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Fred Miranda
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p.1 #1 · FM advertising

Hi everyone,
As you have noticed, we have added a banner to the forum. Since FM started, I tried my best to keep banners out of the site. However, at the current stage, we have found it to be necessary.
The position and number of banners are not yet definite. What you are seeing is just a first trial. I made sure to keep 'viewtopic' free of banners. (The page with your thread and replies to it)

Thanks for your understanding and support.
All the best,
Fred

Sep 12, 2008 at 05:51 AM

Monito
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p.1 #2 · FM advertising

Oh dear. It has come to this. I loved FM for all these years while it was free of advertising, a haven on the web. However, I understand economics and business and can see how some amount of advertising might become a necessity. Thank you for all the years with no advertising!

Sep 12, 2008 at 06:04 AM

runner301
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p.1 #3 · FM advertising

Thanks for all the time without ads. I really enjoyed a clean site but, I will have no problems with it as well.

Sep 12, 2008 at 06:50 AM

gugs
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p.1 #4 · FM advertising

I have no problem at all with the principle, and I also would like to thank to team to have managed without it until now, but can't you make them a little bit more discrete

?
Maybe it is a matter of size/color on a grey background, but I find them a bit too flashy compared to other sites. You don't have to follow my opinion of course, I also understand the constraints....

Guy

Sep 12, 2008 at 06:57 AM

Alistair Watson
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p.1 #5 · FM advertising

I suppose it had to happen given that FM has been ad free for so long. Still, the placement of the ad isn't bad and it doesn't show up within the thread which is a good thing.

Sep 12, 2008 at 07:15 AM

invalid2
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p.1 #6 · FM advertising

Fred Miranda wrote:
As you have noticed, we have added a banner to the forum. Since FM started, I tried my best to keep banners out of the site. However, at the current stage, we have found it to be necessary.
The position and number of banners are not yet definite. What you are seeing is just a first trial. I made sure to keep 'viewtopic' free of banners. (The page with your thread and replies to it)

Have you also considered text ads (adwords comes to mind) and decided against them?

Sep 12, 2008 at 07:55 AM

Seth Tower
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p.1 #7 · FM advertising

Bummer Fred. Even with all the paying FMers, you "have found it necessary"?

Sep 12, 2008 at 03:22 PM

Sunny Sra
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p.1 #8 · FM advertising

Fred,
you should do what timesquare did with starbucks...Starbucks has to use a Brown logo/store name for their store so it mixes in with the rest of the stores around instead of the "green & white"

can we get some gray & purple banners instead of BLUE.

Sep 12, 2008 at 03:49 PM

Seth Tower
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p.1 #9 · FM advertising

Yeah, seriously, blue looks terrible. Totally destroys the feeling of the site.

Sep 12, 2008 at 04:05 PM

AGeoJO
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p.1 #10 · FM advertising

I also agree that the ad color clashes too much with the overall FM color scheme....

Edited on Sep 12, 2008 at 04:13 PM

Sep 12, 2008 at 04:11 PM

realkuhl
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p.1 #11 · FM advertising

I understand the laws of economics and the web. I thank you for many years of peace and quite while viewing photos.... but I do have to agree, if you could request banners that look complimentary to the FM tone, it would be nice. I was not very happy when I saw the blue Adorama banner for the first time this morning..... in fact my first thought was "Oh no...."

Edited on Sep 12, 2008 at 04:21 PM

Sep 12, 2008 at 04:21 PM

MSC
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p.1 #12 · FM advertising

I would certainly be willing to pay more to avoid ads. Not sure how many would tho. Many would say the will pay more but not actually do it, so the population could decrease a lot.

Sep 12, 2008 at 04:24 PM

Bernie
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p.1 #13 · FM advertising

Bring on the ads to keep the site afloat... Thanks for keeping them off "viewtopic". If they start flashing....

Sep 12, 2008 at 04:28 PM

tootalew
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p.1 #14 · FM advertising

I think an ad is ok, I agree about the color scheme, and will add this, please keep them animation free, only goes with the spirit of photography.

Sep 12, 2008 at 04:28 PM

MSC
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p.1 #15 · FM advertising

tootalew wrote:
...please keep them animation free, only goes with the spirit of photography.

Excellent point!

Sep 12, 2008 at 04:42 PM

MSC
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p.1 #16 · FM advertising

I'm not against ads either as said in another thread on this same topic...there are three on this going right now!

Sep 12, 2008 at 04:43 PM

AGeoJO
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p.1 #17 · FM advertising

Fred,
If it is unavoidale, I believe the majority of us here can put up with an add or two. However, in addition to the suggestion to keep the ad's color to match the overall color scheme of FM, I would also suggest to keep the ad to stricly related to photography, please. I certainly don't want to see C***s or V****a or other drugs ad, for example, to show up here, not that you would allow something like this to take place, of course...

Edited on Sep 12, 2008 at 04:53 PM

Sep 12, 2008 at 04:52 PM

Fred Miranda
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p.1 #18 · FM advertising

Everyone,
I understand that is hard to get used to this. I'm having a very hard time myself...

Please understand that is very expensive for me to run this site. It has really grown into a huge community and as a photographer I promise that I will do everything I can to keep this as discreet as possible. I have already contacted them about adjusting the color scheme and I do think it was a good suggestion. Also, I'm going to try my best to stick with photography related advertisements. You may have notice that this year I have made a lot of improvements to the site's speed, reliability, code, features, etc...
None of this is free and people charge me a lot for the bandwidth and their services when working on programming. If I were a rich guy who could afford to do all of this on my own without ads, I would. In fact, I did as long as I could.

I really do not want this site to ever be a subscription only place and these banners hopefully will give me an opportunity to keep this site open to everyone.
By the way, none of the topic boards have the banner. (Like this page you reading)
Also, none of your photos will ever be presented with a banner on top. It's mainly on the portal type pages and it should not affect your experience here. It will just take some getting used to.
Please try to understand my position, and work with me on this transition.
All the best,
Fred

Sep 12, 2008 at 04:55 PM

John Patrick
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p.1 #19 · FM advertising

Fred,

I know that as long as you keep it photography related, I won't have any issues with it. And if I were an advertiser, I _wouldn't_ want to blend in, as then the ad would be easily skipped over, so I'll understand if they stay conflicting colors.

And thanks for keeping the ads off the topic page (for now).

John

Sep 12, 2008 at 05:06 PM

Genes Home
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p.1 #20 · FM advertising

agree with John.

Life isn't free, and I don't mind appropriate ads if you need them to keep the forum alive and well.

Also, thanks for explaining your position and need for the ads.

Gene

Sep 12, 2008 at 05:08 PM

Ariel Bravy
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p.1 #21 · FM advertising

I understand the need for ads, particularly at the level this site is now operating. I thank you for keeping them off for as long as you could, but now they're necessary to keep the site running.

It seems though that they were almost haphazardly inserted into the site, like the site was designed not to have ads (curvy edges and integrated pieces) and then ads were arbitrarily stuck in, breaking up the flow of the site.

Have you considered doing a little more work, Fred, to have the ads fit into the design of the site?

Sep 12, 2008 at 05:17 PM

Sunny Sra
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p.1 #22 · FM advertising

my first thought when i saw the FM site this morning was "F**k FM got hacked!!" i had just woken up..turned the computer on and hit F5 on fredmiranda.com

trust me..i was not fully awake but the banner woke me up.

Sep 12, 2008 at 05:49 PM

Jeffrey
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p.1 #23 · FM advertising

Fred, clearly we all hate them, but you have my support (choke!). Work the advertisers on the color, size and placement location. The one in Landscape is HUGE.

You do a GREAT job, Fred.

Sep 12, 2008 at 05:52 PM

Sunny Sra
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p.1 #24 · FM advertising

Fred,
Is fm.com traded on the stock market...maybe i should buy some shares in FM

Sep 12, 2008 at 05:54 PM

DoubleNegative
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p.1 #25 · FM advertising

Ads? What ads? I block them, so I didn't notice.

Sep 12, 2008 at 05:57 PM


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