As you may know, there’s been a long-standing rule on the forum that you're supposed to buy advertising if you’re going to post Commercial Announcements. A number of developers have been ignoring this rule. It’s annoying (especially when it’s me who’s not getting paid! 
) but I don’t want to play policeman on this. It’s not fun. Still, the rule is there and it’s not fair that some people are paying in good faith and others are not.
The obvious solution is to start deleting all the Commercial Announcements posts from non-advertisers. After all, them’s the rules, and why should some companies benefit from what other companies (and me!) pay for? But … I'm reminded of the Northern Sounds debacle years ago, and I definitely don’t want to go down that road.
More importantly, deleting announcements from non-advertisers would hurt the forum, since most people here want to know when EastWest or CineSamples or 8dio has a new release, whether they advertise or not. Not to sound like a martyr, but I bought the forum to make sure it stayed a cool place, not to get rich. So I can't delete half (yes, half!) the Commercial Announcements.
In their defense, I suspect that since “support the forum” now means, “put money into Mike’s pocket,” there’s less of a charity situation than there used to be. (Maybe I should lose the Corvette in the avatar?) I must admit, I’d probably feel the same way. I think the new reality of VI-Control is that companies are going to buy ads only if it makes business sense, rather than for altruistic reasons. So with all that, I’ve decided:
Big change #1 - There will no longer be a requirement to buy ads before posting Commercial Announcements. Whether you buy ads or not, you can now post Commercial Announcements to your heart’s content.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “But Mike! How are you going to buy more Corvettes if everybody just posts free Commercial Announcements and stops advertising?” *
By golly, you’re right! Even though VIC ads are cheaper by far than any of the other music forums, plus they deliver to a more focused (and bigger spending!) audience than anywhere else, which makes them an incredible value that any forward-thinking company will obviously want to take advantage of, there are still going to be those companies who decide they just want to post free announcements instead. Plus they get even more free publicity when I mention them in the weekly newsletter. (Half the companies I mention there don’t advertise.) Well, that brings us to:
Big change #2 - We now have a second Commercial Announcements “Tier 2” section, which is for non-advertisers. This new section works like the main Commercial Announcements section. It will be visible to members and will appear in their Latest Posts feed, just like normal. If you're a member here, you probably won’t notice a difference. You'll see announcements from both advertisers and non-advertisers, just like before.
However, guests (non-members) will not see this section, and for guests (non-members), these "Tier 2" posts do not appear in the Latest Posts feed.
Of course, the main "Original Recipe" Commercial Announcements section will be seen by both members and guests.
I think this will be pretty unnoticeable to most members. All commercial announcements, paid or not, will still show up, including in the Latest Posts feed. You won’t see a difference there. (Unless you’re not a member. Why the heck would anyone not be a member???)
If you’re a company, this will mean fewer eyeballs on your announcements, since guests comprise about 60% of the forum visits.
* For the record, this forum makes far less money than what you might think, and less than half of what was estimated in the drama thread back in June. Ain’t nobody gonna buy collector cars with the income from it. Heck, it will be years before I even recoup what I paid for it.
) but I don’t want to play policeman on this. It’s not fun. Still, the rule is there and it’s not fair that some people are paying in good faith and others are not.The obvious solution is to start deleting all the Commercial Announcements posts from non-advertisers. After all, them’s the rules, and why should some companies benefit from what other companies (and me!) pay for? But … I'm reminded of the Northern Sounds debacle years ago, and I definitely don’t want to go down that road.
More importantly, deleting announcements from non-advertisers would hurt the forum, since most people here want to know when EastWest or CineSamples or 8dio has a new release, whether they advertise or not. Not to sound like a martyr, but I bought the forum to make sure it stayed a cool place, not to get rich. So I can't delete half (yes, half!) the Commercial Announcements.
In their defense, I suspect that since “support the forum” now means, “put money into Mike’s pocket,” there’s less of a charity situation than there used to be. (Maybe I should lose the Corvette in the avatar?) I must admit, I’d probably feel the same way. I think the new reality of VI-Control is that companies are going to buy ads only if it makes business sense, rather than for altruistic reasons. So with all that, I’ve decided:
Big change #1 - There will no longer be a requirement to buy ads before posting Commercial Announcements. Whether you buy ads or not, you can now post Commercial Announcements to your heart’s content.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “But Mike! How are you going to buy more Corvettes if everybody just posts free Commercial Announcements and stops advertising?” *
By golly, you’re right! Even though VIC ads are cheaper by far than any of the other music forums, plus they deliver to a more focused (and bigger spending!) audience than anywhere else, which makes them an incredible value that any forward-thinking company will obviously want to take advantage of, there are still going to be those companies who decide they just want to post free announcements instead. Plus they get even more free publicity when I mention them in the weekly newsletter. (Half the companies I mention there don’t advertise.) Well, that brings us to:
Big change #2 - We now have a second Commercial Announcements “Tier 2” section, which is for non-advertisers. This new section works like the main Commercial Announcements section. It will be visible to members and will appear in their Latest Posts feed, just like normal. If you're a member here, you probably won’t notice a difference. You'll see announcements from both advertisers and non-advertisers, just like before.
However, guests (non-members) will not see this section, and for guests (non-members), these "Tier 2" posts do not appear in the Latest Posts feed.
Of course, the main "Original Recipe" Commercial Announcements section will be seen by both members and guests.
I think this will be pretty unnoticeable to most members. All commercial announcements, paid or not, will still show up, including in the Latest Posts feed. You won’t see a difference there. (Unless you’re not a member. Why the heck would anyone not be a member???)
If you’re a company, this will mean fewer eyeballs on your announcements, since guests comprise about 60% of the forum visits.
* For the record, this forum makes far less money than what you might think, and less than half of what was estimated in the drama thread back in June. Ain’t nobody gonna buy collector cars with the income from it. Heck, it will be years before I even recoup what I paid for it.
