Okay...So I just noticed the advertising

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Not too bad. I can live with that.

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Posted By: leon

Thanks for the kind words...we are still tinkering with it but anyone that really knows me knows I don't want something gawdy...

edited spelling

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Posted By: dstudeba

I think the correct spelling is Goudey.

(edited to add now my post doesn't make sense because leon took away the sp? from his post)

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I think it's great. Adds color and makes our site look more professional. For whatever that's worth!

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Posted By: Brian McQueen

We're still working out the kinks but I've finished creating banners for the time being and am working on placing this animation on the site so it looks presentable.

Also, I'm curious, is everyone able to view the animation ok? Most computers nowadays have Flash readers equipped with them already but in case your computer doesn't. You can download a Flash reader at the link below so that you may view the animation.


http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&promoid=BIOW

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Posted By: leon

I am trying to get ahold of our network administrator...My computer is locked down....I think it might be something to do with active x? But what do I know...

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Posted By: Jason L

professional, unobtrusive, and relevant...

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Posted By: leon

We are still tinkering guys.....I don't like it flashing so quickly.....I want it to be as unobtrusive as possible.....and still get the job done...hang in there....and so everyone knows this is a 2 month trial..I am monitoring very closely what goes on.....so if something happens and the board changes, in a bad way, we can take them down immediately....with no harm done to anyone....and no messy contracts or monies or anything....

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Posted By: barrysloate

Thanks Leon for making me an inaugural banner. It looks great.

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Posted By: peter ullman

too funny...i didn't even notice it until i saw this thread. it IS unobtrusive...and uninvasive...and full of familiar names!

pete in mn

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Posted By: leon

It's not perfect and one of the advertisers wants us to take his out immediately.....so we will have to pull this down for a few minutes in a little while...then it will go back up. Certainly not our intention to piss anyone off.....that's why the trial run....

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Posted By: joe D.

very nicely done.


edit to say:
from a business perspective (for both the advertiser and the moderator dude)...
I would think a similar banner on the b/s/t main area would be a good idea.
just my 2 cents.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

perhaps we should have a devoted thread, like the new items thread

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Posted By: leon

If you could do it before you can do it now....but these are folks we all know already...so try to play nicely.....

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Posted By: barry arnold

Well done; very professional.

all the best,

Barry

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Posted By: barrysloate

I just got off the phone with Brian McQueen and if you for instance click on the picture on my banner or click MANONTHEROCK's banner, it will link you directly to our auctions. But they probably need to slow down- 5 seconds is too fast, maybe 10 seconds would be better.

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

All websites should have advertising that is that unobtrusive.

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Posted By: Max Weder

Barry

I agree with you on the speed of the banner ads--however, I get about 3.5 seconds before they change, rather than five. Perhaps it's just another thing Canadian that is less than its US equivalent

Max

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Posted By: Chris Bland

not a distraction, although I agree the speed the banners change is a little too fast, makes it hard to focus on anything else (or read the banners...)

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Posted By: Cobby33

Now I don't have to go to my "Favorites" for Barry's site- awesome!

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Posted By: Jack Fitz

I'm all for monetizing the Forum.

But...animation should tell a story and/or give the visitor a reason to click. The animation in this ad just changes sponsors. Most visitors won't ever see anything but the first sponsor (Barry Sloate).

Instead of animation, you might want to consider (a) using a banner ad at the top of each thread as well as on the Index page, and (b) serving the ads in random rotation.

BTW, the individual ads are attractive and tasteful, IMHO.

What the eye admires, the heart desires.
Charles L. Jones, Whirlpool Product Design VP

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Posted By: leon

We are working on it....it will be tweaked over the next week or so into a final product. We will SLOW it down and are looking at getting it onto the other pages.... For several reasons I wanted to get a beta up now.....again, hang in there...we are listening....Also, please be aware that there are parameters inside of Net54 we have to work with...so while everything might seem feasible on other sites it might not be here.....thanks again for the kind words

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

For the record, I am the one who wanted his ad pulled due to my extreme perfectionism. My original ad, based on the original size I was told to make the ad was as follows:




The size that was needed wound up changing a bit and my ad was changed to this:



I realize that it took quite a bit of work to change my ad around so it would fit, and I know it might seem like much ado about nothing, but I was hoping I could get some opinions from anyone regarding which ad they think looks better.

I am unable to look at them both objectively and was hoping for honest and objective feedback. I alzo realize that the new one probably looks "fine." I just want to know which one looks better.

Thanks for any feedback.

-Ryan

Also, thanks to Leon and Brian for all the work they've put into this.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Ryan, I think the bottom one looks better. The top looks too "Scrunched" together.

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

Ryan:

I can see why you might have thought the new version was not to your liking (lettering too small?), but at the risk of pissing off both you and moderator dudes, I think the lettering on your original version was too large.

Kevin

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I think the bottom one is easier to read in a glance...

which seems pretty important in an ad that is "flashing" and may only have a short time to catch someone's attention.

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Keep it coming. Those are the things I need to hear.

Not that it matters, but they're scrunched together intentionally to give it a "Mt. Rushmore" type of effect.

Also, the images of the players became short and fat and pixelated around the edges, all of which looks unprofessional to me, but probably wouldn't even be noticed to anyone else.

I'm also having difficutly figuring out whether or not I should interpret Hal liking the 2nd one as actually being a vote for the 1st one.

-Ryan

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Posted By: Peter Thomas

Ryan - I like the shape and typeface of the bottom add better, however to me the player facial composition in the top add is more compelling. I would reverse players 3 & 4 in the bottom add to have the order the same as in the top add. Well that is not the same order, but the same middle two with the same bookends. The middle two images in top are haunting.

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Posted By: leon

Since you gave your opinion (which matters more than mine) I think both are fine.....not a lot of difference to me....but in the end we want everyone to be happy so it's totally your call......Thanks for participating.....it's appreciated

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Posted By: Brian McQueen

Hey all,

Thank you for the kind words thus far. I’ll respond to a few suggestions/comments below.

About the speed of the animation –- agreed. Sometimes you just really need to see how animations look on the actual webpage. When I placed the banner up on the homepage originally, I myself thought it was moving too quickly and I know several people agreed. I’ve slowed it down now though, so hopefully this one is a little easier on the eyes.

About the “unobtrusiveness” of the design -- also agreed. I think we got some negative feedback in the beginning when this idea was originally presented because people were imagining a massive banner that takes up a third of the screen (a la Geocities), popup screens, or worse. The layout of the page was virtually untouched in adding this banner which is also nice. It also brightens the page up a bit instead of having everything be that drab grey color. We may place banners on other pages (ie…BST) but they won’t be any bigger than this one.

Also, as Barry mentioned, the banners themselves serve as links to each of the webpages they represent. So hopefully this makes having the banners on the site more convenient for you all as well.

Jack – good suggestions. I’m going to experiment with a second method of utilizing these banners in the next few weeks. It should go along very similarly to what you suggested above.

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Posted By: jackgoodman

Hey, I agree with everyone that thinks the ads were well done and seamlessly integrated. Great job.

One quick question - it seems every time I open the site or go back to it, Barry's ad is the first one I see. Is that planned (in other words does the rotation -if there's a rotational order - revert to the beginning each time you open the page or has Barry just been lucky)?

Again, not a biggie, just my wondering mind.

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Posted By: leon

The rotation starts the flash file over upon each refresh...as of now. Lucky first advertiser, huh? We are looking into having it be random which I believe will be better. As I have said I had several business reasons I wanted to get this beta up now....also, we would never have known how it looked if we never tried it. So, the answer is yes, it's the way it's supposed to be as of now...and there will (hopefully) be a solution in the near future.

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Posted By: martindl

Ryan,
You're right, it does seem like much ado about nothing (hey, you asked) but esthetically I prefer the first one. Actaully, I'd prefer the image from the first one with the lettering from the second one.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I also noticed every time I refreshed the screen I saw my banner, so it was obviously planned that way. And of course I say thanks for that...but you are welcome to rotate and let someone else be first,too.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Agree with Martin.

The best ad would be the First Image and the Second Lettering.

Now Ryan will really be confused about my intentions.



Nah, that's old news. Today is a new day. Life is too short to hold grudges.

The combination (if possible) would be the best ad.

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Posted By: Todd Schultz

Ryan, I'm with martindl on this. I like the lettering of the second, and the more fullbodied (or at least half-bodied) look of the first. Both are nice though.

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Posted By: edacra

#2 is far superior. The first one looks distorted so the faces look odd from the proportions. They're both the same thing, but the second one just looks cleaner to me.

The banners look great. You can tell a lot of consideration was taken into account.

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Posted By: JK

all of the sudden I feel the need not to say anything bad about the site's new sponsors

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Posted By: JK

In all seriousness, my one suggestion would be to increase the size of the links to the b/s/t, old cardboard, etc. and slightly reduce the size of the link to the poll.

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Posted By: Steve M.

just jumped to the bottom of the page to say "Very Cool!!"

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Posted By: leon

it's in the works...and most likely my website link will come down...we are working on redesigning that space a little bit....good suggestions.....btw, I better not see anyone holding back about anything ....that was my main concern about the banners but I think this group is very outspoken and not timid...so not too worried...

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Posted By: Sean Coe

Ryan- The first is definitley more striking but the second is neater and certainly professional.

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Posted By: steve f

On the PC at work, but all I get is that small microsoft image icon, no banner. damnit

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Posted By: leon

I had the same problem...you need to install flash and active x......they're free and there is a link to do it in this thread...from Brian M......regards

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Posted By: steve f

Yea, Can't install stuff on this pooter... The Chief is a stiff. Thinks we'll look at peepees and weewees I guess.

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Posted By: dennis

i actually like the adds! add color and are "on topic"
ryan i like the top one better.

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Thanks for the comments. This thread has been fascinating for me. It really shows the way different people can look at the same thing and all see something different. In fact, to some, the original player images in the first ad above looked distorted and weirdly proportioned compared to the second one, but it was the images in the second one that had been altered and disproportioned. Since I knew the second images were distorted, they looked worse to me, but had I never seen the originals, I, too, might have thought they looked better.

I appreciate all the feeback given and tried to take it all into consideration when I made the following two banner ads. I think part of the problem is that I am more concerned about the quality of the images of the players than I am about the text that says "CubanBaseballCards.com" which is actually what is being advertised. I know my thinking is backwards on this, which is why I'm not in advertising.

I would love to hear which of the two ads below people like better. I promise I'll give it a rest after this. One of the two below will be the final one.

For those who are curious, the ad features the entire pitching staff of the 1923-24 Santa Clara team, the best team in the history of Cuban baseball. The images are the ones that appear on their 1923-24 Tomas Gutierrez cards. From left to right are: Pedro Dibut, Eustaquio Pedroso, Bill Holland, Jose Mendez, Rube Currie, and Dave Brown.







Thanks again for all the feedback and for putting up with my obsessive-compulsiveness.

-Ryan

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Ryan's ad has some art to it. You could sell black T-shirts with the design.

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Posted By: fkw

Ryan,


I like the one with "6 players...with your site name at the bottom".

But they are all good.

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Posted By: dennis

ryan i like the top one. the bottom has too much black or dead space imo. the top fills the available space and i like the "name" on the players as opposed to floating in air.