Adverts on NSC (and paying not to have them)

[Bozza]

How much does it cost to put a forum up live on a server and domain renewal?

Should be no more than £75 a year.

If you ignore that the forum software licence if more than that alone, you might be right.

Unfortunately, being able to support close to 4,000 concurrent users online at a time without skipping a beat, costs considerably more than that. £75 covers NSC for a 2-3 days at peak times.

 

[StonehamPark]

Very, very bad move. Trust me.

Just unlock this domain, they literally take nothing away from the experience of NSC and it helps pay the server costs a little.

I didn't realise you could pick and choose where to block from.
I'll see if I can find a 'whitelist' on AdBlock.

 

[banjo]

I'm happy for the ads, sexy Russian ladies looking for a date.

 

[Guinness Boy]

The ads don't bother me at all. Not being able to swear does a bit but it's for the greater good. I'm in the he camp that happily accepts the ads but would chip in should funding be needed to keep the board going.

And please, please, please keep the Amazon link he said enigmatically....

 

[symyjym]

If you ignore that the forum software licence if more than that alone, you might be right.

Unfortunately, being able to support close to 4,000 concurrent users online at a time without skipping a beat, costs considerably more than that. £75 covers NSC for a 2-3 days at peak times.

Fair enough, do you have to renew the licence each year or pay for upgrades and more features on top?

 

[Paul Reids Sock]

I don't mind the ads. Apart from at work when the dodgey ones pop up.

If NSC required the money to continue running id happily pay a tenner a year and keep the ads. It's not a massive amount of money for the time most of us spend on here. I spent £15 at the cinema for my son and me yesterday. I have already spent more time on here since then than I did during the film

Edit: as an aside, I am currently using tapatalk and realised there are no adverts. Does this affect the revenue of NSC? Or do you get funds through it? If no funds then it could be worth making the use of the app a subscription of say £2-3. It may up the revenue a bit without upsetting too many

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

I didn't realise you could pick and choose where to block from.
I'll see if I can find a 'whitelist' on AdBlock.

All the ad blockers have a white-list.

 

[LamieRobertson]

I don't have a problem with the ads ..hardly notice them

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Instead of paying a premium for an ad free version of NSC I think many would like a Nigel free NSC with them having their own little play area in the "Other Stuff". If you've got over 60 Nigels on an ignore list some threads have pages without a post from a normal poster.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I've seen the problem you've had with getting money for the Player Sponsorship. I think a lot of people would be willing to pay a subscription at first but after that it would be a pain trying to get the subs in, on a regular basis.

 

[Bozza]

Fair enough, do you have to renew the licence each year or pay for upgrades and more features on top?

When I bought the last upgrade, I bought a version that didn't need annual renewals. That cost £216. A time will come, however, to move onto the next major release which will cost a similar amount. But the cost of the licence is peanuts compared to the hosting.

 

[Bozza]

I don't mind the ads. Apart from at work when the dodgey ones pop up.

If NSC required the money to continue running id happily pay a tenner a year and keep the ads. It's not a massive amount of money for the time most of us spend on here. I spent £15 at the cinema for my son and me yesterday. I have already spent more time on here since then than I did during the film

Edit: as an aside, I am currently using tapatalk and realised there are no adverts. Does this affect the revenue of NSC? Or do you get funds through it? If no funds then it could be worth making the use of the app a subscription of say £2-3. It may up the revenue a bit without upsetting too many

To answer you directly and to try and state it again: this wouldn't be done to raise extra revenue for NSC. The current revenue/cost model works just fine. As things stand NSC has to display nearly 800 pages to users before someone clicks on an advert. Then another 800, and so on. But that's fine.

As for Tapatalk - it doesn't allow the placement of adverts. There is a premium version that does, but the cost is, I believe, greater than would be earned back by those adverts. And, because the site is doing ok, there's no need to even try and test that out. People like Tapatalk, it seems to help people remain engaged so they use NSC on their desktops, laptops and tablets at other times so it's not something I feel the need to mess with.

 

[The Modfather]

No problem with the ads at all.

 

[Paul Reids Sock]

To answer you directly and to try and state it again: this wouldn't be done to raise extra revenue for NSC. The current revenue/cost model works just fine. As things stand NSC has to display nearly 800 pages to users before someone clicks on an advert. Then another 800, and so on. But that's fine.

As for Tapatalk - it doesn't allow the placement of adverts. There is a premium version that does, but the cost is, I believe, greater than would be earned back by those adverts. And, because the site is doing ok, there's no need to even try and test that out. People like Tapatalk, it seems to help people remain engaged so they use NSC on their desktops, laptops and tablets at other times so it's not something I feel the need to mess with.

Sounds good to me.

I probably speak for a lot of people when I say what a great job you do personally and the team of mods. I really wouldn't know where to get my general chit chat about football and the world in general if it wasn't for this place. So, in short, massive thanks!

 

[Kuipers Supporters Club]

People who block ads on NSC contribute nothing to the wellbeing of the site. Your viewing of NSC might get a bit more difficult for you.

I don't use Adblock for NSC - I hardly noticed that there were any, however for Youtube, Adblock is quite fantastic.

 

[pasty]

Really not fussed about the ads at all, and probably would not pay just to get an ad-free version. Having said that, if there were no other option, then yes I'd be happy to pay a subscription.

 

[The Camel]

Paying a few quid might drive a few of the nutters and weirdos to another site.

 

[Gilliver's Travels]

I'd be happy to pay a subscription, regardless of ads – although experience suggests their targeting to be hardly Exocet-accurate.

I often take a look at other clubs' message boards, and it's amazing how piss-poor some of them really are. Take Vital Football, with its shrunken windows and tiny fonts. Facilities that we naturally take for granted – like Search – totally absent. Look at Ipswich's TWTD for example – how do they put up with that? The only rival forum that comes anywhere close happens to be… the BBS! And hardly any other board in this division has anything like NSC's membership base, and online traffic.

To me, 20 quid a year to keep NSC running represents, what, less than 3 pint and pie deals at the Amex? Two thirds of a single match ticket? It's a no-brainer.

 

[8ace]

The Argus site is so horrible to use, that having a content-side of NSC with the latest news etc is something I'm also considering.



Not unless there was so much coming in for 'subscriptions' that it negated the need to have adverts. I suspect that's never going to be the case. You can use whatever language you like in 'The Other Stuff'. I probably need to look at a way of making the language filter not applicable to that forum.

**** that then.

Welcome back fella.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Speaking from a MOD perspective, I'd feel a bit uncomfortable banning somebody (deservedly, obviously) if they'd paid a subscription.

"I've paid a tenner to access NSC. You can't ban me" etc.