I’m continuing my mission to get rid of AdSense on both BlenderNation and Blender Artists. My hope is that the ‘Friends of BlenderNation/Blender Artists’ AdNet can take its place - this is my affiliate platform that only features Blender products by the community, for the community, without the creepy big tech invasive technologies.
You will already have seen this at the top of the sidebar for any topic, but I’m also experimenting with ‘in-stream’ cards - just small images to promote Blender products (see an example screenshot below).
I’d rather live in a world without advertising, but unfortunately we do need this to keep the platforms going. However, I hope that this approach results in more relevant and also good looking content (Blender art instead of garbage AdSense images), and at the same time that Blender Creators will benefit from it.
I don’t think it can fully replace AdSense yet, but hopefully we’ll get there!
I think that’s an excellent idea, I must say that I use an ad-blocker so I don’t see the ad-sense adverts. But I would love to see more first party blender related adverts; when I occasionally view Blender Artists without an ad-blocker I never even think of clicking any of the adverts. But if they where actually Blender related I would be more likely to go ahead and purchase something from them.
That also sounds like a great idea!
I personally find ad-sense adverts extremely annoying and distracting, which is why I use an ad-blocker.
For 2.50 a month, you can be a Patreon subscriber and you will have no ads on BlenderArtists. If you read BlenderArtists daily, that’s 8 cents a day. A very cheap option
I’d love to contribute but I’m not a fan of monthly ‘fee’ or subscription methods. In January I sent a message asking if it was possible to pay the annual amount in one lump sum (30 €), but I never received a response. I know Bart is incredibly busy and may not be able to read all the messages, but it’s a pity.
Not a super fan of the one at the top of the sidebar, but I can live with that, so fine.
But the in-stream one I find much more intrusive. At first, or at least the first one I saw, I thought it was an uploaded image as part of the post (and/or the rendered thumbnail of a link).
But then I realised it was an ad. The next few being much more obvious, since it was the same image as the one on the sidebar.
Now I guess, being new and new images, etc it just stood out more and hence more distracting. No doubt, if it continues, I’ll start to ‘filter’ it out, and instantly gloss (scroll) over it.
I do however miss the old Internet days, before it was so covered in slop/advertising, etc. It may also be due to the fact that one of the main sites I still visit (www.whirlpool.net.au) still doesn’t have a single ad. No idea how he does it, tho to be fair, it may help that it’s a pure text forum (no embedded/stored images or anything else). Even so, over the years, it is a LOT of text.
@thetony20 Thanks for the candid feedback. I agree - a world without advertising would be better. Ideally we could run off Patreon but take a guess how much support we actually get? Check it here.
I’m not a fan of adverts either, but I know from running my own business that they are very necessary (unless you just happen to have a large Patreon). I will be honest though, the Friends of Blender Artists is SO much better than Adsense. Just today I already clicked on one of the Friends of Blender Artists ads because it was something I found interesting.
Personally, I think the inline ads are fine but I do keep getting them confused with actual messages. Maybe make it somehow more obvious that it’s not part of a post. An extra separator above it? Could also make it 2 or 3 in a line so that it looks a bit more like a break and less like a single image. Not sure.
Gotcha. Let me experiment a bit with this. I like the idea of making it visually (more) distinct from post content - maybe add a background color to the row too?
Hi there @bartv,
I am a fan of the friends of Blender Artists idea, but I was just wondering if supporting BA on Pateron removes both the friends of Blender Artists adverts and the ad-sense?
Good catch! It doesn’t yet but I will add that to my todo.
Perhaps someone with more design talent than me can draw up some examples of how they think we can make this better? (And keep in mind we have a light and dark mode)
Here’s a quick mockup I just did. Should work fairly well on light or dark theme I think?
Might also be able to adjust the size of ads and make them slightly smaller, not sure.
We could also set up a Patreon campaign to get a minimum amount of funding that’ll let me kick AdSense off!
