Why no love for screen real estate on AV boards?

[jeffbridges]

Why is it this here and AVSforums there is an inordinate amount of space wasted (particularly at the top of the screen?) I am all for ad supported boards, but on some pages, there is 6 inches of wasted space (@ 1024X768)

I would much prefer a "better way." I really think it would take this place to "the next level" Awesome job though guys, hope my feedback is taken as constructive.. Jeff

[Sonnie]

Unfortunately, most all busy forums are this way... unless someone wealthy owns it and don't need any outside support to keep it running.

1024x is tough to design around... especially when you have to advertise. If we didn't advertise, we wouldn't have giveaways... and I'm not even sure we could survive with the expenses we have. If every active member wanted to pay up.... donate a buck or two per month, we could eliminate it. Most members aint' gonna pay though... especially not a newer forum like us.

AVS doesn't care... they have a million viewers per day and could care less whether you come back or not... it won't stop a certain number from coming back and newcomers don't know any better.

In the dream world we could probably have what you are asking for, but in the real world, it's difficult to do, not impossible, just difficult.

36-37% of our users use 1024x, 3-4% use even lower, but most use 1280x or higher, which is what we more or less optimize for. Much less space is used in higher resolutions. If 1024x users would just bump up to 1152x, they would see much more on their screens and surfin' the web would be sooo much better in most cases. More and more sites are optimizing for 1280x nowadays as 1024x is slowly disappearing.


Check out www.hometheaterforum.com in 1024x. The entire page is taken up on every page you go to and on their main page it takes scrolling down about 2-3 pages worth to get to the forum listings.

Check out www.hometheaterspot.com in 1024x. Ads on top, left and right... really jumbled up.

We actually have an extremely large amount of compliments on our layout and flow. That doesn't mean there won't be a few that don't like it... but it is hard to please everyone. We do however take every suggestion into consideration and are constantly looking for ways to improve things.

[jeffbridges]

Sonnie - goodness, you are so thorough in your explanations.. My "Real" computer runs at some crazy high rez, but this laptop o' mine is limited to 1024... As you guys ad ads, pls continue to be sensitive to the issue!

There may be some additional customization options I can check out in usr CP. I dont need the google search bar, for example, already have 2 integrated in browser!.. Let me play with the layout options / havent done that any yet...

As a side note, I think the sponsorships and the give aways and such are needed and welcome features that generally outweigh the minor concerns.

[Sonnie]

It's been a challenge to have those 6 banners up top. I really don't want to ever add anymore, but I'm sure the day will come sooner or later. I had a time getting them to render on two rows with 1024x. I actually decreased the size of our logo to save space.

As far as the Google search block, you can't remove it. Even if you could, it wouldn't save you any vertical space. This is something that we track as well and we have quite a few searches performed via that search block.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of customization of the forum layout for members. This again is something that is difficult to do.

I don't anticipate taking up anymore space in the future, but I can't guarantee it. It has been a desire to keep advertising at a minimum for members and to be very selective in who we advertise. We also want to keep the number of forum sponsors to a minimum. In other words, we have SVS so we won't be taking on HSU or Velodyne. We have selected what we believe to be the best of the best and will try to hang on to those as our select sponsors. However, it doesn't mean on down the line as our expenses get heavier that we won't have to make some sort of adjustments and/or accept paid advertising in some manner.

I can promise you we will be considerate and do the very best we can to keep things as clean as possible.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Are vertical ads an option – you know, the ones that go down the right side of the screen? Seems to me like those would be worth a lot more than the top-of-the-page ads, since you can’t “get rid” of them.

Regards,
Wayne

[Sonnie]

They are an option... check out http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/index.php

We could line up ads down the left side.... or like the "Spot", we can have them on both sides, but it really starts crushing your reading space, especially if you use 1024x screen resolution.

[jeffbridges]

damnd if you do, damnd if ya dont!