Videos: Advertising Overflow, FL350 video area policy Options

[MikeATP]

I find extremely annoying the way ads placed by FL350 have invaded all postings. I'm quite aware the expense hosting a site demands, but profiting from uploads that are freely made available by users is unacceptable, unfair and disturbing.

Inserting a commercial clip at the start of every video could even violate the spirit of sharing and the author's copyrights.

Sincerely,
Mike C.

[Kilrah]

Inserting a commercial clip at the start of every video could even violate the spirit of sharing and the author's copyrights.

Hmm where do you see that? The only ads I see (logged out and adblock disabled) on the site are the one below the site banner, and one in the middle of the front page below the top videos.

I must not be seeing the same FL350 as you...

[MikeATP]

Hmm where do you see that? The only ads I see (logged out and adblock disabled) on the site are the one below the site banner, and one in the middle of the front page below the top videos.

I must not be seeing the same FL350 as you...

FYI: http://www.flightlevel350.com/Aircraft_Haw...ideo-10837.html

Clip" Blackberry Stone, Touch and Connect" (commercial insert at the begining of the video clip, just after login)
Please provide a mailing address so I can forward you the complete video capture.
Best regards,

Mike C.

[Kilrah]

Sorry, but nothing here, both on IE and firefox, no ad blocker, both logged in or not. Never heard that from anybody else either.

To me, your computer might have caught some 3rd party malware/adware that injects this independently of FL350 and/or other video sites you might visit. A computer scan (with ad-aware, spybot or such programs) might be helpful.


You can upload me things here: http://upload.andrebernet.ch

[bernoulli]

I'm like Mike and get 30 second "Ads by Google" at the beginning of each video, logged in or not. Also get three or four "footer" ads during the video. I tested this on three different operating systems, Firefox and IE 7 and 8. Same results.

...both logged in or not.

At first I thought this would rule out the Premium Membership explanation, but what if you have a Premium Membership cookie on your machine? Would it matter if you are logged in or not?

EDIT - I moved this topic to Support

[galaxy]

I'm like Kilrah.All fine . No ads here .

[bernoulli]

I see now that having a Premium membership does not make a difference unless using the Ad-Free Download Manager for viewing.

It might be based on the IP address of the viewer. I get the ads here in the US and Mike gets them in Canada, but so far, the two of you in Europe do not. Will be interesting to see the visitors' locales of both experiences.

[MikeATP]

Hi Kilrah, thanks for your reply. I don't want to sound confrontational here, but I'm really puzzled. I am using a brand new computer right now, just out of the box, behind hardware (Cisco) and software (ZoneAlarm) firewalls, using Windows XP SP3 first and after, Vista. I have the default MS browser 8 (and also 6 & 7), with Opera and Firefox installed for this test. I'm positive I have no malware or browser highjacking anywhere in my system.
When I go to the video clip I mentioned earlier, FL350 redirs through these domains before the real clip is played::

- http://m1.2mdn.net/1767692/en_300x250_gm_w...l_c01_Nov19.swf
- adplayer.swf
- http://redir.adap.tv/redir/plugins/ext/sca...scoutplugin.swf
- http://media.scanscout.com/ads/ss_ads2.swf
- http://media.scanscout.com/ads/are2.swf

The site media.scanscout.com is blocked in my PC, and its IP address flitered by my Cisco routers.

I am forwarding to you a static screen capture of what you see during the first 15 seconds prior to the aviation flash clip.

Again, I'm quite intrigued to find where is this add leaking from as you state it is not from Flightlevel350 hosting.
Thanks for your assistance, best regards,
Mike C.

[Kilrah]

At first I thought this would rule out the Premium Membership explanation, but what if you have a Premium Membership cookie on your machine? Would it matter if you are logged in or not?

I thought about that, and thus tried on my server that had never ever loaded FL350 before, it was just the same.

[Kilrah]

Again, I'm quite intrigued to find where is this add leaking from as you state it is not from Flightlevel350 hosting.

Me too.

That's slowly getting out of the scope of what I can see and guess (forum mods don't really have a link to the main site)... bernouilli's iocation theory being the last explanation to me as well. Maybe this might be done on purpose, or might come from a 3rd-party host they're using...
I think you should directly contact the site admins here: http://www.flightlevel350.com/contact.php
or PM "support" on the forum to make him aware of this thread.

[bernoulli]

My sister living in Perth Australia just emailed that she does not get the opening 30 second ad, so I now firmly believe location to be the culprit. Like Kilrah, I tested on a couple of "pure" machines, but I got the opening ads.

And Mike, while we're discussing the technical angle, don't think that your original point has been missed here. As someone who has twenty-three of my own videos on the site, I completely concur. I do understand the value of advertising to pay the bills. I uploaded my work with the full knowledge that in order for it to be viewed by the largest possible audience, it would have to be on someone else's dime and under their rules. I'm ok with that.

On the other hand.... I think it is reasonable to expect not to have to watch an ad for half a minute while attempting to watch EVERY video, but perhaps with only the first video during any one visitation session. Having to view the same ads over and over does get very old very fast and WILL send a visitor moving on to something else in frustration...

I'm no expert, but could a session cookie manage this? Heck, put the ad on every fifth video viewed, but please not on every one.

[Kilrah]

30 second?!
Wow, I've never seen such "insert" ads lasting for more than 10-15secs, and I already get mad at them - 30 is a nightmare! I fully agree then, no way I'd sit waiting for 30 seconds watching something i don't care the slightest bit about before the interesting bit - not even the first time!

Video inserts are IMO the best type of ads if what you want is annoy the viewer and make him remember to NOT buy the advertised thing, and/or not come back to the site using them... efficient ads must be visible, but without preventing the user to do/see what he wants. Or if it does, at least provide a "skip ad" link.

There's a reason why Google got so popular at the start - they refused to put ads on their homepage, so that it would load as fast as possible, and the user could have the results of his query as fast as possible and with no distraction - it seems it worked...

[jra4e]

I too am seeing 30 sec ads. What a bummer.

[bernoulli]

Any recent action on this? Still getting hammered by the opening ads.

[jra4e]

I just watched 3 vids and no opening ads. Yay

[support]

FL350 Community,

We have recently made changes to our video player that reduces how often ads are shown and also reduces duplicate advertisements.

We appreciate you making us aware of your concerns.

Best Regards,

FL350 Support

[bernoulli]

Thanks for the much welcomed change! Works great now.

[bluebird121]

I live in Queensland and have no problem at all with any ads. I know that you need ads to give you revenue and that is the price we all have to pay to have a free forum for us all.