Everyone congratulate Wade, he is now a married man! We are all in major flux right now, with Wade getting married and both Ross and I moving to different places. Expect things to really pick up in about two weeks, when we will be around much more than we have been for the past month. I will probably need a few days to go through all the emails complaining about the pop-up ads, though.
We have disabled the auto-refreshing ads, so you will no longer get pop-ups while playing games. The ads will still refresh whenever you click a link, so you can still expect a lot of pop-ups. We don't control this aspect of the ad rotation, but are looking into it. I'm sure it is due to the fact that ads aren't paying well and we need to make up for it with quantity, but I'm sick of it and it has to stop.
Having a VISA pop-up ad every time you go to a new page is not going to sell any more Visa cards, and I'm sure it is paying on a CPA basis (meaning we don't even get paid unless YOU sign up). This idea that "running the ad 1000 times per visitor will generate more revenue" is bullshit and is the reason why the web has failed as a marketing platform.
Yes everyone, we are all fucked and the internet is a big shithole.
I will try to get the pop-ups cut back today, so you won't have to swim through them to use the site. In the meantime, try to support us some by supporting our stupid sponsors! Remember that giant Casino ad that was on the frontpage for a few weeks? They had a really complicated three-step process that had to be completed for us to get our comission. You had to not only sign up and validate your account, but you ALSO had to desposit $50 in your Casino account. So even if we sent them 1000s of registered users, it still hinged upon that $50. Guess what? It generated ZERO "complete" sign-ups . Nada, zip. We didn't get a dime for having that obnoxious ad plastered on the frontpage for all that time. Can you understand why I am in such a pissy mood?
This is so fucking lame... Studies are proving that banner ads actually do increase brand awareness, and we are still getting ass-raped every which way. Why can't a decent company step forward and sponsor Newgrounds? For the cost of one television commercial per month we could ditch all the other advertisers and keep the site running fine. Is anyone willing to step up and do that? Does anyone out there work for "cool" companies, like KMX or RED BULL energy drinks? SOBE Beverages was interested in a sponsorship a while back, but they were bought by COKE and suddenly that wasn't a good idea for them. Well guess what, COKE better learn where its market is - it is right here on the web!
Other studies are proving that TV use is declining in exchange for internet use. Don't companies see any value in that? The average user spends over 20 minutes on Newgrounds, and we get over 100,000 users every day. We are more popular than some TV shows, but we are still getting shit on.
Here is a homework assignmnent. If you work for a company that has ANY INTEREST AT ALL in the Gen-Y / Gen-X market, talk to your friends in the marketing department about Newgrounds. Tell them how for just a small piece of their advertising budget, they could be the sole sponsor of this site. Convince them, because they have their heads up their asses and they aren't listening! Newgrounds is a lifestyle for some people - you can't say that about FRIENDS and the other crap they are putting on TV! Ok, maybe Simpsons, but that's it!
I guess that's the end of this rant.
