Vibrant Media and Thoughts Media Partner Up: IntelliTXT

[Jason Dunn]

In the never-ending drive to keep <a href="http://www.thoughtsmedia.com">Thoughts Media</a> alive and thriving, I look and all sorts of revenue opportunities. I probably get contacted three or four times a week by companies wanting to put everything from full-page Flash ads on this site, to selling magazine subscriptions, to pop-ups, to spyware-laden toolbars. I turn down 99% of the companies that contact me, because the integrity of this site is very important to me. I hate it when I go to a Web site and I feel like they're trying to trick me by blending the content with the ads so deeply that I can't tell the difference. I try to strike the balance between revenue generating options that are needed for survival, while still respecting my visitors and giving them the information they want. It's not always easy to maintain that balance, but I've decided to partner with Vibrant Media for a few reasons.<br /><br />You've probably all seen <a href="http://www.vibrantmedia.com/site2005/intellitxt_demo/demo.html">IntelliTXT from Vibrant Media</a> - they're those keywords that are double-underlined and on a <i>lot</i> of sites and forums. They only react if you hover your mouse cursor over them or click, so if you're not interested they're easy enough to ignore. When we first launched IntelliTXT on Pocket PC Thoughts, we had a few complaints from people who dragged their mouse cursor along while they were reading. And there were some people who just didn't like seeing the ads mixed with the content. Others liked them because they liked being able to access a context-sensitive ad if they saw a keyword that they were interested in.<br /><br />I believe I've found a good balance: if you don't mind seeing the ads, just by letting them load you're financially helping this site. If you click on them, even better. If you don't want to see them again, you can turn them off by hovering over one of them and clicking on the <i>What's This</i> link (<a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/turn-off-intellitxt.gif">see image</a>). That will take you to an explanation page, and at the bottom of that page there's a link that says "Click here to disable." That link will drop a cookie on your computer (remember, <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/index.php?action=expand,6896">cookies are not spyware</a>) and you won't see any further IntelliTXT on this site. If you want to see them again, you can go back and click on that same link again. If you're a <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/subscribe.php">subscriber</a> and turned off all ads because of this, you can turn general ads back on and turn IntelliTXT off. Or you can leave it all on. ;-)

[applejosh]

I personally dislike the Intellitxt junk and will add it to any content blocker available (natively in Firefox, for example). I've found that most delays in loading a site are due to the time it takes for the page to connect to the intellitxt servers. It's just one of the things that I find extremely annoying. I've personally decided to not go back to sites because of technology like this. I understand the need for revenue, but I really hate this kind of technology (nearly as much as those darn popup ads). But luckily I'm a subscriber, and I thank you for the ability to selectively turn off the intellitxt ads and leave the others in place.

Edit: I don't see where I can selectively turn off the Intellitxt stuff yet. The ads are still an all or none type thing. Am I missing something?

[Jason Dunn]

But luckily I'm a subscriber, and I thank you for the ability to selectively turn off the intellitxt ads and leave the others in place.

And that's the reason why I hope no one will complain about this change, because they can turn if off if they want to. ;-)

[applejosh]

I was editing as you were replying. I don't see where Intellitxt can be specifically turned off. I still just have the all or none ad thing. Am I missing something?

[Jason Dunn]

I was editing as you were replying. I don't see where Intellitxt can be specifically turned off. I still just have the all or none ad thing. Am I missing something?

Please read my 3rd paragraph and follow the instructions - you need to go to the Vibrant Media site via the "What's This" link of an IntelliTXT item, then you click the link at the bottom of the page, and it drops a cookie which will turn off IntelliTXT for you. Nice and easy! It's not tied into the subscriber benefits, which means everyone can turn it off, subscriber or not (though I do hope most people will leave it on).

[Mark Kenepp]

Thanks Jason,

Not necessarily for this particular "feature" you are enabling on your site for members but when I see your posts relating to your content, particularly when you are addressing members concerns, it makes it obvious, to me, that you do take comments, suggestions, and criticisms from your members seriously and you put forth the effort to accommodate the wishes of your members. :way to go:

[Jason Dunn]

Not necessarily for this particular "feature" you are enabling on your site for members but when I see your posts relating to your content, particularly when you are addressing members concerns, it makes it obvious, to me, that you do take comments, suggestions, and criticisms from your members seriously and you put forth the effort to accommodate the wishes of your members. :way to go:

You're welcome Mark. I don't expect anyone to thank me for putting IntelliTXT in the forums (I was hesitant for a long time), but this is a step up from where we were a week ago. We had switched over to a service called Kontera, which was basically identical to IntelliTXT from the user's point of view, but I didn't have the option to let people opt out, so this is overall a more user-friendly solution because for the people that REALLY hate it, they can opt out. Myself, I like it because on other sites I've found some interesting stuff related to keywords that I've been interested in.

At any rate, if I were independently wealthy and could do Thoughts Media for fun, I'd have a cluster of four monster servers, and nary an ad on ANY site. But until someone sends me a winning lottery ticket, that probably won't happen. ;-)

[applejosh]

Oh, you expect me to read? ;)

Well, that doesn't help me as I clear out ALL cookies on a regular basis (whether they are considered spyware or not, I just don't like being tracked across websites any more than necessary). In Firefox, it clears it out every time I exit.

[Jason Dunn]

Well, that doesn't help me as I clear out ALL cookies on a regular basis (whether they are considered spyware or not, I just don't like being tracked across websites any more than necessary). In Firefox, it clears it out every time I exit.

Then I'm afraid your cookie paranoia trumps my ability to give you a good option. Sorry. :? (unless you can "white list" certain cookies)

[gt24]

Well, that doesn't help me as I clear out ALL cookies on a regular basis (whether they are considered spyware or not, I just don't like being tracked across websites any more than necessary). In Firefox, it clears it out every time I exit.

Then I'm afraid your cookie paranoia trumps my ability to give you a good option. Sorry. :? (unless you can "white list" certain cookies)

Go into your cookies folder and "read only" the one cookie for the ad disablement. As long as your browser doesn't have a panic attack when you try to delete cookies then you should be fine.

If you do try my advice, let me know if it works! :)

&lt;edit> Other sites have went with the text linkvertisements... however this is the first one who actually said how you can remove them on the site if they annoy you. I bet the ad company themselves has had that feature all along however knowledge is power... and without that knowledge, you are powerless to those ads. However, I'm happy because you let us know about our options and kept the control in the user's hands. :) &lt;/edit>

[Pony99CA]

Thanks for this valuable update, Jason. I hate those pop-up text ads (I tend to move my mouse a lot, I guess), and this gives me the ability to stop them.

I do have two suggestions that might improve things on your side for those who turn Intellitxt off, though.

Turning the ads off also turns off the underlining. For people who hate the pop-ups but don't mind the ads, you might want to keep the underlining and allow users that click on the text to see the ads. This would allow users to see which words were ads and explore any they found really interesting (and get you some extra money) while still keeping the annoying popups away.

I realize this is probably something Vibrant would have to do, but it can't hurt to ask them. :-)

Put the link to reenable Intellitxt ads somewhere (at least in this thread). If somebody decides they want the ads back, they'd have to search their browser history to find the page (assuming it's still there) to turn them on again because they can't get to the "What's this" link (because of the previous issue).

Thanks again for allowing us to remove these. :way to go:

Steve

[PDANEWBIE]

Jason,

I'm just throughly glad they are no longer dinky. Actually to be honest with you I never gave any thought to the green underlined text, as its usually only like 2 or three words per story. When I read a story my mouse doen't move across the screen, so I never noticed this was an ad type thing until about 2 months ago (though I have been visiting for ALOT longer).

Sometimes you have to do what you an to make money and its a hell of alot better than some blinding pop-up ad or some obtrusive ad that follows you when you move the screen around...

[PPCRules]

Jason, thanks for explaining how to turn these off. I have found them a terrible distraction to the content and very irritating if I slide my pointer across the page and accidentally hit one. I am a very regular reader and as far as I know, you have never even acknowledged them before this.

Actually, I can't believe anyone would pay you for these. The ads I've noticed as I accidentally activate them are usually so out-of-context or overly general that I have had to laugh out loud. And I can't believe anyone would actually intentionally interrupt their reading of the content to purposely hover over the link and then follow the ad.

But, I guess if you can get some money off it, great; take advantage of it as long as you can. And if I can turn them off, all the better! I will just have to learn to live with a few less spontaneous laughing outbursts.