Corona | Coming Attractions

Somehow, aggressive ads make it seem more like a site lots of people visit.

I'm all for you making money. I can tolerate ads and occasional pop-ups.

Your site is a dotcom site. Selling out is implicit in the "com." If you'd have done it back when it was "bc.ca," I would have bitched you out with a fierceness. (I would not have bitched you out with a fierceness.)

Have you given thought to offering a PayPal button somewhere on the home page?

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How's more or less single-handedly creating and policing (non message board) site content going? Does it leave much of your evening free, or has finding free time been a struggle?

(I see you addressed this in your "Ask Patrick Anything" thread; it was added during that dark, miserable time when I was on my holiday vacation. I could just delete the two questions that precede this parenthetical, but this parenthetical is an example of my writing, and my writing will one day be traded for goods and services as though it were cash or post-marital sex. It's best to keep as much of it in the CCA stores as possible.)

Wait....I can trade your writings for sex? Oh, Kah! I've got something for you!

Will one day be, Jake! Will one day be!

Havent noticed much difference browsing the news and front page articles, it's only when I jump over to the forums that I get the pop up where it's an entire screen, counts down some flash thing or other and gives me the option to skip the ad. It's not entirely too intrusive, just different.

Answers for Goiter:

Have you given thought to offering a PayPal button somewhere on the home page?

Yeah, I have. I don't like the idea of asking for money from readers. The entire reason I work a full-time 9-whenever job is so that I don't need the money from the site. Sure, if readers sent in $4k of donations I could get the new features going but I would rather try and a) increase site traffic, b) make these advertising agencies work for me at making cash. I still believe that it can be done this way.

The biggest thing people can do is, if they like the writing and community here, is spread the word about this place to attract others that are interested in movie and entertainment discussion and news. If I have 1000 fans of the site it will become viral; that's true of just about anything. And if there's a good product to be discovered, those new people will spread the word too.

How's more or less single-handedly creating and policing (non message board) site content going? Does it leave much of your evening free, or has finding free time been a struggle?

So far being a mod of the forums hasn't been that much of a time sink. Flame wars are non-existent (knock on wood); the only problems I have had are with spammers, and those get deleted soon after they post here. I get about 1-2 a week right now.

My life consists of a) working at my marketing job, b) writing for the site, c) family stuff. I'm trying to get some free time to write some ideas I have for a short story, a screenplay, a children's book and a comic book proposal. I'm working out a schedule that will allow me to do that a few times each week. All in all, it's OK, although one day I know that I will need to assign moderator duties to people.

Thanks for asking Goiter.

Edit: Oh, you meant non-message forum content, like news stories and database updates. OK, on that front it is always an issue finding the time and energy to write new content. 95% of the time I could probably get 10 new news stories on CA every day along with 10 new database updates and/or new film pages. I have to pick and choose which are the bigger stories to talk about and then try and get as many of those on the site as possible. Red Karma and Kaeos have talked about helping me write more stuff for the site and right now I'm still thinking that I can lift the stone myself because, if writers come to write for CA, they won't get paid. I know that's standard procedure for nearly all of the other movie websites (including the sites that can afford to pay their writers) and it's not something that I can get my head around at this time. Even if it was a lousy pittance each month I'd be a lot more open to it. Remember, what a site is asking a writer to do is give up their copyright on the writing that they created, for nothing. I get paid every two weeks because my employer values my writing. Writing is a skill and today a lot of people think that just because they have a keyboard in front of them, they can write and so other people that claim to be a professional writer don't deserve to make a living from their skills. Go tell that to a plumber or a carpenter or a lawyer and you'll be laughed at, but for some reason the value of a writer has been majorly diminished.

Personally, you can put as many ads on this bad boy as you like. Pats gotta eat!!! You'd be amazed what people will wade through online if the content is worth getting to, which it is on here.

I don't have a problem with ads. We are getting this site for free.

However:AThe main ad campaign is for FROM PARIS WITH LOVE and the SAW VI DVD, so the real good news is that it's targeted advertising. Hopefully this sort of ad campaigns will increase as the site visibility and traffic climbs

I haven't seen a single entertainment ad. All I get is a popup for Popular Screensavers, and a transitional ad telling me Obama wants me to refinance/go to school/become a working mom or some shit.

As long as there's no bogus Malware ads.

I have just realised. Pat called us a "Team" !!!

Obnoxious ads are why I left Mania: pop-ups, pop-unders, please-waits.

Please don't drive me away too.

Was Adman really that obnoxious?

Bark, what if we just throw you away instead of driving you?

All I've seen is the Obama refinancing ad, too. Didn't know what was up the first time, but it wasn't too bad. Just clicked on skip it and was redirected quickly. Oh, and had a netflix ad pop up once, too. No biggie.

It was the electronic cigarette ad that popped up an OS-level popup "Are you sure?" prompt when I tried to close it that pissed me off.

What pisses me off about the ads, and it's not just these, but all of the once which redirect, is that they say "Your page is loading..." FUCK YOU! My page would have loaded already if you weren't interrupting it! It's like they pretend that you're just viewing the ad because the page you requested is unbelievably complex and needs to load in the background.

Okay. I feel better now.

Well I was about to post and say HEY! cool sidebar ads, MUCH better than the screen hijacker!!!....then I got the screen hijacker again, lol. I am beginning to think that Obama is backing Insurance Regulation and I should get a quote ;)

The pop up comes up on my end too, I just hit the X. It's not too annoying to me but in a perfect world, there'd be no pop-ups on the site. Right now I want to see if it's financially worth it to keep them. If not, they're gone.

The FROM PARIS WITH LOVE reskin was unexpected but I had the site designed specifically for this intention. Movie ads are the ideal kind of ad for the site. I had a talk with the agency today and I'm going to go into negotiations shortly. If it all works out they'll represent CA to movie studios and everyone else for the site's advertising.

I did hear a little bit of feedback from the movie studio behind FPWL, and they liked the site, which is why they wanted the background. I thought that's a little bit cool.

Bark, I hear you. This is all in the testing phase still. If there's too much advertising I would be the first to pull some of it. I'd love it that the site made some decent cash for the reasons I stated above but not at the expense of the site quality or experience. Let me know how your experience goes in the days that follow.

The reskin is absolutely fine, and I use NoScript at home, so I don't get the "your page is loading" ads at home.

Glad the studio liked the site!

I'm liking the re-skin too. Nicely reinforces the fact that this site is/should be/will be a serious player.