New Advertising System

[Marwin]

Hi all!

We'll be moving to a completely new advertising solution in the coming weeks, which we're really excited about. Our new advertising partner is working with many of the top entertainment sites online and this partnership will ensure that our focus can continue to be on making Blu-ray.com the best that it can be without the distraction of handling advertising inquiries, ad servers, programmatic ads and related things.

This also means that the current ads and ad settings will be reset and we'll be starting from scratch, so if you don't like ads in general or feel that you want to support the site in some other way then you can simply go to the Settings page and disable the advertising from there. In the future we'll be adding more options for supporting the site, but everything helps.

Thanks

[ravenus]

I disabled the ads because I find them intrusive. Earlier I used to make sure to order through BR.com links on Amazon UK, but from March 2020, AmzUK has effectively stopped all shipping to India where I live.

Now, most of my orders not made on label websites are from Zavvi. It would be nice if you could more consistently have Zavvi links also so I can support you.

[chip75]

I noticed that some of the ads don't have prices for the items, I think if it's somewhere like HMV, then it would be beneficial for those seeing the ads to see a price with the items themselves.

[lemonski]

Originally Posted by Marwin

This also means that the current ads and ad settings will be reset and we'll be starting from scratch, so if you don't like ads in general or feel that you want to support the site in some other way then you can simply go to the Settings page and disable the advertising from there. In the future we'll be adding more options for supporting the site, but everything helps.

It would be useful if you could control ads by device. I’d go for seeing ads on a desktop browser if it helps the site out financially. The problem is when I’m browsing on an iPad or phone, they take up too much valuable screen real estate, so I’ve turned them off.

If it counts for anything, I’d fully support an optional subscription/donation model for contribution. I can remember my desperation when the blu-ray.com had the extended outage a few months back

[Deciazulado]

"Site preferences" top right corner

"Third Party Sites" Category

"Display advertising" Uncheck

[indy7solo]

Would happily pay a monthly/yearly fee to support the site/keep ad free!

Originally Posted by Marwin

Hi all!

In the future we'll be adding more options for supporting the site, but everything helps.

Thanks

[eddiesd123]

Would love to contribute/donate to help support the site. Hopefully that will be an option down the road!

[oddbox83]

These are really intrusive! They are popping up everywhere. Not just at the top and bottom of pages, but inbetween posts. The home page even froze up until an ad decided to slide away.

If I can't get rid of it, I won't be casually browsing quite as much as I have been because it's damaging to the ease of use.

I'd much rather a "site patron" type subscription model with little perks. Like no bleeding ads everywhere.

[Zillamon51]

I turned the ads off. Too intrusive when I do all my browsing on a phone. I do buy a lot of stuff from the Amazon links here.

Originally Posted by indy7solo

Will be a monthly/yearly fee to support the site/keep ad free!

I hope not.

[oddbox83]

Managed to turn mine off too. Phew.

[SpazeBlue]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

These are really intrusive! They are popping up everywhere. Not just at the top and bottom of pages, but inbetween posts. The home page even froze up until an ad decided to slide away.

If I can't get rid of it, I won't be casually browsing quite as much as I have been because it's damaging to the ease of use.

I'd much rather a "site patron" type subscription model with little perks. Like no bleeding ads everywhere.

You know there's an option to turn them off in settings, right?

[oddbox83]

Originally Posted by SpazeBlue

You know there's an option to turn them off in settings, right?

See above.

[UnionJackMix]

Had to look three times before I found the settings for unrelated ads that pop up now.
Would have been nice if the knowitalls could have mentioned that instead of the sarcasm.

[A Tortured Duckling]

I thought I was losing my mind, suddenly seeing ads the past few days. I opted out, but I'd happily support this board in a different way, if such a feature ever becomes available. If I'd ever decide to spend money on a website to help keep it going, this would be the one.

[Animatic33]

Disabled the Facebook plugins setting. Not sure what was going on, parts of this site were failing to load and I got a couple 500 errors while browsing the forums. Pages are a lot more responsive now on iOS Safari without that setting turned on.

[Marwin]

Thank you guys for the feedback and many suggestions

When it comes to the mobile experience that is definitely something that we're aware of and working on fixing, hopefully we'll have some type of mobile friendly version/update available in the coming months.

As for the Facebook plugins for "likes" they appear to have stopped working after some recent changes made by Facebook, so we've removed them for now. Thanks for reporting this.

We're glad to hear that many of you guys are open to some type of supporter/patron option and we'll look into adding this.

[A Tortured Duckling]

Originally Posted by Marwin

We're glad to hear that many of you guys are open to some type of supporter/patron option and we'll look into adding this.

Yeah man, for sure.

I think oddbox83 touched on an interesting way to approach this in regards to incentivizing people to donate a few bucks here and there by giving them some perks. Definitely not something that gives a donating member more permissions or forum functionality, but something geared toward customization and personalization would be sweet.

You know, shit like colored avatar borders or permission to include a small image / banner in the signature section. Nothing super intrusive or animated that would affect other members' browsing experience, of course. Hell, maybe you could even bring back custom (administrator approved) user titles, and the once-a-year name change feature for those who donate. Naturally this kind of stuff can, and will, cause issues so it may be best to just avoid it all together to keep everyone content.

Speaking of forum changes; have you guys considered adding an app based Two Factor Authentication feature? If not, would you? And if so, what's the consensus on something like that?

[Batman1980]

I'd be willing to pay a small fee to change my member title. Kinda think I should have a custom one anyway due to my post count but hey, not that big of a deal. Glad I was able to turn off the ads, I do hope the site gets something when I buy movies through a site link.

[A Tortured Duckling]

Originally Posted by Batman1980

I'd be willing to pay a small fee to change my member title. Kinda think I should have a custom one anyway due to my post count but hey, not that big of a deal. Glad I was able to turn off the ads, I do hope the site gets something when I buy movies through a site link.

I intentionally didn't mention the post count because I knew you'd show up here, eventually. You and your 120K+ posts insanity.

[KilloWertz]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

Managed to turn mine off too. Phew.

Originally Posted by SpazeBlue

You know there's an option to turn them off in settings, right?

How? I've been through everything that I know of and never found the option. I ended up switching the forum style to Classic, but I shouldn't have to do that to get rid of the ads.