We are trying out some new forms of advertising, as you may have noticed. The latest is “IntelliTXT” which we started testing yesterday evening. A user must mouse-over an IntelliTXT word (green, double underlined) to view an advertisement, which makes IntelliTXT is a 100% user-driven form of advertising. We like ads that the user can control. IntelliTXT works in real-time and is the last piece to load on page. IntelliTXT comes into play long after the article has been written and posted to the website.
Our interstitial test went well, but based upon reader feedback, we decided not to utilize that form of advertising. We are looking for a form of advertising that can offset the revenue from other forms of current advertising that we wish to discontinue.
Thank you for your patience while we test out these ads and thank you for patronizing our sponsors without whom we would not be here today.
Please let us know what you think of the IntelliTXT ads below.
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With 1300 ads on each page, one would think you’r doing fine…
If the bandwidth costs are too high, you have a crappy service provider, considering it’s all text… Or, you need to streamline the code (it’s riddled with flaws – so many, it’s disgusting (and every single one of those ad related flaws should be fixable!).
At any rate, I am thoroughly convinced you think that MDN should be a source of revenue, not just cover it’s costs… get real day jobs (if you haven;t already), and just maintain this site as a hobby, and stop being a greedy bastige!
That’s my two cents!
I don’t like the IntelliTXT ads at all. If you accidentally mouse over them, they don’t go away if you move your mouse. You have to click the close box or somewhere else.
I would mind them less if they did not remain open.
Just get rid of the popup and popunder ads as well as animated ads and any ads with music.
While I don’t care for them, it’s better than having ads all over the place.
Much better than popuos, & I can avoid them easily. If you have to have more ads, this is not as intrusive.
MDN should just have a text link on each page that takes you to a page full of advertisements. I’ll make the news stories faster to download/load up. Personally, I just find them an irritant.
I meant ‘It’ll’
InteliTXT makes reading the article an incredible pain. Hate it.
I think the thing MDN needs to learn is it is not HOW the ads are presented to readers, it’s HOW MANY ads are presented. If you are telling us that the IntelliTXT ads will REPLACE some of your existing ads, then it’s easy to understand. If you are telling us (as I think you are) that these IntelliTXT ads will be in ADDITION TO the hundreds of ads already on the page, then no… readers are not going to be happy with that.
I have NEVER seen a site as ad-ridden as this one. I CERTAINLY understand the need to make money with MDN, but there becomes a point when the advertisements circumvent the usability of the site, and I think MDN passed that point about 6 months ago. And I’m not even including the interstitial ads recently experimented with. Considering how quickly they were pulled, I can imagine the page hits for MDN took a huge dip to demand quick action like that. Kudos to them for that.
As a reference, my pals kid me about reading Mac news sites so often. I once had an MDN page on my screen when someone walked by. He said it looked like I was reading an online version of our free, local “Penny Trader” magazine because “of all the goddam ads on that page.” My friends giggled and giggled about how silly the site looked with all the ads. “Where’s the content? Can you even SEE it. Oh, there is is, under the WINDOWS SERVER ad! Wow… to be a Mac news site, it appears all their advertising is geared toward Windows users!”
I think those comments from non-MDN people should speak volumes about MDN’s outlook of finding and retaining new readers.
With all that said, there at least 4 other Mac news sites with as much content and very minimal advertising and fairly active forums. Unless MDN intends to use some of this ad revenue to upgrade their conent management system to something people enjoy using, then I should think they have about 6 more months of people accepting mediocre content displayed in a mediocre layout plastered with ads, and cannot so much as even chat, use an avatar, send a private message, or even register and login.
Yikes.
Can’t stand the IntelliTXT ads on any site I visit. I tend to circle the area of the page I am reading with my mouse and it always triggers the ad. These types of ads have *never* been useful to me.
Until IntelliTXT, pop-unders were my major gripe with this site. After that is the occasional ad with sound. I know you typically pull those when people complain, but I never encounter these on other sites. To be fair, it has been a while since I saw one here too.
This site has never seemed to be short on ads. I am surprised that you are looking for ways to stuff more advertising on it.
Very annoying! Can’t it be left as it has been?
Hate these intelliTXT ads!
Brings MDN down to the level, of all things, a cheapo infomercial!!!
I think the IntelliTXT ads are ingenious. However, they make the site feel “cheap”. If I had stumbled upon MDN after the implementation of IntelliTXT, I would probably have moved right along without giving you much thought. As it is, I’ll continue to frequent MDN either way you go.
MDN’s content is great. What is greatly lacking is the format of the website.
The only changes to MDN I have seen have always been ad-related. Why not change the webite itself to be more like your competition?
I would like to see a much more robust comment system. Also, user profiles would be nice. I would also like to block certain users’ comments.
The editorialization is great. I love the sarcasm and inside jokes.
If you build a more robust service, then people could pay for it and eliminate the ads they hate so much. If you don’t pay, then you get to enjoy all the ads.
I don’t like the text ad’s but it won’t keep me from coming here. I can’t say the same for others. It just seemed like crossing the line between advertising and editorial content. That hurts credibility.
Like most, I’ve learned to put up with the ads because I love the site. MDN doesn’t require paid membership, so they have to do SOMETHING. I, for one, would not mind a membership model — in fact I’d support it. But in the meantime, ads make sense. Somebody has to pay for all this, right? (And no, the IntelliTXt stuff doesn’t bug me at all.)
There’s enough damn ads at this site. Screw IntelliTXT UNLESS you’re willing to drop all other forms of page advertising. An only IntelliTXT site would be preferred in that case.
Personally I don’t mind the intellitext much, but I really appreciate MacDailyNews giving us some transparency here and letting us know what is going on. You make it feel a lot more community based that way. You guys do tend to have a lot of ads, are you getting revenue based more on views or clicks or what? How does the revenue for this new intellitext thing work, is it based on mouseovers or clicks or per page served? If I knew for sure (and I hope others are with me on this) every story or so I could just open an add or two into a new tab and ignore it if it helps out and will help the site keep going. . . maybe even with less ads in the future.
I find a pop-under to be less irritating that to try to read articles with the intellitext links in them. Accidentally mousing over one of those links is like walking thru a mine field… they pop up, then take a while before they go away again… I don’t frequent other sites that use intellitext because I find them that irritating.
Oh, only 20 ads per page…. nice.
No wonder you get dire click thru rates.
Here’s a tip – less _is_ more.
My fave few sites has one advert on the entire site and it’s for a product that they’ve tried and endorse.
The IntelliTXT ads are fine, and I think they’re a clever idea. They represent a good balance.
Unfortunately they’re buggy. When you position your mouse of a double-underlined link, the message pops up. Okay so far. But then if you move the mouse a few pixels (but still have it over the text), the popup should remain visible. Instead, it disappears and then appears again. Looks a tad amateurish.
Fix the bug, and I’ll cast my vote for IntelliTXT. Otherwise I’m voting for Ross Perot because he’s funny and he’s “all ears.”
i don’t mind the green underlined ads. i think MDN is a valuable resource and if it takes this to pay the bills, then so be it.
MDN: their is far far too much advertising on this site. Other mac sites do OK with much less. The underline ads look awfull and are a distraction. Get rid of them. Please.
“Please let us know what you think of the IntelliTXT ads below.”
I have not seen them- due probably to my use of Pithhelmet and SafariBlock, or something. Anyway, I’ve never seen them, and don’t enjoy the thought of having to. But, for what it’s worth, they are totally blockable, apparently.
I hate IntelliTXT almost as much as pop-up/under/in ads — when the first one popped up this morning, my knee-jerk reation was to close the window and delete MDN from my RSS feeds.
The IntelliTXT ads themselves are intrusive, popping up over the text I’m trying to read. They are even worse in Safari, they blink on and off a couple times.
The worst part is that IntelliTXT is not especially context-sensitive — it seems to match on just a single keyword, so most of what pops up on my screen is totally unrelated to the story, to Apple, and to my life & work.
The banners don’t bother me, as long as they’re not abusively animated. When I see one that interests me, I click through on it; if it doesn’t interest me, I can ignore it. My personal preference is text-only Google ads; they are reasonably targeted and are the least invasive ad scheme I’ve come across.
Love MDN, but the “greenies” have GOT to GO!! I’ve seen this PC-looking junk on other sites and wondered if/when it was gonna infect any of my favorites. Sad to see you guys considering it.
I wish you all the best, and while I fully understand the need to pay the bills…
I vote a vehement and unqualified NO to the greenies on the screenies.