DeafDC.com is pleased to offer a new form of advertising, called a “floating advertisement” for businesses or events that want maximum exposure with our audience of deaf and hard of hearing professionals. Washington, D.C. is home to the largest deaf and hard of hearing population in America. Thousands of people visit DeafDC.com a day from around the nation and the world!
The “floating advertisement” now on DeafDC.com describes the National Deaf Poker tournament and will remain on the website until the event begins on November 3, 2006 at the end of this week.
We want your honest feedback on our new advertising opportunity. It will help us determine what our audience can tolerate. For example, this advertisement will appear on DeafDC.com for only a week. Would you be comfortable with a limited period floating advertisement such as a week-long advertisement? Would you be okay with a floating advertisement that lasts for a month? Should we reject this new idea and find better opportunities elsewhere?
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28 Comments
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It’s a bad idea. I can barely see the text because the ad obscures it, and floating ads don’t work very well in Firefox..
Noelle,
I just moved it over so that it is under the DeafDC.com name but is above the Blog entries. It doesn’t seem to work too well in IE though, I am still looking into this.
How does it not work well in Firefox? I use Firefox all the time and it looks good on my screen.
Thanks for your feedback.
I checked my parents’ comp (IE) and my pager (sidekick browser)… it works okay on IE, at least on the version I have (6.0). But, it’s still kinda annoying. I never liked floaters.
But I wonder if the floating ads will be a problem for people with vision issues?
Good point. We will have to find out about that.
Haven’t you encountered the weird gray boxes that appear on some of the comments in blog entries that have garnered over 70 comments? Whenever the rolling ad goes down, it sort of lags, so you see the overlapping edges of the ad on the page.
I did not see that on my screen. Does anyone else have a similar problem?
yes. it happens when the blog becomes really long with around 70 posts, as Noelle said. Usually hitting the refresh button fixes it, but the more posts, the more often you have to do it.
I hate it. It is annoying. More annoying than the ads you put throughout the blogs.
While I’m not crazy about advertisements in any form, I recognize that they have become pretty much par for the course with most internet sites.
I can’t say that I like the floating advertisement, but it doesn’t bother me significantly. I can always click and close the window - no biggie.
I assume these ads are bringing in revenue, correct? In another words, someone pays to have the ad up on DeafDC.com, and the money generated goes to help pay the expenses of maintaining this site? If that be the case, then I would say that choosing between a floating ad I can always click away or the possibility of no blogsite of this type, I’d go with the ad.
Otherwise, if it’s not making a major dent in the budget, I would side with the folks who ask to get rid of it.
But truthfully…I guess it doesn’t matter much to me one way or the other.
Virginia,
Yes the advertisements bring in revenue. A lot of work and resources go into providing high quality Blogs and information for our readers. The National Deaf Poker tour advertisement will be discontinued tomorrow based on feedback to this Blog.
Floaters, IMHO, are a pain in the rear. I hate them the way I hate spammers. Its just so annoying that I feel like slamming the advertiser for intruding on my computer screen.
I never buy or participate in sales or whatnot that the advertisers are offering. It is just as if they are calling me in the middle of my dinner. ARGH!
I find these floaters irritating. I close the window immediately upon visiting a website with floaters.
Get rid of it. It’s annoying and runs the risk of the entire Web site being blocked by Adsense at my place of work. I’m sure that it’ll drive down viewers and participants. If that’s what you want, by all means, do that.
Thanks for letting me know about Adsense potentially blocking sites with pop-up advertisements.
Popup ads are fine to some nuisance to some. I tried popup ads before, no good, best advertising forms these days are video pre-rolls.
Best forms of revenue these days comes from selling access stuff to the hearing people who have nothing to do with the deaf communities. Therefore; are not readily accessible by the old deaf guards because of their deep isolationist culture.
ugh, can you stop with the “old deaf guards” bit?
Thank you for bringing it up, Noelle! It is becoming as annoying as a floating ad can be :) He is lumping one group together and stereotyping them as a whole, which I found to be narrow minded of one to do that. This only leads me to question the individual’s motive.
Back to the floating ad, is there a possibility of turning it on or off for those of us who chose to? Or, we have no control of it at all?
Hi Katherine ~
What I found is that there was this X in the corner that I could click that would in fact close the window so I don’t see the floating ad any longer. That’s why I am saying I don’t really care - if I can click the thing away when it shows up, then that to me seems to solve the problem right there. Yes, I know they are annoying as heck, but if we do have that choice, then why not put it to use? Click away! .
And yes…I agree that reading “old deaf guards” is getting rather annoying. Besides, from what I could see - at least as far as the students are concerned - most of those protesters are young enough to be my children…heh heh!
That thing drives me crazy. Please don’t keep it.
Well I don’t see the floater, but if it’s anything like the very awful advertising on chud.com, it seriously makes me think twice about going to the site, and only if I have to.
I will say though, I recognize the need for revenue which maintains the site, so in the end, it’s up to the site manager/editor/master.
Is it possible to move the Hamilton Relay ad on the bottom (below the “page fold”)? It’s annoying to see the “hamilton that” sign all time, it’s distracting. Or maybe ask them to redesign this ad?
As for the floating ad, please don’t use it - it’s as annoying as a pop-up ad. The ads in the right column are more than enough, thanks.
Re Hamilton Relay ad: Or maybe ask them to modify the ad to make it loop only once, not all time?
Google’s pop-up ad blockers do a nice job of blocking the floaters. I didn’t even see it when I opened DeafDC today with IE. I saw a brief flash of it last night using Mozilla Firefox, nothing more.
By the way (I learned this from McConnel’s blog), if you use Firefox, you can install filters that will prevent any ad from flashing. Simply right-click on the ad, and it’s on the menu. Works like a charm.
Some people, unfortunately, are required to use IE only at work. However, Firefox 2.0 is great. Check it out.
the Google toolbar can be installed on IE. The newer versions of IE also come with a built-in pop-up blocker that works prety well too.
Thanks to everyone for providing their feedback. We will be discontinuing the National Deaf Poker Tour pop-up advertisements first thing tomorrow.
Floating AD is ANNOYING!!!
The floating advertisement has been removed from the DeafDC.com website.
Again, thanks to everyone for their honest feedback. We appreciate it. If you have other feedback for the DeafDC.com website, please email me at shane.feldman (at) deafdc.com.