Ads before videos are weakening the NS image
- Thread starter squibble
- Start date
squibble
Active member
13507009:eheath said:
Lay off the sarcasm, can't you see we're on the same side? I love NS, I want it to be successful, I want it to continue to represent all that is good a holy about the skiing community.
I'd love to have an open conversation about the ads her on NS. What has gone so horribly wrong in the last while that your initial reaction would be so defensive and hostile? Have there been lots of complaints? Are the ads to support the video backlog NS is holding? Why not let people use youtube? Please share.
13507074:jpmoffat said:
I think you're misinterpreting my post, its was completely genuine. We want to know if people are truly interested in a premium experience where you pay to not see ads. I also am curious (again, for real) why the ads on ns are so bad compared to any other form of media you might use for entertainment ie youtube, raido, tv, podcasts, etc.
squibble
Active member
ah! great.
I can come back to this another time, but thanks, definetly misinterpreted that. I'll say a little now, but it's more of an internal brand discussion isnt it?
Youtube is an internet highway with billboards, ns is a small mountain town where everyone recognizes each other. Thats where id tend to start thinking about it.
A low annual fee would be fine by me with certain conditions. I've been here maybe 10 times in the last couple years to check in. My experience at NS feels more like an alumni one than a student, so I wouldn't want to pay for content I don't use. Also the kids on here w/o credit cards would suffer, and they're the user you want to protect. I'm guessing costs can't be cut? Part of this is that I think NS has been walking the wrong way for a while. Is it a forum or a content site? Why over extend yourselves? Is it a skiing youtube, meca, or village?
Does that make any sense?
I can come back to this another time, but thanks, definetly misinterpreted that. I'll say a little now, but it's more of an internal brand discussion isnt it?
Youtube is an internet highway with billboards, ns is a small mountain town where everyone recognizes each other. Thats where id tend to start thinking about it.
A low annual fee would be fine by me with certain conditions. I've been here maybe 10 times in the last couple years to check in. My experience at NS feels more like an alumni one than a student, so I wouldn't want to pay for content I don't use. Also the kids on here w/o credit cards would suffer, and they're the user you want to protect. I'm guessing costs can't be cut? Part of this is that I think NS has been walking the wrong way for a while. Is it a forum or a content site? Why over extend yourselves? Is it a skiing youtube, meca, or village?
Does that make any sense?
13507251:jpmoffat said:
Every time this comes up, things rarely go the direction that people suggest we should move to a payment system. In the end, ads for free content is a fair exchange.
That being said - if we ever did have a payment / subscription model in order to work it'd have to be a fair deal. As well, it would run alongside an ad model, not instead of it. So you'd pay a small monthly fee to have ads switched off by default. Maybe we could even put packages together where you get access to exclusive stuff, regular re-loads of stickers and things like discount codes of partner brands.
However, I think that people do need to realize that the age of a completely free internet are over. The only way that worked before was that companies were flush with Venture Capital and just trying to build audiences vs. actually run businesses that made money. Their plan always has been to eventually start jamming ads down the throats of users like media has done since the beginning of time.
We're always open to a discussion about advertising - its critical to our future success.
However, you have to realize that ads have been the accepted method of monetization for media for a long time. Magazines are about 50% advertising (Imagine for every 1 minute of video you had to watch 1 minute of ads?) PLUS you had to pay for them. This was accepted for so long, and in order to deliver the same quality of content we're going to have to figure out how the new way of this works.
In terms of your point about us just cutting costs... can you expand on that? If what you're hinting at is that we should just be a forum.... I think that would be very unwise. Sure, its a great part of Newschoolers, but I really think that the content side is important. Especially because we actually give opportunity to the average person who is trying to break into the scene. Our monetization programs have been flourishing with new talent, and this year is going to be extremely exciting.
So I don't necessarily have the answer.
Freeskier has decided that they will not allow you to watch content on their site with AdBlock running. AdBlock is extremely damaging to a brand. We could hire two more people here full-time if we didn't get the lost revenue from AdBlock. I'm not sure that dissallowing people to watch with AdBlock is the right answer though - we've simply got to come up with a better model.
To be perfectly honest, if you were willing to pay between say $3 and $5 / month to not have ads, that probably would do the trick.
Krotchs_Brother
Active member
13507281:Mr.Bishop said:
Honestly, I pay 10/month to binge watch stupid shows. I would have no problem paying 10/month for NS, if it meant no ads, better content, a premium product in general.
And who knows, maybe we could finally get some honest product reviews too
13508294:Krotchs_Brother said:Honestly, I pay 10/month to binge watch stupid shows. I would have no problem paying 10/month for NS, if it meant no ads, better content, a premium product in general.
And who knows, maybe we could finally get some honest product reviews too
I mean if the consumer is willing to start paying for content its an across the board gamechanger. The movie industry is only struggling because now they have to rely on sponsors instead of people buying their movies.
The more you pay, the less sponsor influence there is on your media.
Krotchs_Brother
Active member
13508333:Mr.Bishop said:
I think the key here will be to develop the service, provide the amazing, updated, NS 2.0.
THEN charge for it. If you tell people "pay us this amount and we promise soon there will be a lot of awesome updates" nobody will want to front the money.
This is obviously a catch-22.
But I really don't understand this mindset of not wanting to pay for good service, and ending up with a free product that is subpar. (not talking shit, NS is obviously great)
I feel like it's similar to the Anti-tax mindset in western society. Taxes being used correctly = improvements across the board for everyone.
Pmoore
Active member
13508347:Krotchs_Brother said:
How do you think a membership payment type situation would really change NS that much?
Ads are literally everywhere, personally I find it strange when ads are not incorporated to other websites and medias.
NS already does an awesome job giving back to the industry. I personally think you would be amazed at how much NS has benefited small crews on the come up, which in turn helps media in the entire ski industry. And this is possible because of ads, I obviously don't know all the logistics but I would be amazed if overall use of the site, and quality did anything but go down by switching from an ad based platform to a paid membership one.
Still an interesting convo that I wanted to be a part of, not coming in hostile at all, I like hearing opinions.
P.S this reminds me of an old april fools joke where it was going to cost $20 to join NS for a certain period of time and I was more than down hahaha
Krotchs_Brother
Active member
13508408:Pmoore said:
The one example I can think of is gear reviews. Almost every review I've seen by the official gear team has been very in favour of the product. Now maybe every product is amazing lately, or maybe if a company receives a shitty review on NS they'll reconsider sending free product the next season.
Taking the companies out of it means the reviews can be a lot more honest, at least from my cynical opinion.
Maybe Bishop can explain exactly what kind of upsides we might see with a paid membership system.
Pmoore
Active member
13508450:Krotchs_Brother said:
The only way to take the companies out of it would be for NS to buy the product for full price and give it to gear reviewers. And even then, when you get a free product, you are biased towards it at least a little just because of human nature.
As someone who works for a small company I would love this, because reviews in major magazines COUGH Freeskier COUGH are 100% based on people who pay them more.
In a perfect world I would love this but I don't know if NS could ever feasibly have enough funds to review all the products they want to on top of their normal budget.
13508347:Krotchs_Brother said:
That catch 22 you mentioned is the ticket. Ads work perfectly to keep us as a successful business, and we don't have funding for a major re-investment in technology.... so we are where we are. Doing a massive re-investment just to launch something risky seems like a dodgy idea for me.
Running a minor experiment at this point is more realistic... but you have the same issue you highlighted like with the tax problem where people seem to think they don't want to give their money and forget they get stuff out of it. Who decides where their money goes is likely a big part of that challenge.
13508408:Pmoore said:
No matter what, you'd have to run them side-by-side. Now the funny thing is that I don't think a lot of people realize that their ad views are actually starting to financially benefit the small crews. Anyone who is part of the producer program is making a cut of ad revenues on their content. So those guys have revenue taken away when you block ads... and even though the payouts aren't huge when you start - getting enough money together in a season to buy a winch can be a huge game changer for one of these guys.
13508450:Krotchs_Brother said:
#1 is all the same content, no ads. That would be a cheap sub model... simply contribute some bucks on a regular basis and you get a site completely clear of ads.
Taking that further.... sky is the limit. If you wanted more episodes of B&E - we price it out with them and pay them to do it. Enough of the subscribers vote to pay a series money... bam we do it.
Same with something like an app. Want all your NS Videos in a super easy to use app? If there's enough subs willing to pay then we just build the fuck out of it.
There's a lot we could do, but we'd need a pretty solid base of people willing to pay.
13508454:Pmoore said:
This isn't necessarily true. Companies could submit their product under the absolutely positive pretense that we will review it completely ruthlessly. I'm sure we'd still get product if we were good enough at it.
The main ticket is ad dollars. You can usually get free product for reviews, but you aren't going to get ad dollars if your review totally destroys the company.
That being said, our gear reviewers are actually completely honest. We never pull a review because it says something negative, but since ski gear is so diverse we tend to see people review what they liked about it in balance with what was negative. It ends up looking pretty positive.
Perhaps we need more gear people to review each product.... so that some of them would hate it. This is a tricky one, and pretty much no matter what I'm going to tell you it'll be hard for you to believe we can review stuff honestly when there is ad dollars on the line. Hell, I barely trust anyone, and when I do trust them.... I basically figure they don't have long left in their business model.
Our review system is still in its infancy, so over time you'll see it improve. Also, we have community reviews for the purpose of allowing a very mixed voice to be heard - so more people need to use that.
Krotchs_Brother
Active member
13508534:Mr.Bishop said:
Don't play with my emotions like this Bishop...
On the topic of gear reviews, and becoming an official member of the review team.
From what I understand the more you review the higher the chances, but a lot of members (myself included) don't buy multiple sets of outerwear and ski gear every season.
What I'm trying to say is, I only have so much gear to review.
I'll be uploading a lot of *hopefully* in-depth reviews soon for the gear that I have and I'm going to be about as brutally honest as I can (within reason). I guess I'm just lookin to see if there's anything I should be doing to increase my chances of becoming an official gear reviewer.
Pmoore
Active member
13508534:Mr.Bishop said:
I know it has been a huge game changer for us! (Hoodcrew to the world)
13508534:Mr.Bishop said:
13508534:Mr.Bishop said:
I will agree that this is possible, and I hope you achieve it, it will just take time to convince the readers of the review that this is indeed the case. Fully on board with that though because if you do NS would be the only trusted reviews out.
tomPietrowski
Active member
I can honestly say that i have never written something in a review based on getting products from a brand. Working in the industry anyway I got products every year before being on the NS program. Every brand wants you selling there gear so they want you riding their gear. This means I get to test quite a bit and also side by side but im not going to be positive just to get more gear. That gear is coming my way any way from my job in the shop so I can honestly say I review stuff and comment on what works.
In the most part what a product does really well is a good way to write. It helps people who are looking for certain characteristics from a product easily identify if a certain product will work for them. Bad points will be braught up. The helly review I just did I mentioned how you need to wash it more but really that was the only issue and in alot of cases there really are not many issues, but you can be sure when there is something not working I will let you know in the article.
In the most part what a product does really well is a good way to write. It helps people who are looking for certain characteristics from a product easily identify if a certain product will work for them. Bad points will be braught up. The helly review I just did I mentioned how you need to wash it more but really that was the only issue and in alot of cases there really are not many issues, but you can be sure when there is something not working I will let you know in the article.
Krotchs_Brother
Active member
13508577:tomPietrowski said:
Don't worry I don't think anyone doubts your reviews for a second.
In fact, I will personally guarantee this. If someone doubts tom let me know so I can mail you cow shit.
tomPietrowski
Active member
13508583:Krotchs_Brother said:
Haha thanks man.
But honestly I think the rest of the gear team are the same. If we get sent stuff from NS there is no one saying anything about what we have to write. Sure some may try to butter up brands to get free shit but I dont think most of the team chat with brands anyway.
Pmoore
Active member
13508577:tomPietrowski said:
To be honest that was the first review I have read from you, good job by the way, but yeah I was more just talking about reviews as a whole not the NS program specifically.
It is just kind of human nature to like shiny, new, free things and that good reviews will have to take that into consideration and try to be as non biased as possible, and you did a good job in my opinion. (knowing nothing about the Helly Hansen jacket you reviewed)
13508553:Krotchs_Brother said:
Yeah I mean obviously an average user has less of a chance of someone already on the program. This will be a natural part of our programs, where being on them helps you get a slot next year - and we want to push that.
However, there are always a few people that don't do as much as they should, and slots open up almost every year.
If you want to really dial it up a notch and go for it you could attend demo days or go to ski tests. There's loads of these that include the public and if you just take a few minutes to write up good reviews then it'll go a long way.
Also, ratings you get from other users have a big effect. So the better your reviews are, the higher chances you have even if you don't have a ton of reviews.
13509542:SDrvper said:
I 100% support ads on NS, and I personally would not have a problem paying for premium service, but if you are going to advertise to me, MAKE SURE THE AD WORKS. I will watch your ad for a product I can't buy if it means NS can put out more sick content, but I don't want to wait 45 seconds plus for an ad that should take 15.
Krotchs_Brother
Active member
13509693:loganschnur said:
Have yet to experience something that buggy.
What browser/version and operating system/version are you using? I know bishop looks into things like this.
GayWolf420
Active member
great thread, really sound and strong, bulletproof points in the OP.
squibble
Active member
As much as I want to start digging around the stuff in this thread, I also want to pull back to the reason I made it. I'm finding that whenever I peek in on NS it feels a little less like NS, and a little more like reddit, Facebook, freeskier, and some spaghetti ad mecca. Ads, and the reason I'm picking on them is that they are a marker of what is really a systemic issue. I hope I'm not totally out of line with what I'm about to say. I love NS, that's why I'm taking the time to do this.
10 years ago, a full fledged hoped up on hormones absurdly stoked on skiing teen found newschoolers.com. It was a place for him to spew endless nonsensical stoke about skiing. He found that among the leaders, innovators, outliers, and troublemakers that made up the wonderful community there was a small place for him. That's why we are here, that's why we come back. The mix of people in the skiing industry make this place unique and irreplaceable. There is value in this. This should be a core focus of your business, everything should be built to enhance that experience.
The consistent rise of features in NS have all directed with good heart and intention, but too much zeal. With growth comes complexity, but the added complexity should make sense to the user. Are reddit buttons something the NS community would have developed autonomously? I remember that decision, it was a UI decision, I saw it as an underhanded attempt to control user comments, maybe to ease up mod use, maybe to make comments more mature. Whatever the reason, users on here are not anonymous, so it functioned curbing behaviour through public humiliation. Are the features you're implementing making this community stronger? More fun? Does it make it easier for us to talk about how much we like snow? Being consistent in your process will help unify this site.
I'm saying ads are not the problem, they are part of the problem. Can we define the problem?
10 years ago, a full fledged hoped up on hormones absurdly stoked on skiing teen found newschoolers.com. It was a place for him to spew endless nonsensical stoke about skiing. He found that among the leaders, innovators, outliers, and troublemakers that made up the wonderful community there was a small place for him. That's why we are here, that's why we come back. The mix of people in the skiing industry make this place unique and irreplaceable. There is value in this. This should be a core focus of your business, everything should be built to enhance that experience.
The consistent rise of features in NS have all directed with good heart and intention, but too much zeal. With growth comes complexity, but the added complexity should make sense to the user. Are reddit buttons something the NS community would have developed autonomously? I remember that decision, it was a UI decision, I saw it as an underhanded attempt to control user comments, maybe to ease up mod use, maybe to make comments more mature. Whatever the reason, users on here are not anonymous, so it functioned curbing behaviour through public humiliation. Are the features you're implementing making this community stronger? More fun? Does it make it easier for us to talk about how much we like snow? Being consistent in your process will help unify this site.
I'm saying ads are not the problem, they are part of the problem. Can we define the problem?
13511398:jpmoffat said:
So first things first, part of the problem is that full fledged hormonal teenager you once were isn't you anymore right? If you were say 13-16 that means you're in the age range of 23-26. Maybe in college, maybe just graduated and at the first job of your career.
The first issue is the fact that the community has aged. Teens of today have the attention span of goldfish, and are bumping around from new social media app to new social media app. They're on snapchat, and have no desire to carry on long conversations about skiing... especially not on their computers. Hell most of them don't even own a computer - or rarely use it.
What is fun about that is we're actually much more (at least on-site) of a young adult community now. We can ski together, we can party together. However, everyone takes what people say a whole lot more seriously because they're adults.
The second issue is making people realize that we've all aged 10 years. You aren't talking to stupid 12 year olds anymore, they snapchat us wacky stuff on the NS snap. Here, in this community we are mostly in the 18+, and even 21+ category. If we can start aligning our interactions to meet this, we can have a load more fun.
The features you talk about - the funny thing is that the voting system wasn't designed out of UI - it was actually to give the community MORE of a voice. Voice through the creation and curation of content as a group of people, instead of only giving a few editors the decision to show what is and isn't cool. many people on here dont' use the forums, so we put a lot of effort into the content side to allow those community members that speak through content to have their voice heard too.
What is a community? What do people on here want? I agree with you that we need to focus solely on the community of NS, and we have done that in droves. So I'm open to suggestions about what you'd like to see, and we can work to implement.
I too would like to define what the 'problem' is - though honestly I think one of the biggest problems is that we need to remember we all want to ski together. Its a big reason we're going to invest heavily in events, so we can actually be out there in the world and give everyone an opportunity to go out ripping together. As well, our open content system gives all of you an equal opportunity to showcase what you're doing with your buddies, and has landed us one of the most amazing and diverse content teams in skiing.
I think its going to be really interesting this year to see what our content team comes up with. Every single one of them came up active on NS in the same fires that you were - in that critical last 10 years. So our entire content strategy is about to be built by those who were voted on by the community to be their favorites.
The biggest challenge is that the expected level of technology took such a massive jump with all the Venture Capital funded massive social networks. The tech you're used to is getting really hard for us to keep up with, and we're going our best to be very creative with the resources we have. I think that some of the stuff coming down the pipes is going to dramatically increase this experience, and mixing in the content people as just as much a part of this community as the conversational ones is going to be huge.
/rant
I like the ability to skip ads that you have now. If I'm interested or have some time to kill I'll watch the ad, but sometimes I'm just trying to check out a video somebody linked and don't feel like sitting through a long ad to watch a short video I didn't even care that much about seeing.