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About that big new ad you'll see at the bottom of stories
By adamg on Fri, 09/16/2016 - 1:53pm
Yes, it's there, between the end of the story and the beginning of the comments. I'm trying it out because, to be honest, it pays a lot better than some of the ads I've been running on the right side of the page, so I'm trying it out. There's a "jump to comments" link right before it, and I'm looking to see if I can limit how many times a day you see it. I've also eliminated a couple of the ads that used to run on the right side of stories, so hopefully no effect on page-loading time.
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
You've given me free news
For like eight years now. You need not defend your ad selling practices to us.
Agreed. And thanks for the
Agreed. And thanks for the heads up - I'm turning off Adblocker for this site.
Time to hit the "support now" button again!
All you folks using AdBlock (blech), uBlock Origin, Badger, Disconnect, Ghostery, NoScript (my fave), et al - or (shudder) actually suffering through ads - why not just click that "Support now" button over there on the right and pass some dosh directly to Adam instead of giving some other random enterprise a cut?
I do this a couple times a year. >Click!< There, I just did it again!
Nowadays, with self-funding, Patreon, Flattr, Kickstarter/Indiegogo, and so many other options, there's plenty of ways to fund important web-based enterprises like UHub without becoming a cog in the transition of billboard advertising culture onto the online world.
No it's not
I don't see anything...Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot about adblock
Not seing anything.
Not even a space filler or broken link.
But I do have adblock.
Yes it was blocked by Adblock
Its there now.
AdBlock
I love it as much as the next person, but I specifically disable it for U Hub and any other smaller websites I visit.
It's jarring to see ads when you're not used to it, but consider disabling them for Adam and all the great local news he brings you.
Same
Same but the minute the ads get annoying (pop over/under, audio) I'll re-add it :-) I don't mind ads, but the audio and pop under/over just drive me bonkers.
On a side note, I saw when you added the ad. It made my browser freeze as it could not pull the ad up yet.
Yes, exactly
Like si.com has a sad note about how mean I am for having Ad Blocker, but they always have autoplaying video content on their pages. Sorry (not sorry)
U-Hub unblocked and always a nice reminder of whatever I've looked online but didn't purchase.
I knew the site looked too good on this browser
How long have I been adblocking this site? Shit.
Does AdBlock block a site's count/revenue?
I'm not how that works.
Thanks for any info.
Yes
Adblock stops your browser from going out to the ad server's site and bringing back the ad content. That means the company serving the ads never sees a visit from your computer. That means they don't add to the count of people they gave ads to and that means they don't send the site whose ads you blocked any money for your visit.
AdBlock
It doesn't reduce the page-view counts for a site, but does reduce the number of ads a site shows you.
AdBlock itself is, I think, working on some sort of white-list thing that would let sites show some specific ads - for a fee, which seems kind of hypocritical, but what do I know?
Ad Block Plus
Don't get me started on that.. not looking forward to ads allowed by the ad blocker.
Sounds to me like I will be looking for a new ad blocker once they do that.
Does ad block work on bike lanes....
it wouldn't be Uhub without asking..
Thanks for the info Kaz and Adam
I guess I'll disable.
Don't want to be anonymous and a total leech. Keep up the good work Adam!
Good and Bad
Good
Universal Hub is the best. You do great work and these ads wont make me stop coming here. I appreciate the need to make some money.
Bad
I decided to click on the first ad I saw. It was a scam , including an irrelevant picture of Obama to attract your attention and advertising how you can invest on "previously forbidden investments" that can get you a return of 100 times your investment. Then, like many scams, when i tried to close the window, it wouldn't let me unless I answered another pop up window asking me if I was "sure" I wanted to leave the site. Unfortunately this is pretty typical of a lot of internet ads but a scam nevertheless. I dont plan to click on any more of these ads.
A Very, Very, Very Small Price To Pay
Seriously, Adam, your site is my first Webstination every morning. No need to explain or apologize or feel bad about the advertising. If it keeps you up and running, and improves your bottom line, I say bring on the banners :-)
Add as Many Ads as You Can
As long as they aren't pop ups or auto play videos, they don't take away from my reading experience (A lifetime of computer reading has trained my eyes to ignore ads).
You provide a unique and valuable service. You should make as much money as you can for it.
How dare you try to make
How dare you try to make money.
Have you thought about an ad-free subscription opt-in?
On mobile, I'm seeing it
On mobile, I'm seeing it above the fold, between the uhub logo and the story content. Is that intentional? (Android 6.0, Chrome 52.0 if it matters)
I also adblock on larger screens than my phone, but I salve my guilt by cutting Adam a check every year or so. As an added bonus, that gets me UHub Gold, which I use to organize my JP--
Oops. I've said too much.
Uhub Gold
Is that like an Amex card? Can I pay extra for a platinum or black one. (funny there's an ad for an Amex gold card on my right banner!)
Yes folks - in addition to looking at Adam's ads - and maybe clicking on one occasionally - you can send him a check or make a kind - totally non-deductible donation through Paypal by it clicking on the "Support Now" button.
Please support the best hyperlocal news in town - AND of course the most important of that news - the French Toast Alert!
Yeah right
Did you know that Adam has increased his budget every year while keeping the same amount kids in BPS? And now his BPS student population has dropped to zero and we're still supposed to increase his budget?
(this is a joke everyone)
Private sector
Perfectly permissable.
Now don't get me started on those damned charter news sites! :-)
"hyperlocal news"? You must
"hyperlocal news"? You must read some Jeff Jarvis.
Oh, yeah, mobile ...
I haven't actually put the new ad unit on mobile yet, so what you're seeing is an ad that's been there all along. I probably need to tinker with mobile in general, since there are various things that don't look the best on a phone. But, yeah, ixnay on the Hubuay Oldgay :-)
Oldgay?
I thought the post about the veteran's group suing over the Southie parade was yesterday.
(I'll be here all week. Tip your veal! Don't forget to try the waitress!)
Per click or per pageview? Ad-free subscriptions?
This has probably come up before but maybe it's worth revisiting now.
If you're getting paid when I click on an ad then you (and your advertisers) aren't making any money from me because I essentially never click internet ads. If you're getting paid because I'm looking at ads then I might be willing to pay you directly, via ad-free subscription, not to look at ads.
Yeah, per-click ads don't make me much
Maybe if I ran a niche product site ... The ads that do make me money are the ones where I get paid for showing X number of them (such as the one I just added).
Would folks be interested in ad-free subscriptions? I do have several folks who kindly subscribe even though I have no tchotchkes to send them (yet, anyway). Ad-free pages would be one possibility; the one drawback is you'd have to log into the site. Would that be worth it?
I think you should look into
I think you should look into a subscription model. It should drive some revenue your way. It could be free to just register with the website which permits posting without approval. And then for $X/month you would get an ad-free experience plus whatever else could go with that I'm sure there's various pricing models where you could offer different subscription lengths to suit people's tastes (1 week, 1 month, quarterly, semi-annual, annual).
Also on mobile the comments are badly formatted with the indents pushing comments into unreadably small columns.
On the tchotchke front if you can find some type of reliable printer having a small selection of T-shirts, mugs, hats and bumper/laptop stickers might drive a bit of cash towards you.
Uhub Store
He has one -> http://www.universalhub.com/store
I'd be interested in a paid tier
I lurked for years before I finally made an account. Hell, I pay for the Globe and they're only about half as informative most of the time.
I guess it would come down to what numbers would make it worth it.
Parade float?
How about if we pay $100/yr then we get to ride on the U-Hub float at the Roslindale Parade?
Maybe
I'm one of your monthly subscribers, so I don't feel guilty about using an ad blocker on the site. Just some perspective, I've run a small web site for the past 21 years...it's one of the oldest sites on the web, launched in February 1995...that gets around 2k unique visits per day. Over the years I've tried various flavors of ad-based revenue, and my conclusion was that the few hundred dollars of ad revenue each month didn't justify the diminished user experience.
I moved to a subscription model, at first a small monthly recurring fee ($1), which was a hassle to manage and annoyed users, and finally a one-time lifetime membership of $15. I don't allow non-members to post comments, which both frees me from having to screen them and gives me control over unruly members...if they violate the (very liberal) posting guidelines their membership is revoked.
This model brings in more revenue than relying on ads, and it significantly reduced the amount of time spent on maintaining a healthy posting environment. Weather Underground follows a similar model, though their fee is $5 annually for an ad-free experience (we'll see if that changes now that they are owned by The Weather Channel).
I personally would like to see an ad-free internet and I usually won't visit sites that have ads that make it through my ad blockers or that whine about my use of them (hello, Forbes and Wired).
Yes, Please
I like to think my yearly donation is equal to a year's subscription fee but it would be nice to just buy something and forget it. I'm not going to stop using an Adblocker regardless but I'd just as well pay $10/month and support the site that way.
Subscription Model
Yeah I, too, would pay a nominal monthly fee for an ad free site to support Uhub. Sure I can donate, but I'd rather have my card auto billed every month so I don't have to think about it. Maybe 5/mo for unlimited articles :-)
Still better than paying for the Globe, which I refuse to pay for. Sorry John Henry has enough money.. adam does not :-)
Yep, same. Except I do pay
Yep, same. Except I do pay for the Globe. I'd probably have stopped by now if I could cancel without calling them on the phone during "normal business hours".
Got me and I don't mind
I normally ignore site ads. The first one I saw with the new placement was for 6 paleo bars (candy, candy, candy, as the Haymarket vendors are wont to scream about their fruit). I had to swap my email address but will only pay $1.99 for the six. Fair trade. I may want to buy more. If not, I'll unsubscribe. I'm content.
Thank you all for the kind words
I really, really appreciate them!
No, Thank YOU
Thank you for running the best local news site for Boston :-)
Keep at it Gaffin
Probably late to the party but I hope you see this... you've been the most consistent source of local news for years, and as much as I hate ads of any sort, it's so worth it here. Keep on keeping on! Thanks! :)
Guess I'll join the party
And disable adblock for this site. I should have done that a long time ago, but I'm on the site often enough on my phone, too.
Which makes me want to ask if this is a decent time to make a suggestion regarding mobile site experience? I think it'd be handy for users to have a "login / register" link at the top of the home page, or on any page for that matter, rather than having to scroll through the stories and/or comments to get to that. If there were just fields to log in right on those pages rather than a redirection, even better. Unless of course it's already there for everyone else and my mobile page is just acting funny... But, thought maybe others might find that useful, too, if they share a similar experience as me.
I was also curious if there was a typical or suggested donation amount.
Possible donations
The Bernie answer: $27
The Bob's Furniture answer: $599
The 1-877-Kars4Kids answer: your car today
The John Bubier answer: Spare change
The Dean's Home Furniture answer: You got somewhere better to donate? I DOUBT it.
The Trump answer: $1 million
The Trump answer: $1 million promised, but 0 actually given
YES
Yes I always found this odd about Uhub Mobile. On the desktop version, the login is at the top of every page. On the mobile version.. it takes some digging to find it.
As long as we're griping
As long as we're griping about the login link, I have a gripe... At one point, you would click on the login link, enter your credentials, then get redirected to your profile. About a year ago, Adam made a change so you get redirected to the front page after entering credentials. I preferred being redirected to my profile, so I could easily see if someone had replied to my amazingly witty comments. I'd also be cool with a redirect back to the page you were previously on, since I probably hit the login link after I tried to comment on a post and realized I had been logged out.
I redirected to the home page because ...
Some folks asked me to :-).
I'll see if there's a way to have it just go back to whatever page you were on (should be).
At this point I'm just
At this point I'm just griping for its own sake.
Arrgh, sorry
There's a login/register link at the top of every desktop page. That's one of the things I need to put on the mobile version.
No need to apologize!
Just something I thought we all would find useful, and I'm sure you'll get to it when you're not too busy creating content.
As one who normally detests
most advertising, I have no objections to this Adam. Just try not to go overboard with the idea - I.e - no "UHub domination" packages.
And yes, I have also unlocked AdBlock for this site.
DeeBrowser
I use DeeBrowser on mobile (Android). It's basically Chrome with an ad blocker, but ads cannot be unblocked per-site. The user can turn the ad blocker either on or off, for all sites.
Firefox and AdBlockPlus run too slow on Android for me.
No Script
Still don't see the ads after disabling adblock.
See ads on side even with adblock on.
noscript doesn't allow you to block a script site on one page and not another.
Aww man..
.. all these comments are giving me the warm fuzzies, sort like at the end of It's a Wonderful Life. All deserved, this is one of the best Boston news sources and certainly the one I turn to first. Deep appreciation too for the time it must take to maintain a comments section that's worth reading, when so many other (and much bigger) venues have simply given up and nixed them.
In the words of Clarence the angel: "Remember,
GeorgeAdam: nomanblog is a failure who hasfriendsregular readers willing to unblock ads."fuzzies abound
"Teeeeacher says...everytime a a bicycle bell rings....Markk gets whacked in the back of the head with a 30 lb halibut!"
I, for one, welcome our new advertising overlords
Just kidding. Knock yourself out,Adam. Love the site and appreciate your hard work and journalism.
New ads aren't bothersome in the least, Adam
Hope they work out for you.
So far I haven't seen any of the ones that launch audio. I've never AdBlocked your site and the new ads don't bother me anymore than the old. No need for me to AdBlock in the future either if they're not intrusive.
Keep up the good work and I hope it's more remunerative for you. You deserve a raise!
Is there any way to configure
Is there any way to configure AdBlock so that's it's automatically disabled for certain sites such as I would like to do for Uhub? I can't seem to find it under options. Or is it just a matter of having to manually disable and than enabling again? FWIW, my browser if Firefox. Also, I've noticed another way to contribute to Adam's site is to use the Amazon link on his support page and purchase something there.
Yes
If you have AdBlockPlus running in your browser, then navigate to the site you don't want it running on, click on its icon in your browser window which should bring up a set of basic options. Navigate to the site you want to unblock. There should be an option saying "Enabled for this site", click on it and it will switch to "Disabled for this site". Do that at any site you want to unblock. It will remember for all the other times you go to that site.
I'll accept the ads. BUT!
You have to start printing all comments whether you agree or not. Whether you think there PC or not. Cut the crap
Nope, sorry
I will continue to cut the crap out. If you want a site that's entirely composed of racist comments, angry frothing and general bile spewing, there are several I could point you to.
This is a PSA.
Adam is not Alex Jones. Uhub is not InfoWars.
You need to get a login
If you want your comments to not be reviewed.
Would love subscription model too
Tremendous fan of this site and Adam's work for years and years! Reiterating comments above and please let us know when a subscription model is available so we can support you!