# Yep, that’s a new ad on the right side



## Mike Greene (Oct 17, 2018)

And yes, it’s there so I can make more money! How’s that for honesty? 

Remember how Frederick was trying to find ways to bring in more income from the site? Well, now that I own it, I understand why. This site takes a lot more time to run than you might think and the income it generates doesn’t justify the time spent. I think that frustration kept building up for Frederick and that’s what led to what happened last year.

Banner ads here are really cheap (they cost a fraction of what they cost on KVR or Gearslutz), but interestingly, many of the major orchestral-oriented companies (East-West, 8dio, CineSamples and a few others) won’t buy them. Even with their Commercial Announcements going to Tier 2, where a single potentially lost purchase would pay for months of ads, they still won’t bite.

I’m certainly no business expert, but that seems like an odd choice to me, but whether I agree with their reasoning or not, that’s the hand I’ve been dealt. Other than Spitfire, VSL and Orchestral Tools, the forum income is mostly small companies, so raising rates will be a tough ask. I could go to Google ads, which would be way easier and more profitable, but that would be kinda ugly.

Somehow, though, I need to increase the income here. So we’ve added this new sidebar ad position. Gearslutz and other sites have the same thing, so hopefully people here won’t think it’s too outrageous. FWIW, animation won’t be allowed, so it shouldn’t be too obtrusive.


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## ironbut (Oct 17, 2018)

Whatever you need to do is fine by me Mike.
I'm sure there will be some folks who'll complain but I'm also sure that they'd be disappointed if Vi-control was gone.
I know I would be.
Thanks for keeping the fires lit!


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## Kony (Oct 17, 2018)

Just wondering if there is any way to reduce the blue border and widen the text area though as it becomes a bit narrow with the ad - or certainly looks more narrow? Wider text area is easier to read IMO


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## mouse (Oct 17, 2018)

Why not lock ads in tier 2 commercial announcements so there can be no comments. That way the companies don't get as much benefit.

Also I like the fact that all ads on here are relevant to me. I sometimes click on ads that look interesting. If it went to non relevant ads I'd prob be more likely to block them


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## Guffy (Oct 17, 2018)

Kony said:


> Just wondering if there is any way to reduce the blue border and widen the text area though as it becomes a bit narrow with the ad - or certainly looks more narrow? Wider text area is easier to read IMO












You can always use the full-width theme. I think i prefer it narrower though.


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## Bill the Lesser (Oct 17, 2018)

Fine with me, go for it! Many of the ads here have some real interest for me, which makes them pretty painless. I wouldn't mind Google ads if that would held keep this place going, I've got to the point where they're little more than colorful wallpaper.

Hey this is a valuable site, I know for a fact I've made better buying choices from being here, and skipped a few bad ones. That's money in the bank. I'll even pay a modest subscription, maybe there could be pro and amateur tiers, with no discrimination as to user privileges. Maybe we could all chip in 0.1% of the price of the VIs we buy based on info learned here. 1/2 dollar on a full price Albion purchase wouldn't be too painful, would it? Just skip 1/8 of a Starbucks coffee. Or maybe we should be nicer to our suppliers, but let's not go there...


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## MrHStudio (Oct 17, 2018)

I like it I hope it gives you the revenue you need


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## Jdiggity1 (Oct 17, 2018)

Throws me off-center. I say put another one on the left for balance-sake.


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## MA-Simon (Oct 17, 2018)

I kinda whish it would scroll with the text. Way less distracting aaaaaaaand you can put like 10 in a row!


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## Mike Greene (Oct 18, 2018)

mouse said:


> Why not lock ads in tier 2 commercial announcements so there can be no comments. That way the companies don't get as much benefit.


Because that would take away conversation that could be valuable. For instance, if someone asked which articulations are included, we'd all want to know that.

Also, I don't want to make CA Tier completely unappealing. Even now, some companies (I won't say which) have used surrogates to post in Sample Talk instead of CA Tier 2 to try to beat the system. I don't want to incentivize that even more.


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## Nao Gam (Oct 18, 2018)

I'd be down to send a small donation and I'm sure many others would too @Mike Greene


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## Mike Greene (Oct 18, 2018)

Bill the Lesser said:


> Fine with me, go for it! Many of the ads here have some real interest for me, which makes them pretty painless. I wouldn't mind Google ads if that would held keep this place going, I've got to the point where they're little more than colorful wallpaper.
> 
> Hey this is a valuable site, I know for a fact I've made better buying choices from being here, and skipped a few bad ones. That's money in the bank. I'll even pay a modest subscription, maybe there could be pro and amateur tiers, with no discrimination as to user privileges. Maybe we could all chip in 0.1% of the price of the VIs we buy based on info learned here. 1/2 dollar on a full price Albion purchase wouldn't be too painful, would it? Just skip 1/8 of a Starbucks coffee. Or maybe we should be nicer to our suppliers, but let's not go there...





Nao Gam said:


> I'd be down to send a small donation and I'm sure many others would too @Mike Greene



I appreciate the support! Just to be clear, though, the forum is in zero danger of going under. The existing ads more than cover the costs, and my songwriting/composing career treated me very well, so fundraisers or anything like that would feel pretty weird.

This new ad is just a matter of me trying to use a straightforward business tactic to help be better compensated for my time.


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## Mike Greene (Oct 18, 2018)

Jdiggity1 said:


> Throws me off-center. I say put another one on the left for balance-sake.


I like the way you think! And then we could add a semi-transparent one in the middle.


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## Mike Greene (Oct 18, 2018)

MA-Simon said:


> I kinda whish it would scroll with the text. Way less distracting aaaaaaaand you can put like 10 in a row!


The ad should be following you as you scroll down the page. Does it not do that for you?


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## chillbot (Oct 18, 2018)

Is it odd, I don't notice the ads? Likely because the internets is full of them you become immune to it. But the odd secret is that even though I buy a crap ton of libraries, far more than the average user, I've never once bought anything because of an ad on vi-c. I have, however, bought an insane amount of libraries because of POSTS on vi-c over the years. I suppose it's related, you buy an ad, you get to post. But if you're logged in and only use "recent posts" for the most part, you don't really notice a difference between tier 1/2. I don't know what the point of this post is. Just that I'm the target audience for these ads but they go right over my head (except of course when botdog samples has a beautiful banner...)


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## sean8877 (Oct 18, 2018)

I actually enjoy the ads here so banner away


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## MA-Simon (Oct 18, 2018)

Mike Greene said:


> The ad should be following you as you scroll down the page. Does it not do that for you?


Ah, but the text scrolls up, while the ad scrolls down.


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## erica-grace (Oct 18, 2018)

Curious - how does advertising on the VI forum for the VI forum increase revenues for the VI forum? I mean, isnt the ad trying to get people to come here and visit? But if you see it, you're already here, no?


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## Mike Greene (Oct 18, 2018)

erica-grace said:


> Curious - how does advertising on the VI forum for the VI forum increase revenues for the VI forum? I mean, isnt the ad trying to get people to come here and visit? But if you see it, you're already here, no?


The ones you see now are placeholders.  I wanted to make sure everything worked okay before contacting advertisers to tell them the space is available.


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## erica-grace (Oct 18, 2018)

Oh I see. I am like, why is he advertising VIControl on VIControl


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## Andrew Aversa (Nov 24, 2018)

I would be very surprised if you could make more money from Google Ads. Based on my experience with it you'd probably earn 10% or less. Don't bother IMO.


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## Mike Greene (Nov 25, 2018)

zircon_st said:


> I would be very surprised if you could make more money from Google Ads. Based on my experience with it you'd probably earn 10% or less. Don't bother IMO.


It would be interesting to test and see, but you're probably right. Plus, I don't think Google ads would be good for the site.


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## chillbot (Jan 6, 2019)

Mike Greene said:


> FWIW, animation won’t be allowed, so it shouldn’t be too obtrusive.


OOPS.


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## whiskers (Jan 7, 2019)

chillbot said:


> OOPS.


It's endearing tho


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## Vonk (Jan 21, 2019)

_"FWIW, animation won’t be allowed, so it shouldn’t be too obtrusive."_

It isn't endearing and it is annoying. Gifs and animations are the spawn of the devil on a site devoted to text.


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## whiskers (Jan 21, 2019)




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## leon chevalier (Jan 21, 2019)

Vonk said:


> _"FWIW, animation won’t be allowed, so it shouldn’t be too obtrusive."_
> 
> It isn't endearing and it is annoying. Gifs and animations are the spawn of the devil on a site devoted to text.


It depends, if their is some frogs on it, it's fine...


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## WindcryMusic (Jan 22, 2019)

This is one of the very few websites where the ads don't bother me a bit, as they are almost all items of direct interest to me and from companies that I know are legitimate. That is, with the possible exception of that "botdog" one.


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## Fredeke (Feb 4, 2019)

@Mike Greene : I use an adBlocker, because I can't stand ads. 
But now that I realize your situation, maybe there's a way I could make a donation to VI-C ?


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## kitekrazy (Feb 4, 2019)

WindcryMusic said:


> This is one of the very few websites where the ads don't bother me a bit, as they are almost all items of direct interest to me and from companies that I know are legitimate. That is, with the possible exception of that "botdog" one.



Most of my ads where I go are DAW related, even Facebook.


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## Mike Greene (Feb 4, 2019)

Fredeke said:


> @Mike Greene : I use an adBlocker, because I can't stand ads.
> But now that I realize your situation, maybe there's a way I could make a donation to VI-C ?


I appreciate the offer, but the forum is financially healthy, so no donations necessary.

With that said, most people disable their ad blockers for the site, because almost all the ads here are relevant. Seriously, if you're not seeing BotDog's frogs, you're missing out!


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## Mike Greene (Feb 4, 2019)

On a related note, guess how many people are paying for that sidebar ad right now? Did you guess zero? That's right, literally _no one_ has bought that slot since Sonokinetic did their 12 Days of Christmas ads. (I gave free ones to BotDog and Spitfire because they're my friends and the slot would be empty otherwise. Oh, and Realitone, too, even though that guy's kind of a jerk. Good looking, though!)

It's crazy, because I honestly believe this is the best ad slot on the site. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm totally fine financially, and when we finally officially release Hip Hop Creator in a couple weeks, I'll be glad to be the only advertiser there, so it doesn't bother me at all. I just find it very interesting.

I find myself in a funny position here. As forum owner, I want to sell ads. The more money the forum can make, the better, right? But as Realitone owner, I'm competing with the other developers/potential advertisers.

So as forum owner, I want to explain to my competitors how marketing works. (With all due respect, I think many of these companies are totally clueless on that topic.) I want to show them what _my_ ad budget is, and how, even with a small number of products, Realitone is doing pretty well. Advertising works. Especially here, because I can then show them my Realitone numbers as an example, and how VI-C ads are far cheaper than KVR or Gearslutz ads, and also cheaper than a few other sites where I advertise.

But as Realitone owner, I _don't_ want to tell them any of those things, because these are my competitors. And I especially don't want to reveal what other places I advertise, because other than KVR or Gearslutz, those sites are ones I had to discover on my own!

The choice is easy, because Realitone is far more profitable than VI-Control, so if 8dio and East West and CineSamples and a dozen other companies don't want to advertise here, that's fine by me. Especially since posting and updating the ads can be a PIA.

I just find it baffling from a business standpoint.


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## Fredeke (Feb 4, 2019)

Mike Greene said:


> With that said, most people disable their ad blockers for the site, because almost all the ads here are relevant. Seriously, if you're not seeing BotDog's frogs, you're missing out!


Yes, other users told me about that. It's fantastic.
On my other computer there's no adblock however, so yes I know the banners are more relevant than usually.
I'm really surprised you're not selling more. But then again, the market is more restricted if you don't accept generic viagra campaiigns . Thank you for that btw.


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## Lindon (Mar 1, 2019)

Mike Greene said:


> On a related note, guess how many people are paying for that sidebar ad right now? Did you guess zero? That's right, literally _no one_ has bought that slot since Sonokinetic did their 12 Days of Christmas ads. (I gave free ones to BotDog and Spitfire because they're my friends and the slot would be empty otherwise. Oh, and Realitone, too, even though that guy's kind of a jerk. Good looking, though!)
> 
> It's crazy, because I honestly believe this is the best ad slot on the site. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm totally fine financially, and when we finally officially release Hip Hop Creator in a couple weeks, I'll be glad to be the only advertiser there, so it doesn't bother me at all. I just find it very interesting.
> 
> ...



Mike I spent a long time thinking about this post - so finally :

You want to convince developers (so that'd be people like... me) that ads here are worth the effort, but you dont want to say how valuable they are directly. Sure. Fine I get that. But you have some free advertising space and you give it to Spitfire? Who lets be honest pretty much "get" your advertising model, and who really really really dont need your help.

Why dont you just pick some of the developers who've been here for years and years and years helping out newbies, contributing to the overall value of this as a forum, in ways that frankly no one from spitfire has ever done, and offer them some "free" slot or two so they can see for themselves how great this advertising malarky is. 

To be honest here its more than a little saddening that people like Mario, myself and Big Bob (god rest his) were here for a very very long time helping people out (and as I recall you were one of those people we helped out) yet when it came to handing out largese you went with your "friends" at Spitfire. 

Your mileage may vary.


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## SBK (Mar 1, 2019)

its nice that the adds are about the music business, imagine if there were irrelevant adds :D


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## Mike Greene (Mar 1, 2019)

Lindon said:


> Mike I spent a long time thinking about this post - so finally :
> 
> You want to convince developers (so that'd be people like... me) that ads here are worth the effort, but you dont want to say how valuable they are directly. Sure. Fine I get that. But you have some free advertising space and you give it to Spitfire? Who lets be honest pretty much "get" your advertising model, and who really really really dont need your help.
> 
> ...


You make some valid points. I should clarify a few things about my objectives, though.

I would love for VI-Control to make me lots of money. But ... it can never ever make as much money as I can make from composing or from Realitone. The forum is too small, so it just isn't possible. More importantly, trying to maximize the profitability of the forum would involve lots of time. Time that is better spent on my main businesses. (Composing and Realitone. And don't even get me started on how much more time my wife thinks we should spend on vacations and stuff. )

If I took the monetization of the forum more seriously, I would approach MOTU and Universal Audio and Steinberg and Slate and all sorts of companies that would probably be open to advertising here if I approached them. Our ads truly are cheaper than KVR or Gearslutz, plus this is a more free-spending community than other forums, so I think it would be an easy sell. But that would involve more work than I'm willing to do, plus having these additional advertisers means current advertisers' ads would get diluted. So I haven't done that. Tacky as this may sound, I don't need the money that badly, so I'm fine with things as they are.

I've shifted the ad structure here to a monthly subscription model, so that I don't have to deal with so many emails when ads expire. (Those emails are a real time drain.) It's still possible to buy an ad for just one month, but I charge significantly more for that in an attempt to dissuade people from short term ads.

I do want to make more money from the forum, but my bigger goal is to spend less time dealing with advertising issues, so I'm looking for that sweet spot of medium (not maximum) money with minimum time.

So I'm not going to put much effort into convincing anyone that ads are effective here. I do enjoy musing about what I see, as I did in my previous post, but if people don't want to advertise here, that's absolutely fine with me. The Tier 2 concept was an "easy" way of further incentivizing advertising, but that's as far as my efforts go. I definitely wouldn't want to do any test ads for people who wonder whether ads would be effective, because that would be a whole bunch of emails and effort on my part for a minimal amount of money. (Again, if I'm going to put effort into trying to make more money, composing and Realitone are far better places to put that effort.)

Regarding people who have helped me on (and off) the forum, that list would be huge. I couldn't even begin to start calculating how much free advertising I should give to each person. In your case, feel free to post in Tier 1, and if you like, I'd be happy to pay you for whatever time you spent helping me out, but as far as free ads go, that's not a precedent I'd want to set. Literally dozens of companies could claim I owe them, too, and it would turn into a political disaster.


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## chillbot (Mar 1, 2019)

Mike Greene said:


> I couldn't even begin to start calculating how much free advertising I should give to each person.


Not sure it matters or makes a difference but just wanted to clarify that botdog samples did indeed pay for our banner ad. When I asked about how to get the sidebar ad as well Mike threw it in for free but I felt like that was more due to the charitable nature of the project and not because we were buddies.


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## Lindon (Mar 2, 2019)

Mike Greene said:


> You make some valid points. I should clarify a few things about my objectives, though.
> 
> I would love for VI-Control to make me lots of money. But ... it can never ever make as much money as I can make from composing or from Realitone. The forum is too small, so it just isn't possible. More importantly, trying to maximize the profitability of the forum would involve lots of time. Time that is better spent on my main businesses. (Composing and Realitone. And don't even get me started on how much more time my wife thinks we should spend on vacations and stuff. )
> 
> ...



Mike,

I understand where you are coming from, and I'm not suggesting a change in your business priorities - Realitone first everything else after that (well except the family stuff right?), and thank you for the offer re: Tier 1.

I get your Tier 1 / Tier 2 approach attempts to incentivise advertising for little effort on your part - but I think your original post points to this not really being very successful. Plus I think this Tier 1 / 2 model really really distorts and widens the gap between the "we can afford lots of advertising" companies and the "we can nearly afford no advertising" companies. You are choking off access to most of the forum audience for the very companies that need it most. It's hard to call it unfair but when its people in these smaller companies who are contributing most (via posts) in this forum, it seems to be at odds with the ethos of this place. So I'm going to ask you to seriously re-think this strategy, and in the end to abandon it as "doing more harm than good".

As to giving away largese to people who have helped you out, well I was using you as an example - but I really mean members of this forum (and you know who they are) who contribute on a regular basis to make this place what it is, and helping out everyone not just you. 

So first - not people who have helped you out, but people who are significant contributors here - they should not be hard to identify - with even some arbitrary approach.

Second - free advertising - Sure its a door you are reluctant to open but as it happens you have already done it - but aimed it at your friends, which I think is a poor decision as I have pointed out. I think you should consider ways to (easily) incentivise companies here - but as you freely admit if the advertising dollar isnt really a priority then cant see why you wouldnt offer them occasional free advertising space. If you based this on a clearly understood set of guidelines for how these people earned their shot then I cant see how I or any other small independent developer could complain. 

So for example I cant see how anyone would or could complain if you gave Mario some free advertising slots here. He's clearly the biggest KSP contributor here.

So if you dont need the money I suggest you incentivise the discussion not the large commercial developers. 

And thanks again for the Tier 1 access. I *will* be using it.

Lindon


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## Mike Greene (Mar 2, 2019)

When I bought the forum, I had to put in a ton of time to get it running smoothly. There was the obvious damage control, as well as various festering dramas that arose, but there was also a lot of time I had to spend on the behind the scenes operational technicalities. The forum was marginally profitable, but that margin wasn't much, and I believe that's what pushed Frederick over the edge. There's a lot of time spent keeping the forum running, and the compensation was minimal.

One surprising time drain was dealing with advertisers. They're all nice, mind you, but those emails really add up, and given the relatively low income they netted, it got the point to the point where I was really close to just eliminating the ads entirely and paying the yearly forum costs out of pocket. I know that sounds crazy, but my time has monetary value (an hour on the forum is an hour not spent on Realitone), so financially, taking a minor financial loss on the forum would have been the smarter business move than keeping things going as they were.

So I revamped the ads structure. The forum is much more profitable now and I no longer dread seeing new emails in the forum InBox. It can never be _highly_ profitable, mind you, but it's now financially healthy.

Now, we all know that the best "ad" on the forum isn't a banner ad, it's the Commercial Announcements section. If a developer posts a thread there that keeps getting bumped, that's a great "ad." Which is how the forum should be.

Here's the thing, though. I put a lot of work into this forum, not to mention a lot of up-front money. So I found it really annoying to see 8dio, CineSamples, East West, AudioBro, Kirk Hunter, and several other major companies getting tons of benefit from the forum, but growing alligator arms when it comes time to pay the check. So I created Tier 2. I'll be the first to admit that it has its flaws, but it's here to stay, if for no other reason than it makes me less resentful of the time I put into this.

As far as whether our ads are affordable, this goes back to my previous post (#32) where I mused about some business theories. A company can get their posts into Tier 1 for as little as 39 bucks a month. I contend that if a company, even a small company, doesn't feel a Tier 1 announcement is worth $39, then that choice is on them. Seems to me that if someone wants their company to make more than just beer money, then it's _their_ decision for whether they want to treat it as a business, where advertising is taken seriously. But again, all these companies are my competitors, so I'll end the business advice there.

The bottom line is that Tier 1/2 isn't going away. Several companies did make the switch after I instituted it, so it worked.

On the "free ads for friends" issue, I'm not sure what my original quote on that might have been, but the two free ads I can think of were both as Chillbot described above. Spitfire and Chillbot had new announcements and when they sent me their artwork (for their paid ads), I told them to go ahead and send me a 120x600 image as well, since the slot was basically empty.

In any event, I am definitely not going to start a "free ads" program, whether someone is valuable to the forum or not. First, I'm trying to make _less_ work for myself, not more, but more importantly, that would be a nightmare of emails and hurt feelings as I'm tasked with deciding who is worthy and who is not. I ain't goin' there.


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## erica-grace (Mar 2, 2019)

Mike Greene said:


> If I took the monetization of the forum more seriously, I would approach MOTU and Universal Audio and Steinberg and Slate and all sorts of companies that would probably be open to advertising here if I approached them. Our ads truly are cheaper than KVR or Gearslutz, plus this is a more free-spending community than other forums, so I think it would be an easy sell. But that would involve more work than I'm willing to do,



Why not hire someone to do the legwork, and give them a percentage? Maybe one of the forum members here who has some time, (not me) who knows how to sell ads, (not me) who is nice enough, (not me) can get some of those companies on board for you, and in the process they can earn a few dollars.

As far as the ads being diluted - I get that part, but maybe you can charge a bit more to have some ads in "heavy rotation"


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## Lindon (Mar 3, 2019)

Mike, 

OK, so no free ads, thats fine. How about for contributors with more than (say) 500 posts/replies - which is arbitrary but seems like it would be a "serious" contributor - they get access to tier 1 - you get zero additional emails/work and they get some payback?

Just a thought.

LMP


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## mouse (Mar 3, 2019)

Making tier 2 not show up on mobile would probably force more to pay for ads and tier 1.


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## d.healey (Mar 3, 2019)

There are a few wordpress plugins available that allow you to set up a kind of ad store. Someone who wants an ad can buy one, upload an image, and then all you have to do is tick a box to approve it. Is there nothing similar available for whatever CMS the VI site uses?


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## Mike Greene (Mar 3, 2019)

erica-grace said:


> Why not hire someone to do the legwork, and give them a percentage? Maybe one of the forum members here who has some time, (not me) who knows how to sell ads, (not me) who is nice enough, (not me) can get some of those companies on board for you, and in the process they can earn a few dollars.
> 
> As far as the ads being diluted - I get that part, but maybe you can charge a bit more to have some ads in "heavy rotation"


Great minds think alike.  I have someone already who handles the day to day of ad changes and stuff. I'm not ready yet to reach out to other potential advertisers, though, because we're still tweaking the ad structure. (Very slowly. Ad revenue already more than pays the bills, so I'm not in a rush.)



Lindon said:


> OK, so no free ads, thats fine. How about for contributors with more than (say) 500 posts/replies - which is arbitrary but seems like it would be a "serious" contributor - they get access to tier 1 - you get zero additional emails/work and they get some payback?


That would be fair. I'd probably also want to include a requirement that the company is small. Let me think on that.



mouse said:


> Making tier 2 not show up on mobile would probably force more to pay for ads and tier 1.


Yes, but then members on mobile wouldn't see all the announcements. Most people here want to see all announcements, whether Tier 1 or 2.



d.healey said:


> There are a few wordpress plugins available that allow you to set up a kind of ad store. Someone who wants an ad can buy one, upload an image, and then all you have to do is tick a box to approve it. Is there nothing similar available for whatever CMS the VI site uses?


There is, and we have it. There are snags, though, in that some advertisers here try to upload enormous images (sometimes as much as 10MB for a 728x90 gif, and a couple times over 50MB), so it still takes a lot of monitoring. Since these companies are small and don't have true art or tech departments, they have no idea how to make their gifs smaller, so there's a lot of hand holding to get things fixed.

Also, the Portal page is Wordpress, so our ads plugin (which is on Xenforo) doesn't handle that page, so those have to be handled separately. That's really annoying, so I'm thinking about discontinuing ads on the Portal page, or maybe making them so they are "permanent" and can't be updated, or maybe making them more expensive if people update them, or ... something. I dunno.

None of this is that big of an issue, though, and like I say, the current setup more than pays the bills, so I'm in no rush to make more changes.


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## thesteelydane (Apr 12, 2019)

Mike Greene said:


> On a related note, guess how many people are paying for that sidebar ad right now? Did you guess zero? That's right, literally _no one_ has bought that slot since Sonokinetic did their 12 Days of Christmas ads. (I gave free ones to BotDog and Spitfire because they're my friends and the slot would be empty otherwise. Oh, and Realitone, too, even though that guy's kind of a jerk. Good looking, though!)
> 
> It's crazy, because I honestly believe this is the best ad slot on the site. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm totally fine financially, and when we finally officially release Hip Hop Creator in a couple weeks, I'll be glad to be the only advertiser there, so it doesn't bother me at all. I just find it very interesting.
> 
> ...



Well I, as a new (and decidedly small) developer, would love a marketing masterclass from you. Just sayin’...


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