Hello ! Right. I’ve got a confession to make. A few months ago I went on MoDaCo and said something like..
“What the chuff are all these new links with the underlines on? They’ve got tool-tips with adverts! It’s a disgrace I tells ya! None of this! Pah! Down with this sort of thing!”
As you can see, I was thinking things through properly and structuring a valid argument.. ermm.. not. 🙂
Then, the other day I had another rather chunky bill from the company that hosts the monolithic-sized CoolSmartPhone server and I started to re-think my approach. This is why you lot are beginning to see things like this (see image on the right). There’s several ways to pay for this site y’see, and I’ve gone through a lot of them in my head…
1) Charge people for downloads and stuff.
I thought about doing this for quite a long time, but in the end I realised it’d make most people browse elsewhere. After all, I’ve been using t’internet for years and I realise that – when presented with a prompt-box saying, “You need to pay for access to this”, it’s virtually the same as saying, “You probably won’t want to pay for this, so go elsewhere and get it for free eh?”.
2) PopUps / PopUnders and Smiley-ads.
I hate these. I hate these with a passion. I hate these more than TV Show “Sex In The City”. Yes, they’re that bad, and if I don’t want them then I’m not going to push them onto you guys.
3) Ask for donations.
This sometimes works, but I have to put a front-page news item saying something like “AGH! I’ve just had a bill for £100 this month alone! Just to host CoolSmartPhone! I’m skint! Help!!” When I do that, I get a few quid from the lovely people reading this now. That cash goes off to the hosting company and everyones’ a winner. However, short of putting my “Help!” news item up every month, the donations are usually nil. Since the last “help me” article which I did months ago I’ve received about £10. 🙁 Sob 🙁
So I’m left with finding an advertising method which is not obtrusive or garish, one which doesn’t pop-up and get on your tits, but one which pays for the site so that the missus doesn’t whinge about the amount of cash I’m supposedly “wasting” on a site, when she could put it towards far better things like.. clothes.. and clothes.. and some more clothes. The result are these new “underlined” links, which you’ll see appearing on CoolSmartPhone.com. They look different to “normal” links and have a little advert when you hover over them (with your mouse, not some sort of levitation above your laptop). If you’re interested in whatever it is then you simply click the link and off you go. Job done.
Like I say, these links are different and are almost black in colour. They’re not too “in your face” and will have two small lines underneath and a “tool tip” when you go near it with your mouse. It will read the site and come up with adverts for certain words. I’ve also clamped it down to only reading certain parts of the site, so hopefully you won’t see it appearing all over the place willy-nilly-like.
That’s it. I’m done. I can’t believe I’ve just typed “willy-nilly-like”, so I’m off to hang my head in shame.