It’s been a surprisingly un-wild and wooly year plus that Soundforums.net has been in existence. We’ve gone from a late night idea to a relatively popular (1+ million page views a month from 25K unique visitors!) oasis in a noisy pro audio discussion world. During that time we have been 100% community supported, paying all our bills with PayPal donations from contributors and guests alike, and keeping the place running on donated time as well.

Since day one there has been discussion of running ads on the site, and we have so far avoided it. Not because advertising is evil, in fact a large number of users have expressed that they’d like to see an ad or two in order to keep on top of what manufacturers are offering. We have avoided it just because we weren’t in a hurry, donations have always and still do more than pay for the costs associated with keeping this site online. Neither David nor myself need to make money running this place, and in fact we would prefer not to. Right now we’ve actually pre-paid the next year’s hosting costs, and we still have enough in the bank to buy a round of beers of two. So it’s not about the money.

What we’ve always thought would be fun, though, would be the ability to hold social events again. Back in the day members of the community got together once or twice a year and had dinner, hit some bars at trade shows, went go-kart racing, or attended a show. Running advertising would mean that we’d have the money to sponsor these sorts of things, as well as the added benefit of not having people feel like if they didn’t donate the site might go under. It is critical to us that the money advertising might bring in is always a bonus, to be treated as windfall and never allowed to become more important than the real reason the site exists: to foster pro audio discussion from members around the world.

We feel that ads can be a benefit to everyone. Manufacturers will get to showcase their products, and feel a connection to this site. Since we don’t have a lot of costs to cover, it will even be affordable for small manufacturers to advertise here. Meanwhile, members will get to see ads if they want, and anything we make above and beyond costs we will return to the community in whatever ways we can think up.

That said, since we don’t want to alienate the very people who make this site worth keeping, if there is a lot of opposition we won’t do it. The site is obviously not that expensive to run, so this is not a priority, it just seems like a way to get a little something for everyone. Public comments invited below.

[HR][/HR]
[B]Here is the plan:[/B]

[LIST=1]
[*]Aim to start showing ads on May 1.
[*]Anyone who has donated any amount, ever, before the time stamp on this post can choose to opt out of seeing any ads, ever.
[*]Anyone who donates $50 over any period of time in the future can choose to opt out of seeing any ads, ever.
[*]Otherwise, registered and logged in users will ideally see no more than one ad at a time, and those ads will be out of the way.
[*]Guests will see a little more advertising.
[/LIST]

Once advertising has started we will play around with it a little, based on your feedback, to keep it as unobtrusive as reasonably possible. All ads will be hand-screened by one of the administrators. Worst case we’ll stop the experiment and return advertisers their money for any currently running ads.

[B]Anyone who would like to advertise, please email [EMAIL=”[email protected]”][email protected][/EMAIL] and we’ll set you up.[/B]

[HR][/HR]
P.S. For anyone interested in the details, we’re going to have to form an LLC to handle the income. This will simplify a few things, but also increase our base costs by about $300 a year. Advertising will easily cover this amount, but it does make deciding to start or stop ads a little more complicated. Also ad revenue will be taxed, so you’re welcome Federal Government and the state of Delaware. For these reasons the earliest we will be able to entertain dropping ads will be after they cover incorporation costs.

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16 COMMENTS

  1. Well, I will bite!
    I am not against adds. I am against adds that make using the site harder like that other site where the headers and the adds use up 2/3rds of the screen. On my 23″ screen they are not a big deal. On the iPhone the site is impossible for me to use with a browser. Fortunately I can use Tapatalk. On small laptop screens I choose not to keep up at that forum. It is easy to keep up here even on smaller screens.

    So, don’t use up too much real estate with the billboards. The taxes will kill you 🙂

  2. [QUOTE=Rob Spence;bt244]Well, I will bite!
    I am not against adds. I am against adds that make using the site harder like that other site where the headers and the adds use up 2/3rds of the screen. On my 23″ screen they are not a big deal. On the iPhone the site is impossible for me to use with a browser. Fortunately I can use Tapatalk. On small laptop screens I choose not to keep up at that forum. It is easy to keep up here even on smaller screens.

    So, don’t use up too much real estate with the billboards. The taxes will kill you :-)[/QUOTE]

    We won’t be implementing the advertisements in any obtrusive way for registered users.

    For registered users, the majority of advertisements will fill in space in the already existing sidebars. The width of those sidebars will be unchanged, so advertisements will not be taking up any extra real estate that isn’t already filled now. At the bottom of every page, there will also be a banner. We may add a small banner at the top of the header, but it will be to the side of our logo, and won’t expand the size of that much if at all.

    Guests may see additional banners in line with blog listings, and there will be advertisements in the first and last posts in the forum. (Logged in users will not see these.)

    Here are some screenshots taken in Safari on Mac:
    [URL=”http://soundforums.net/attachments/tech-support/3495d1333834124-attachment-test-screen-shot-2012-04-07-4.24.01-pm.png.att”]Front Page[/URL]
    [URL=”http://soundforums.net/attachments/tech-support/3494d1333834124-attachment-test-screen-shot-2012-04-07-4.24.56-pm.png.att”]Blog Listing[/URL]

    The advertisements will be iPhone friendly as well. In the future, we will be running a different forum template for mobile devices so at some point, you can expect the forum to run better in its entirety on the iPhone. I don’t have an Android to test the site in, so I can’t speak for that. Right now, the same sized ads will run on full and mobile browsers.

    Here are some screenshots of our planned advertising placements from the iPhone browser:
    [URL=”http://soundforums.net/attachments/tech-support/3498d1333834316-attachment-test-photo-1.png.att”]Blog Listing[/URL]
    [URL=”http://soundforums.net/attachments/tech-support/3497d1333834124-attachment-test-photo-2.png.att”]Footer[/URL]

    Advertisements will not appear in Tapatalk.

  4. [QUOTE=Andrew Broughton;bt248]Will the people that decide to opt-out of the ads be able to attend the social events? Would there be a higher charge for those people or some other disadvantage to opting out of the ads?[/QUOTE]

    There will be no disadvantage to opting-out of advertisements.

  8. [QUOTE=Michael Smithers;bt250]I like the idea of using the money to sponsor community events. Have you thought much about how this might work?[/QUOTE]

    We have been supposing that we would take suggestions, but since we only have a very basic idea of how much money would be available over and above operating expenses we haven’t gotten much farther than that.

  9. Do it…

    If there are any excess revenue save that and have it available to use later if/when website upgrades are needed.

    Let some ads pay the rent, you know what is important, S/N and freedom from trolls, pimps, and BSers. Well we’re all BSers, so just watch the other two. 🙂

    JR

  10. [QUOTE=John Roberts;bt254]Do it…

    If there are any excess revenue save that and have it available to use later if/when website upgrades are needed.

    Let some ads pay the rent, you know what is important, S/N and freedom from trolls, pimps, and BSers. Well we’re all BSers, so just watch the other two. 🙂

    JR[/QUOTE]

    My collection of fur-trimmed fedoras and orange, double-breasted suits does NOT make me a pimp, no matter what the girls tell you… 😆

  12. I say do whatever it takes, fellas. I also don’t mind seeing the occasional add. The “other”, place is ridiculous in how much space they take up for it. Seems like one giant advert over “there” and the forum is just a burden they have to put up with.

    p.s.- Tim, I want to see a pic of you in that outfit!

  16. I am pleased with how you guys have placed the adds so far.
    The one at the bottom of a thread is unobtrusive but placed so when you finish reading a thread you can take notice.

    Please avoid doing what the other site did by filling the whole right side. On my laptop it uses half the screen.

    I see Lectro adds now too. 🙂