on why this is a bad idea as a whole. I'm allowed to have an opinion. If no one voices their concerns then the issue won't be acknowledged. It's not whining.  LL has done a great job at shutting down all avenues of communication with them, so the only thing left to do is make the issue known and discuss it on forums.

I am already VERY disappointed in the service that SL provides, and I pay through the nose for it. If you had read and digested anything else I've posted in this thread, you'd see that as an invested and paying consumer of SL my concern rests in SLs future. I am typically optimistic to a fault about the future of SL, but this whole thing makes me really uncomfortable.

The ads are adsense ads, go look at the page source code. And yes there have been recorded incidents of malware being shipped with Adsense.  Do your homework. All it takes is for one ad to squeeze by your anti-virus. As it is, enough residents have problems with "hacked" accounts and the like.

@Ciaran: There's a difference in advertising with an ad provider, and having your site host the ads. Again, lets not confuse things. I am pretty certain LL already uses adsense to advertise it's products, but prior to last week it wasn't hosting ads on it's site. Advertising has it's place, but if LL doesn't want to alienate new users, and keep paying residents happy, they ought to change their current plan.  For the record, I stopped using LJ myself when they started hosting ads.

@Zenephobe: Spelling fixed.  Thank you.

[Phil Deakins]

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NeoBokrug Elytis wrote:

You're right -- It doesn't affect me.  I use Adblock plus, ScriptSafe, and Do Not Track Me chrome extensions.

 However I was making valid points, and hypothetical cases on why this is a bad idea as a whole. I'm allowed to have an opinion. If no one voices their concerns then the issue won't be acknowledged. It's not whining.  LL has done a great job at shutting down all avenues of communication with them, so the only thing left to do is make the issue known and discuss it on forums.

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So stop whining about them. They are not your concern.

Your points may be valid in your mind, but the ads are nothing to do with you, so stop whining about them.

 

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I am already

VERY

disappointed in the service that SL

provides, and I pay through the nose for it

. If you had read and digested anything else I've posted in this thread, you'd see that as an invested and paying consumer of SL my concern rests in SLs future. I am typically optimistic to a fault about the future of SL, but this whole thing makes me really uncomfortable.

---

So leave. Nobody forces you to use SL If you don't like something, don't use it. Simples.

You are a customer - nothing more. You are free to be concerned about SL's future but it's future is LL's business and not yours. If you consider the money you've piad into SL an investment, then you seriously need to reconsider your ideas. Investing in SL, as a user, if very foolish indeed. It may close tomorrow and then where would your investment be? The only sensible way to think of the money you paid in, is to think of it as paying for your pleasure - now! Not in the future. If the w1hole thing makes you too uncomfortable, leave. It really is that simple.

 

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The ads are adsense ads, go look at the page source code. And yes there have been

recorded incidents

of

malware being shipped

with Adsense.  

Do your homework

. All it takes is for one ad to squeeze by your anti-virus. As it is, enough residents have problems with "hacked" accounts and the like.

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I can't get any ads today, so I can't check the source code. I do know (from the URLs) that the ads are sent by Doubleclick, which is an affiliate broker - not Google. I had noticed that 'google' was part of the URLs and didn't understand that, but now that I've read your links, it does seem that Google is also marketing AdSense through 3rd parties and, presumably, Doubleclick is one of them.

I'd never heard of malware being delivered via AdSense before (and I've been in the AdSense business for many years) so that's new to me. Nevertheless, you have no need to be concerned about it because you can avoid it completely by getting off the web. If you stay on the web, knowing what you know, you choose to take the risk. It's entirely your choice. So make your choice and stop whining about what website owners put on their websites. If you don't like websites with ads, get off the web. The SL site is nothing to do with you. You don't own it, you don't have a stake in it, and you don't get a say about it.

[Ciaran Laval]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

They aren't AdSense ads

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They are on the destination guide and they are using Adsense but they may be using Doubleclick as well, Google own Doubleclick, it looks like they're using Google DFP, which will pull adverts from Adsense and other ad networks, I assume that another network would include Doubleclick.

[Phil Deakins]

Google bought Doubleclick? I didn't know that.

[Ciaran Laval]

Quite some time ago:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6554595.stm

[Phil Deakins]

2007. Streuth! My excuse for not knowing is that, by that time, I had turned my back on that side of things, even though I was still auto-making money from it, and I still am. I was immersed in Second Life in 2007, and ever since.

Doubleclick used to use methods to track people over the web. They could only track people to sites that had their stuff on them, of course, but it was tracking just the same. So some anti-virus programmes flagged pages with Doubleclick stuff in them. One of the Google founders, either Brin or Page, was well into data mining, so maybe Doubleclick still does it.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

Eventhough not a pretty sight (I use Adblocker to just not see it) I don't believe SL is at it's end.

Perhaps they made or needed to make a poor choice but that is something else.

I think it would help more to lower the tiers so more people can maintain the monthly land costs eventhough there is  global crisis.

It seems to me this would generate more income from tiers for LL in the end.

[Deltango Vale]

I saw the ads on SL Marketplace. Teeth whitening? Ambulance chasers? Five Aces real poker? Squash the spider to win? I don't mind banner ads, but does LL really have to stoop to the level of a porn site?

[Phil Deakins]

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Deltango Vale wrote:

I saw the ads on SL Marketplace. Teeth whitening? Ambulance chasers? Five Aces real poker? Squash the spider to win? I don't mind banner ads, but does LL really have to stoop to the level of a porn site?

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The level of porn sites? That's rubbish. Perhaps you are very familiar with porn sites and not so familiar with other sites.

[Rorrim Wrigglesworth]

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't "Banner Ads" are generally shown due to things you've either seen on other websites.. via cookies sending info back and forth or because you've clicked on one and it's taken you to the relevant site?

 

On this topic.. I've had shown up as a "Banner Ads"  or the option of "buying shares in various companies online so out of curiosity to see what kind of link, if any, Linden Labs has to this particular one. I found that it was for a company that is called eToro and this is some of the info on them

Found at the bottom of the page of eToro

eToro (Europe) Ltd., a Financial Services Company authorized and regulated by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission (CySEC) under the license # 109/10

US customers are accepted at www.etorousa.com

 

Also this on Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EToro

eToro is a social investment network registered in Cyprus, with R&D and Sales offices in Israel, USA, Australia and Europe. It provides personal online financial services in forex, commodities and stock indices through its own electronic trading platform.

eToro is primarily a platform and a software provider; it is not itself a financial broker. Rather, it connects its customers with third party brokerage services provided by various brokers.

 

I think I'll steer clear of this one, especially in light of current events regarding a Euro baleout and the fact that the Cypriot Government has taken to informing Cypriots, and anyone who has money in Banks there, that they'll be having around 10% of their savings taken out of their accounts to help towards preventing a financial collapse if a baleout isn't forthcoming. So much for penalising the banking sector for causing the financial collapse, once again it's the general public that has to pay the price for other peoples shortcomings.

 

Worth reading this news item from the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21827922

Cyprus rescue breaks all the rules

 

I'm wondering how this will affect this particular firm - eToro - as they are based there.

No doubt after clicking on this link, I'll be seeing more of this type of  "Banner Ad" appearing on here and no doubt on other webpages I go to, due to cookies doing their thing.

So all in all.. a Banner Ad that makes me wonder if I really want to do this kind of investment at all.

Or am I being paranoid?

 

[Phil Deakins]

Yesterday, the Cyprus government voted against doing it.

--||-

[Ceka Cianci]

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Porky Gorky wrote:

We've seen LL step up their game with advertising in recent months, both in placing their own advertising and hosting others advertising. I think what has happened is that we finally have a marketing exec who knows about marketing,...as apposed to Kim Salzer who didn't know **bleep**.

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for years people had said they needed to advertise more..to attract people more..

it's about time..

 

in general to the thread..

as for adds on their sites..

if you have the traffic to your sites..make money from it..adds are only cheap looking to people that notice them that it bothers..

it's not like they have flooded the page with them..there are only a few adds..nothing overborad that makes it look cheap at all in my opinion..

cheap is when you can't get away from them and they overtake the page and you get popups showing up every time you click on something..

a couple or three is not something i would worry about..

 

[Deja Letov]

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Rorrim Wrigglesworth wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't

"Banner Ads"

are generally shown due to things you've either seen on other websites.. via cookies sending info back and forth or because you've clicked on one and it's taken you to the relevant site?

 

 

 

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Sometimes. Google shows ads in one of 3 ways. The way you are talking about is internet-based advertising. but contextual targeting is based on the content of the website they are displayed on. I think that is why some of us keep seeing adult oriented ads because adult oriented items sometimes appear in the marketplace. I've gotten several adult website ads on my side banner and have never once in my life visited an adult website, especially on my work computer. So my only guess is that it's coming from the website content. But it could also be placement targeting which is where LL would specifically choose which ads to display, in that case it wouldn't matter what you browse or what the content of the website is. They choose it.

 

• Contextual targeting

  Our technology uses such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, in order to determine what a webpage is about and precisely match Google ads to each page.

   

• Placement targeting

  With placement targeting, advertisers choose specific ad placements, or subsections of publisher websites, on which to run their ads. Ads that are placement-targeted may not be precisely related to the content of a page, but are hand-picked by advertisers who've determined a match between what your users are interested in and what they have to offer.

   

• Interest-based advertising

  Interest-based advertising enables advertisers to reach users based on their interests and demographics (e.g. 'sports enthusiasts'), and allows them to show ads based on a user's previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser websites. To complement interest-based advertising, the Ads Preferences Manager lets users view and edit their interest categories.

[Richardus Raymaker]

The invisible advertising. (lucky i block them, the are security risk) are pretty annoiying, because Linden Lba did put them on top.Se i lose lots of screen space and need to scroll more to see what you want to see. marketplace. website etc. It would be less worse if the did add the advertise at the right side vertical. Or betetr, remove the crap compleet.

But dont waste my screen space.

[Belldandy Schmajuk]

Certainly a nuisance and a telltale Second Life is prioritizing cheap revenues over corporate image (one of a sucessful, independent plattaform), I can finally feel this year SL is not on a existentialist crisis, but this could be just my own particular perspective.

Saying that, I can´t avoid but notice, that kind of destructive process some enterprises dare to make, when the leader of the meeting ask his minions around the table on how to maximize their profits and cut some losses?, and they decide to remove the lettuce on a burger to make their business more profitable, on the next meeting they decide to lower the bread quality just a bit, (a cheaper supplier etc.), at the end, you start losing customers "inexplicably".

But Second Life is still the most developed 3D plattaform out there, its total GDP output is bigger than some real (but small) countries, and what all the alternatives? to this date the alternatives are simply underdeveloped jokes, the 3D engines cannot outpace the current bandwitdh/cpu assets and Second Life is pretty much efficient on that aspect, load times are near the user capacity, and those plattaforms who dare to dimiss this effect (such as "blue mars" to name an example) have ominous pc requirements and skyhigh download times (just to tp from one place to another!) make the whole experience limited to certain "gardens" without real practicality.

Certainly the "user generated content" industry cannot die with Second Life (the idea behind SL) is too big to fail, just like some banks circa 2008. What does this means is, the content creators will either flock to the most promising plattaform left or to revive this idea on their own, an alternative tailored to their needs. Saying all of this, Second Life future seems promising for the foreseeable future, assuming they do not commit to the destruction of their own business.

Sorry my english! feel free to correct me!