Alright, WTF???? ,,,,,,,,,, REI?????????

[m8magicandmystery]

there has to be no gray area....if membership fee's are charged then that pays the costs...if the site is a truly free site then advertisers pay the costs..

if both are the intended caretakers of the costs then as always...conflict of rights and objectives...even though many objectives are and should be similar..

ps...myself I love the advertising and the energy a lot of (snowmobile related) vendors extend to us...

 

[backcountryislife]

There is a catch 22 to that too Kaleb. When companies see that everybody starts using ad-blockers, why would we participate and invest money to be a part of the sport. This site does not exist without advertising dollars. The only place we would then be visible on sites like this would be within the forum. I have tracked our views within the forum vs. actual clicks and views of ads, and it is not even comparable. And we would like to think we are one of the most active companies on here….

Not saying that we would not want to be a part of the community if everybody used ad blockers, but it sure is discouraging….

If there were only site specific ads, and banners, not sure why you would want to have them blocked in the first place, after all they would pertain to exactly what the site was designed for. The promotion and community within sledders.

Just our .02

Oh yeah, I get that... my issue is once they started running side ads & that ABSOLUTELY RETARDED peel down POS... I went to an ad blocker to get my screen back. If I get rid of the ad blocker, I lose about 20% of my screen to ads, and since I'm PAYING for this site, I see zero reason I need to see them. If it were a free site I'd suck it up & deal with it, but the second they started taking money from members, was the second I no longer felt that deserved to have members being forced to view ads as well.

Had the ads remained less spammy, and been similar to the tracks USA one on top, I wouldn't have found a blocker (and to be clear, THIS site is THE reason I got an ad blocker) but they took it way too far, so I went too far the other way.

While I like the idea of targeted ads, even that isn't the case anymore, so there's even less reason to see them. From an advertiser's standpoint though, I can see how this would be frustrating... being blocked when you're EXACTLY the kind of place the member would want to spend their money, just because of the actions of the host site itself. While I'm all for the site recouping costs & making money off a site, Harris went too far, and a lot of people see it. To me, the actions of the site make your ad worth less to you...


Btw, serious question, is the spammy peel down POS ad still on the site?

 

[AndrettiDog]

Btw, serious question, is the spammy peel down POS ad still on the site?

No, I guess we all biotched enough about that one. It was a serious migraine inducing clusterfawk.

I get what BlownMotor is saying and agree. To be honest I like clicking the sled ads to see what vendors/companies are doing. Perhaps we need to put pressure on SnoWest to keep it sled related. Some could argue that REI is sled related but they make the blacklist in a hurry. BlownMotor wouldn't get an ad on the SierraClub site so why should we take this one in? Get rid of it, give them their money back.

 

[RobertTrivanovic]

I don't like to see ads up that don't have to do with snow sports, even a ski shop you can buy stuff for snowmobiling, but I just saw a whiskey ad up above when coming to this post... I mean I guess you can argue some people just ride out to a cabin and drink whiskey right? It must be snowmobile related then.

 

[backcountryislife]

When they sell the block ads though, they no longer have a choice of who will be in there.

You could argue that they shouldn't sell block ads... but when they've got 2/3 of the page full of ads... who else are they going to sell them to?

 

[phatty]

lets be clear about who is making the decisions on advertising on snowestonline.com

harris owns snowest.com
christopher owns snowestonline.com

im not sure on the agreement there, but it seems like someone is paying someone for use of the "snowest" name (with fees from memberships) and then someone is making money on the snowestonline site by selling advertising space.

if i am wrong on that then powers that be please correct me. vendors would know who they are contacting to spend advertising dollars on the forums... speak up and let us know who to send complaints to.

I personally don't mind the ads for sled related stuff. I do think that the page is horrible layout and has lots of wasted space, which makes it difficult for users, but that's just my opinion.

 

[backcountryislife]

I do think that the page is horrible layout and has lots of wasted space, which makes it difficult for users, but that's just my opinion.

you know... there's a way to fix that... haha

 

[richracer1]

 

[snowmobiler]

 

[Blown Motor]

This is true, but I thought when you got a membership there was not supposed to be any advertisements. Wasn't that the deal or am I mistaken?

To be completely honest, we are not sure what purchasing a membership gets you, we were under the impression that it got you the rights to full access of the site, not deleted ads. From our side we find it hard to believe that they would promise no advertisements. Is there somewhere that we (all of us) can go to read what a membership gets you?

there has to be no gray area....if membership fee's are charged then that pays the costs...if the site is a truly free site then advertisers pay the costs..

if both are the intended caretakers of the costs then as always...conflict of rights and objectives...even though many objectives are and should be similar..

ps...myself I love the advertising and the energy a lot of (snowmobile related) vendors extend to us...

Kind of agree, but the feasibility that membership dues pay for everything is severely unrealistic. We have no doubt that whoever owns the Forums makes money, but thats life. It is a business to provide us as users with this platform, and they should make money. And not that you are, but for anybody to speculate what the owner makes, is just that "speculation", with absolutely zero knowledge of costs to operate.

Oh yeah, I get that... my issue is once they started running side ads & that ABSOLUTELY RETARDED peel down POS... I went to an ad blocker to get my screen back. If I get rid of the ad blocker, I lose about 20% of my screen to ads, and since I'm PAYING for this site, I see zero reason I need to see them. If it were a free site I'd suck it up & deal with it, but the second they started taking money from members, was the second I no longer felt that deserved to have members being forced to view ads as well.

Had the ads remained less spammy, and been similar to the tracks USA one on top, I wouldn't have found a blocker (and to be clear, THIS site is THE reason I got an ad blocker) but they took it way too far, so I went too far the other way.

While I like the idea of targeted ads, even that isn't the case anymore, so there's even less reason to see them. From an advertiser's standpoint though, I can see how this would be frustrating... being blocked when you're EXACTLY the kind of place the member would want to spend their money, just because of the actions of the host site itself. While I'm all for the site recouping costs & making money off a site, Harris went too far, and a lot of people see it. To me, the actions of the site make your ad worth less to you...


Btw, serious question, is the spammy peel down POS ad still on the site?

No peel back ad anymore haha Like stated above, it appears that most people have an "opinion" that the owner of snowestonline (again nobody really knows who owns the forum, or if they are truly separate entities) is rolling around in cash in a back room somewhere based on these decisions, but in reality nobody knows. Food for thought, Snowest isn't even top three most viewed snow forums/sites out there currently.

lets be clear about who is making the decisions on advertising on snowestonline.com

harris owns snowest.com
christopher owns snowestonline.com

im not sure on the agreement there, but it seems like someone is paying someone for use of the "snowest" name (with fees from memberships) and then someone is making money on the snowestonline site by selling advertising space.

if i am wrong on that then powers that be please correct me. vendors would know who they are contacting to spend advertising dollars on the forums... speak up and let us know who to send complaints to.

I personally don't mind the ads for sled related stuff. I do think that the page is horrible layout and has lots of wasted space, which makes it difficult for users, but that's just my opinion.

Not sure the logistics, but we deal with the same person for online advertisements as we do for print ads in the magazine. They may be separate but they operate as one. And because we deal with someone directly at "SNOWEST" for forum use, it might as well be the same in our eyes.

 

[mikew5945]

Its called paying for space it keeps any mag / web /biz alive....dont look it will be ok...

It reads as though this guy thinks he knows. SLASH what is the answer? Please tell us before it snows or a lock gets put on this thread.

 

[slash]

Common Snowest get your priorities straight. I look at it this way, Christopher is basically a sellout. When will it stop? How dedicated to Sledding is Harris when the almighty $$$ is more powerful than the sport we love.

Be careful fellow sledders, this just made my mind up to not renew my membership with Snowest. Chris are you a Wolf in Sheeps clothing? Bunch of hypocrites

#1 christopher does NOT sell space that is Harris publishing they
own the web page .

 

[slash]

So you are the one with Idaho plates on a Subaru. lol

no its a TOYOTA for every day and a DIESEL TO PULL THE ATV AND SLED WITH

 

[backcountryislife]

Not sure the logistics, but we deal with the same person for online advertisements as we do for print ads in the magazine. They may be separate but they operate as one. And because we deal with someone directly at "SNOWEST" for forum use, it might as well be the same in our eyes.

well, just a few days ago I see there's a new option for that side of things (mag) I'm hoping that does well! While I like the forum, and feel that it has HUGE value to new and old riders alike... the mag is a POS IMO, I'm stoked to see an option!

 

[manlye]

I've decided to sell posts to get me that new widget I need to go faster, so post for sale


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[PJ-Hunter]

I'm not sure if that's brilliant, or insatiable greed..... I'm kinda leanin to the greed side....

Yep. Sell outs, greedy sell outs. Seems that the people we rely on to help publicize our passions has caved.

To be blunt, whether you soak cork for money or whatever you are still a cork soaker. Justify that however you want. It's like me putting an Obama sticker on my truck because he paid me. Stand up on your principals and sell advertising space to someone who doesn't hate sledding.