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if it's an Ad for something I actually want from a retailer I trust I may actually click on it, but morelikely would visit that retailer's site and search the item
I have done this when looking for something specific and Google then helpfully targeted me on YouTube and Facebook etc
but I saw the dead opposite here, stuff I am totally against!!!
(on iPad until I changed to Firefox that is, Google still pushing those unwanted Ads on my Android TV on YouTube
)
On a phone, the forum layout was already terrible before these advertisements.
In landscape, 40% of the vertical screen space is taken up by phone controls and Daz's uncollapsable top bar, and then a large amount of the horizontal is used for avatars and page gutters:
For a small mercy, bottom ads do not show in this orientation.
In portrait, while the top bar is now a less obnoxiously large portion of the screen, the avatars and gutters now leave only 40% of the width of the page for the actual posts, and all most images in posts get crushed out of proportion horizontally:
And here the bottom advertisement is now taking a large portion of what's left.
In either of these, there's maybe a quarter of the screen left for actual text.
And as far as the bottom ad having a little arrow to collapse it, you now have a significant risk of clumsy fingers not collapsing the ad but instead opening it and adding a new data point to your digital footprint.
There are definitely devices where Daz's layout was bad before taking another chunk of the screen for ads. Mobile browsing should be a major consideration these days, but apparently no-one seems to have actually properly tested the community and these new ads on a phone. (Alternatively, if they have, they have somehow deemed this acceptable).
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If Daz wants to get more revenue out of its community pages, I would strongly suggest that the thing to do is drive *more* engagement, not do things that would reduce it.
This should be things like:
- a more functional layout in mobile
- a better forum search (rather than something that will only match any word in the search in reverse posting order)
- adding the capacity to follow users on the gallery
- searching on the gallery
- actually getting comment/activity notifications on the gallery again
- integrating gallery images into store product pages (possibly giving vendors the option to opt out, or blacklist certain images or users if they want to curate how their product is shown). This is already a feature in the Daz Deals plug-in, but Daz would have the option to integrate it in a way that gave them and the vendors more control over it.
I have had people specifically tell me "I didn't like the original promos, but I saw your gallery render, and that made me buy the product". That would be Daz using the community to directly advertise their own products.
Gallery images on the store pages also gives users more incentive to tag products (which currently they have little reason to) because tagging products increases the visibility of their renders. And products being tagged in the gallery increases the chance of sales.
More internal traffic, more sales. Rather than a trickle of revenue that irritates people or leads them off site to spend their money elsewhere.
The only diference would be that if you don't use Google and haven't switched Google's tracking off then you would get less targeting of the ads, because Google would have less info about your habits. The ads are in a space that Daz provides and Google populates.
I kind of have a theory about the ads. They appear, for me at least, only on the forum and the gallery. I don't see them on any other part of DAZ. I don't think Google would pick and choose specific pages on any site. I wonder if DAZ might have put those there. Do they get paid to display ads? I could be wrong, but it's just a thought.
That is not a secret, Daz put the space for Google ads on the gallery and forum pages and Google populates them. They are not enabled/placed in the store.
I don't know if this has been said and haven't read through the full thread, but what about ads posting a popular render in the gallery and listing all the products used. That would have a much better chance of being clicked on and would result in sales directly to Daz. Is there a way to "pitch" marketing ideas directly to the decision makers?
The same for California. We have tracking and cookie laws that on most sites allow you to disable all cookies except ones necessary for the site to run, Daz does not give this option and I also see ads for Daz everywhere now. I know that most websites have to ask you which cookies you accept in the state of California so this is the individual sites, not Google asking.
I do get ads on mobile games which apparently think I'm a senior Spanish speaking male with prostate cancer, schizophrenia, COPD and endometriosis to go along with my supposed prostate cancer lol. I click Do Not Track on all web pages, but Daz never gave me that option which is necessary in the state of California.
And now, thanks to Apple watches and Oura rings, they also know your heart rate, blood pressure, BMI, etc. Earphones that monitor your thoughts are currently being used in manufacturing plants. Yuval Noah Harari calls it "under-the-skin surveillance."
Actually, this ^ is a really cool idea. I have no issue with good business and people making money, and if anyone makes money via this site, it should be our PAs and Daz itself for making all this cool stuff available to us to buy, and hosting these forums for us to chat on. It's no secret that I spend a lot around here, and that idea is something tangible that could encourage me to spend a little more. There are many occasions when I'm deciding whether or not to get something and someone's gallery render tips the scale toward getting it.
Lately I've been using ChatGPT instead of google when I'm researching something. No ads, just gives you the straight info. Does not track you! I know the free version hasn't been updated for a couple of years but I'm finding it very useful for many things like nutritional and health info and even for software tutorials including Daz Studio. I just asked it as a test how to use dforce and it gave me a very informative answer. I think ChatGPT could wipe out search engines. There are good aspects to AI!
This thread shouldn't get sidetracked, but I do have to point out that ChatGPt has invented stuff out of whole cloth so it shouldn't be trusted without verification.
Yes, I cringed when I read "very useful for many things like nutritional and health info". I think that is the last place I would trust it.
Yes, the web has many examples of how AI "hallucinates" information and how inaccurate it is. And to keep it on topic: it's about as accurate as the current forum/gallery ads targetting which is convinced forum users want to know the newest celebrity gossip, rent a bus, and what else was there... I think everyone would be much happier with ads if they were even remotely relevant.
The relevance of the ads will depend on whether you have allowed personalized ads or not, I think. I don't.
I know the kinds of community improvements I mentioned earlier are more work than simply assigning some spaces that can be populated with ads...
... but they're the kind of thing that people are much more unlikely to complain about or be driven away by, and these things would make the community better at actually sharing ideas and promoting products that are already on the store.
It does feel like the community has become less helpful and inspiring since I first joined it, and assuming that I'm not the cause of that correlation, I think that things like the overhaul of the gallery losing a lot of the engagement features can't have helped. It'd be nice to see them back.
(Things are a little better since we had a bit of a "let's be more positive" wave a few months back, but that's only going so far).
Then this is regulated in California in the same way as in Germany/EU; that's a good thing. Observing these rules is actually Daz's job, not Google's.
I also have such games, and I too am sorted into the funniest categories by Google. I'm noticeably often black and expecting a baby (which should have been born long ago after several years), but that doesn't stop me from developing prostate problems too. Besides that, I apparently own a farming business and enjoy driving luxury cars LOL They're not even good at tracking, those Googles.
I'm not seeing any ads using Chrome, AdBlock, and Ghostery on PC, but I can see them on Chrome with my tablet. More than anything, they really cheapen the look of the site and in my opinion, make it look...well, somewhat less trustworthy. 3D professionals already don't take DAZ that seriously, and they certainly won't if our forums and galleries start looking like ShareCG.
I haven't been as unlucky as others here with the actual ads, mainly getting ones for H&R Block, Subaru, and Mint Mobile, but is it really not possible for DAZ to have some say over the content of the ads? At least ones for sellers of PC parts like Nvidia or Logitech, software like Adobe, or even vagely art-related content would make more sense and not make it look like some fly-by-night Geocities site.
ShareCG has apparently resisted the siren calls of Google and spared its users the avalanche of junk ads with which this data kraken is now allowed to annoy users (= paying customers!) at Daz. ShareCG also shows ads, but 1. very few annoying animated stuff, and 2. apparently adverts from individual customers that have something to do with the page content in the broadest sense. This is acceptable and also corresponds to your suggestions. But apparently Google doesn't have this selection option, otherwise the community wouldn't get such bucket loads of rubbish.
Ads not showing just at the moment: or rather a small banner at the top and bottom. The pop-up was really intrusive, and also seemed to contain odd products.
barbult,
Yes, and Google Ads offers some way to give feedback on the adverts that they serve. I've interacted with this sort of feedback at Instagram. Over time it's useful in shaping the type of ads I've wanted to receive. Here are some screenshots of the Google Ads I saw at the Daz Forum.
[1] Look for the "x" at the right and click it. This will start the Google Ads feedback process.
[2] We get to the meat of things here. While the "Ad options" and "Why this ad?" are interesting to click through, it's the "Send feedback" that's useful.
[3] And there it is. Pick one to complete the feedback process. The advertisement disappears, only to reappear as another new one after we reload the browser or revisit the web page. I don't know how long it takes for Google to process any feedback, but I imagine it takes a number of feedback submissions to adjust Google's ad profile. Since Google doesn't require any active log in session, I assume they use cookies or such sort of web trackers to customize the ad experience. Time will tell.
Incidentally, I saw an ad at the Daz Forum that invovled Microsoft. I didn't pursue it and for the most part I've seen Google Ads. But the Microsoft scheme appears to involve an active Microsoft log in session to track and filter ads. Not really sure about this as I saw it only once.
That's it. Personally I'd rather not have ads at the Daz website. Life is short and we've got better things to take care of than feed the Click Economy. I know this sounds like throwing in the towel, but interacting with Google Ads and giving feedback is a way to adjust to the new reality. Part fatalism and part proactively taking charge of one's circumstances.
Cheers!
The ads ar google ads, if there was a Microsoft ad it was carried by Google.
An ad came up for sea monkeys so instead of spending my money here I bought a sea monkeys kit instead...
I have Malwarebytes now on my systems and the latest email had an article warning about the danger of even clicking on those advertising images now. Please be careful of them.
I also note that since I add Add Block Plus to Google Chrome on my iMac I haven't seen the adds on the Daz site or elsewhere. I did get a weird response from the New York Times yesterday saying I couldn't leave a comment with Wirecutter because I had disabled 'cookies' which I wasn't aware I had. So I tracked down their article on Twitter and left my comment there.
That is ads appearing in search results, the "Sponsored" ones that appear as the first few entries at the top of the page when you do a search, not ads like these.
I thought they were extinct?!
PS: looking for a browser &/or adblocker that works with Fire tablet and its Silk browser. I've searched for adblockers in the app store, but all the results (that are adblockers not VPNs) are flagged Unavailable.
I wonder what would happen if whenever we saw an ad here, and clicked the "x" in the corner of the ad, and answered the "Why are you dismissing this ad?" query with the response "Inappropriate". If one person did it, it's just noise in the statistics, if two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're buddies and will still take no note of it. And if three people do it, can you imagine, three people dismissing all ads with "Inappropriate", they may think it's an organization. And if 50 people do it, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said FIFTY people a day dismissing all ads as "Inappropriate", they may think it's a movement. And that's what it is, the DAZ Anti-Advertisement Movement. And all you got to do join is the next time an ad appears on your page, dismiss it as "Inappropriate".
--- Apologies to Arlo Guthry ---
It probably won't stop it but sure messes up their statistics.
Either that or you start getting ads for manure spreaders or septic pumps.
I haven't been in the gallery lately but my understanding is that you can control various things.
I liked the old "Galleries" better.
So you think they won't sell you something online, just because that thing doesn't exist?
I purchased a box of postholes but received an empty box. However, I know post holes exist, as I have a post in my yard.