New Banner UP.

[mercurius]

Um, you shouldn't have to block all the ads individually.

There are two types of ads being shown at the top: the neopets swf files, and the outside ads. If you block both of these, you should be fine.

[valerielundberg]

My only problem with Bannerzilla is this...

I don't see why it is needed.

Take this article...it wasn't written very long ago mind you. Just six months ago.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/ne ... 1000521419

Here's some snippits I found interesting:

Neopets chairman and CEO Doug Dohring said he is considering a movie next. "Our view is that if we do a Pixar-quality film with Neopets -- and we're in no rush to do that because we're already highly profitable -- we believe that will provide the right positioning and umbrella as to who we really are and what our content is like," he said.

Already HIGHLY profitable? Why ruin a good thing? When the engine works good, do you throw a wrench in the fan belt to see what happens?

Dohring said the idea is to keep the site free in a creative way, without pop-ups or banners. Each activity is created especially for the sponsor, he said. "We try to create a context for what the product is," Dohring said. "It's all self-selecting -- we never compel anyone to do anything, so it has to be high quality."

*reads the first sentence again* "without pop-ups or banners".

*stares at the Bannerzilla on every page*

Must I really comment on that?

The privately held Neopets was officially incorporated in April 2000 and was profitable within three months, according to Dohring.

Again, back to the wrench comment....

I guess my fear is this: Instead of investing in the long-term popularity of the site, I somehow get the vibe that the business plan has shifted.

In other words, instead of keeping the site a constant money earner based on profibility the way things used to be handled, its now a situation of intense marketing based on popularity and member numbers. Advertise intensely for the short-term, make huge profit...as long as its more than the initial investment of the domain purchase, you are a winner. Take large sum of cash from intense ad campaign, sell off the final dregs of the site or run it into the .dot com graveyard, and then use said profits on next business venture. The old "Pump and Dump short term investment" approach, large money fast, instead of moderate money stretching a longer time period.

Feel free to attack me now. That's just the vibe I'm feeling as of the last 3 months....

[Yoshi]

Originally, the banner didn't really annoy me, seeing that I never got outside ads...but when you get two little "error popup windows" that say "This page provides potentially unsafe information to an ActiveX control. Your current security settings prohibit running controls in this manner. As a result, this page may not display correctly." instead of only one of them, and have to press enter twice...that gets annoying.

I was fine with one of them (my security settings on this computer are special, and required), but this makes it seem really...messy. :\

[anaslile]

my apologies for not reading the rest of this thread and just jumping in. I'm busy, I'm a student, it's crunch time. But I wanted to express my opinions.

I'm EXTREMELY unhappy. So much so that after December I'm very seriously thinking about quitting. The new banner ad is just ugly as *smurf*, I have Firefox and Adblock but I get ugly white space of doom. Having the banner ads will not make me buy from any of the companies they advertise, in fact I think I'll boycott, which I've been seeing a lot from Verizon (time to change the cellphone plan). Being a student I cannot afford $8/month for premium. $2-3/month I could handle so premuim is out of the question for me. Even if I was working I have other priorities and other stuff outside of Neopets that I could put my money towards. Neopets is a diversion, something fun, and I'm really not seeing that in it anymore, nor do I think I should pay $8/month for something that really doesn't sound like it's worth it. I didn't have an issue with the smaller ads when they were there but now that they've started messing with the place your user name, pet info and NP are located along with the monstrosity they call ads it's too much.

As of February 10 my account will be over 4 years old, I've been on Neopets a while, I remember when you used to need a faerie token to get to Faerieland. This is not the Neopets that I remember and certainly not the Neopets that I want to play in the upcoming future. Sure, maybe I'll come back if they ever realize what a mess the banner ads are, but for some reason I doubt it.

But long story short, please TNT get rid of the ads!

Last edited by anaslile on Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Waking Reality]

Okay... the new banner layout has made Pyramids unplayable with Firefox because... the drawn card gets covered by the card pyramid and then the error message completely covers the draw pile and the drawn card. o.0;

[valerielundberg]

Okay... the new banner layout has made Pyramids unplayable with Firefox because... the drawn card gets covered by the card pyramid and then the error message completely covers the draw pile and the drawn card. o.0;

Snarkie adressed that issue here:

http://www.pinkpt.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 9&start=15

They know, and they'll be taking care of it.

[cpvr]

Heh. Soon enough alot of people will be using Mozilla firefox to block neo`s money ads. So, neo will soon turn back to the old layout . I dont see why they cant have an option in settings to chose from what layout to use. As, it`ll still make them a steady income and it`ll make most users happy. So please neo consider my suggestion. It`ll help a lot

[Witch King]

My only problem with Bannerzilla is this...

I don't see why it is needed.

Take this article...it wasn't written very long ago mind you. Just six months ago.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/ne ... 1000521419

Here's some snippits I found interesting:

Neopets chairman and CEO Doug Dohring said he is considering a movie next. "Our view is that if we do a Pixar-quality film with Neopets -- and we're in no rush to do that because we're already highly profitable -- we believe that will provide the right positioning and umbrella as to who we really are and what our content is like," he said.

Already HIGHLY profitable? Why ruin a good thing? When the engine works good, do you throw a wrench in the fan belt to see what happens?

Dohring said the idea is to keep the site free in a creative way, without pop-ups or banners. Each activity is created especially for the sponsor, he said. "We try to create a context for what the product is," Dohring said. "It's all self-selecting -- we never compel anyone to do anything, so it has to be high quality."

*reads the first sentence again* "without pop-ups or banners".

*stares at the Bannerzilla on every page*

Must I really comment on that?

The privately held Neopets was officially incorporated in April 2000 and was profitable within three months, according to Dohring.

Again, back to the wrench comment....

I guess my fear is this: Instead of investing in the long-term popularity of the site, I somehow get the vibe that the business plan has shifted.

In other words, instead of keeping the site a constant money earner based on profibility the way things used to be handled, its now a situation of intense marketing based on popularity and member numbers. Advertise intensely for the short-term, make huge profit...as long as its more than the initial investment of the domain purchase, you are a winner. Take large sum of cash from intense ad campaign, sell off the final dregs of the site or run it into the .dot com graveyard, and then use said profits on next business venture. The old "Pump and Dump short term investment" approach, large money fast, instead of moderate money stretching a longer time period.

Feel free to attack me now. That's just the vibe I'm feeling as of the last 3 months....

See, this is another thign that makes me very, very upset with Adam and the rest of TNT. I am 99.99% sure that in the begging, the goal of TNT was to make kids and others happy. Which inturn made them happy. Which brings great Karma, which was greatly seen in the past year (not this year, but 02'/03 which the plushie/tcg began). That didn't bother me. But when they start trying to play Disney and take over things that they don't need to be in to make money, it starts getting into some bad Karma.

I'm a full believer of Karma, and I think with going back on their word is going to be hurting them greatly. Not right away of course, but it will within the next six months. It's natural.

These banners are just the begging of the slowing decline. If they do go through with this movie, it will be their high point, and everything is down hill for them there due to going back on their words.

Again, you've enjoyed "Two Cents" by Charlie Grimes, AKA Slime Lord (Whta1 on Neopets). You can locate him East of Meridell in Slime Tower. Please, do not let the Oozing Chia Guards get in you're way.

[synthetique]

Firefox here, adblock here. And if you want the alt text to pop up when you mouse over an item in your inventory or a shop, you'll need this.

ETA: To easily block all the ads on Neopets, add these three filters to AdBlock:

http://images.neopets.com/buttons/*
http://images.neopets.com/728ads/*
http://images.neopets.com/ads/*

The "728ads" directory makes it obvious that they're trying to get around adblock by throwing out randomly-named directories. Just stick a wildcard before "ads" like this to get around it:

http://images.neopets.com/*ads/*

[plushie]

i dont get any offsite advertisements, only neopets ads and I'm in the US!

I agree with jazz, "...the banners big enough to be a person in its own right"

I find that funny and somewhat true

they dont bug me much, but having to look at the top for my neopoints total and seeing my quickref page is a pain ><;;

[IcyBlue]

The "728ads" directory makes it obvious that they're trying to get around adblock by throwing out randomly-named directories. Just stick a wildcard before "ads" like this to get around it:
http://images.neopets.com/*ads/*

Uh, no it isn't... "728ads" means the newer, bigger ads. The regular "ads" was the old, small ones. It isn't a random number. It's the size of the banner

[Cranberry]

Firefox here, adblock here. And if you want the alt text to pop up when you mouse over an item in your inventory or a shop, you'll need this.

ETA: To easily block all the ads on Neopets, add these three filters to AdBlock:

http://images.neopets.com/buttons/*
http://images.neopets.com/728ads/*
http://images.neopets.com/ads/*

The "728ads" directory makes it obvious that they're trying to get around adblock by throwing out randomly-named directories. Just stick a wildcard before "ads" like this to get around it:

http://images.neopets.com/*ads/*

Thanks -- I didn't think to put a wildcard before the word "ads," but it works great. I don't see a single ad using those four filters. Now I'm just waiting for someone to do something about that IFrame.

I've read a lot of articles about Neopets (many from their own press kit), and most of them are like the one quoted above. They mention how popular Neopets is, how successful immersive advertising is, and how much money the site is making (lots). That's why I don't buy that they needed to have these banner ads. Maybe Adam and Donna were forced to do it against their will (they certainly don't seem pleased with the ads), but I don't believe for a second that Dohring had to do this to keep his site afloat. I hope everyone blocks them and no one buys a thing from those sponsors.

Another article, from August (less than four months ago!):

There's one main rule for brand advertisers who want in on this audience: Ad impressions must be integrated with the Neopets universe. Banners and pop-ups need not apply, according to Neopets Executive VP Rik Kinney.

"If you're collaborating with other Neopets to fend off an attack by Dr. Sloth and his evildoers, and a Dell computer pop-up ad appears, that takes away from the fantasy," he said.

Another snippet:

Neopets at first worried its members would hate the presence of real-world products in their made-up play land, but Kinney said the reaction has been quite positive. A series of surveys found only two to three percent didn't like the idea.

"A very small number of our page views contain marketing or branded content -- less than one percent -- so it's a novelty when they do come across it," he said.

A big part of Neopets' ad strategy, then, is a deliberate scarcity of marketing content. But the sheer breadth of material on the site means there's still plenty of room for branded content.

Another:

Neopets also practices full disclosure in advertising. Every page on Neopets.com containing sponsored content is tagged with a message identifying it as such.

There are many similar articles on a page in the press kit -- check them out.

[cpvr]

Heh. Neo lies to much =S. They promise not to put up huge ads and what do they do? Put up huge ads. I`ll laugh when tons of people start quitting neo because of this new banners. Frankly i dont care as i dont play neo that much because they froze my old account a while back which i never got back. So, i dont play neo that much . Thus i dont care what happens to their site ^.^.
Just my 2cents. But, yea i wish neo hired tons of new support team members to help their support system which they really need help on.

Also, Neo can release video games. Remember "Yugioh and Pokemon"? See what happened to them once they release video games/movies? Their trend started to die. That`s what will happen to neo boys and girls. As neo is just a trend that will die soon enough . Again just my 2cents.

Well, also i see that neo freeze littles kids for false reasons. Thats again a no no. As if their sponsors find out about what they do. I doubt they will be sponsoring neo anymore. So this is too all you neo staff members. Please start treating your members better . So your site can become a way better site.

[jakecubee]

with the new banner and the other banner that shows what shop you are in, i cant see my username, neopet or neopoints it is blocked by the banner what can i do? the first two things being blocked aint so bad but i would like to see how many np i have at a given time and now it is impossible im sorry if this has already been posted i did not read them all

[Dustin]

The new layout sucks >.< Im gonna see if I can sign up for premium.. I cant take this. It hurts my eyes, and ruins the page! It's far too big. -complains-