Why Stack Overflow Doesn't Care About Ad Blockers

Press2ToContinue writes: Forging a bold step in the right direction, Stack Overflow announced today that they don't care if you use an ad blocker when you visit their site. "The truth is: we don't care if our users use ad blockers on Stack Overflow. More accurately: we hope that they won't, but we understand that some people just don't like ads. Our belief is that if someone doesn't like them, and they won't click on them, any impressions served to them will only annoy them-- plus, serving ads to people who won't click on them harms campaign performance. ... Publishers can't win by forcing ads — especially low-quality ads — in people's faces. Think scantily-clad women selling flight deals, weight-loss supplement promos or wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube-men promoting car dealerships." It's possible that this declaration by SO might help to clarify to advertisers that it is the overabundance of low quality ads that practically force the public to seek out ad blockers. But seriously, what is the likelihood of that?

Comments

Hear hear!

[rmdingler]

Also, too, and neither: figure out a way to separate me from the paper in my wallet without making my machine load slower.

Write your ads in a language not quite so notorious as an infection vector.

Good start, though.

Re:Hear hear!

[amicusNYCL]

It's definitely a good start.

Our belief is that if someone doesn't like them, and they won't click on them, any impressions served to them will only annoy them-- plus, serving ads to people who won't click on them harms campaign performance.

This is a really good point that I haven't seen other sites make. They're right about it, especially the "campaign performance". If 20% of the user base is not going to click on an ad anyway, then why bother padding the numbers to say you served ads to that additional group? Just don't serve them ads, and then your click-through rate improves because you've cut out a chunk of people who aren't going to click on them anyway. That might make the numbers for the overall ad campaign better, which may increase the rates that they can then charge for ads in the future, because they have a higher clickthrough rate.

Therefore: allowing ad-blockers onto your site increases your advertising revenue. Suck it, Forbes.

it's not "low quality ads" that are the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ads that pop up and interrupt the browsing experience.

It's ads that masquerade as "facebook notifications" on your phone.

It's ads that start playing a video at fucking maximum volume while you are trying to work.

But most importantly, its ads that are made entirely out of javascript running on MY computer by another entity who has not been vetted or trusted by me. You do not need to run a program on my computer to sell me something.

It's the ads that are for all intents and purposes, malware. Adblocking+Noscript is the most effective antivirus. Accessing the internet without them is negligence. This is what stackoverflow and other sites need to start saying.

Re:it's not "low quality ads" that are the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote from a previous slashdot article on this:

Browsing without an adblocker is like fucking without a condom.
You should only do it with someone you really, really trust.

Ad icon in banner?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the "AD" icon in the story banner mean this story is an ad? That seems like an unprecedented level of honesty for Slashdot!

Re:Ad icon in banner?

[desdinova 216]

no, I think it's a sign that it's talking about the internet advertizing industry.

Advertising Bubble

[monkeyxpress]

I think the whole advertising situation will get better once the tech bubble bursts. Just look at many of the tech companies now - they are giant advertising platforms, but spend most of their revenues and investor money on user acquisition through advertising. This is like a giant ponzi scheme really.

Google worked, and will probably keep working for some time now, because one of the main use cases for search is to find stuff you want to buy. When you go to the site and start searching for a particular product, it isn't a big deal (and sometimes is useful) when ads come up for that product or equivalents you might not have heard off. The advertising has actual value in informing you about what is available. Other sites, such as Facebook, might have more information on me, but I go there to look at pictures of my friend's dogs and kids, not when I want to find something to buy. For that reason I find their ads incredibly annoying, and despite Zuckerberg going on about how they make them relevant, he would only be true if I was some kind of consumption machine that wonders around the internet like a virtual godzilla eating up every product that is shoved in my face.

My prediction is that eventually the industry will fall apart as companies realise the ponzi nature of current advertising prices, and that much of this expenditure is not converting in to sales. In that regard, the better tracking/conversion tools that the internet allows may be the industries own downfall.

Re:Advertising Bubble

[alvinrod]

I think part of the reason is due to Google having a near monopoly in terms of search and online advertising. There's no competition to drive prices down, but even still the costs are lower for many companies than advertising with traditional media which is why so many companies will gladly line up to let Google make a substantial profit.

Re:Advertising Bubble

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebooks idea of "relevance" seems to be to try to sell me the exact same thing I bought yesterday. Like I need two dishwashers.

Re:Advertising Bubble

[kilfarsnar]

That they know how to make people buy something that they don't want or care about!

This part is actually true, for the good ones.

Re:Advertising Bubble

[gstoddart]

they are giant advertising platforms, but spend most of their revenues and investor money on user acquisition through advertising. This is like a giant ponzi scheme really.

That's actually a really good analogy.

Twitter is a great example of this -- they went IPO at $28 billion freaking dollars.

They had no business model, assets, or revenue to support that valuation. It was all hype and "ZOMG, the Twitterz". Now, fast forward, it it loses ... what, $150 million per year? How do you do that on almost $600 million in revenues?

Tech companies have pretty much been starting out as grossly overvalued, by the end of the day when the big investors have laundered their profits, and the little guy is left holding the bag ... the stock is never worth the same again, at least not in the long run.

The value of tech stocks relative to actual value has rarely held up. Essentially they're all over sold as ad platforms, which in the long run never actually justify the original stupid prices they fetched.

Over the last 20 years (at least), tech companies have been a series of giant ponzi schemes of grossly overvalued companies which ultimately can't deliver on the bullshit hype.

Honestly, I don't understand how the financial industry works if it's all wishful thinking, bad math, and funny money. Oh, wait, they make their money up front, and then pass the shit on to the next suckers in the scheme, of course.

It just transfers money into the hands of big investors who buy in first, and leave everyone else wondering how they got fleeced. Exactly like a ponzi scheme.

Re:Advertising Bubble

[Shortguy881]

I'm not sure you understand the simple concept of ROI. You mentioned better tracking and conversion tools and any marketing team worth their salt is using these on a daily bases. Our team can track the effects of micro changes in ad campaigns on our visitor traffic and conversion rates. As we can quantify the value of a customer, its quite easy to do the math: X more dollars in advertising results in Y more customers. Simply stated, is X less than Y times customer value.

Obviously, this is a watered down, back of the napkin version. We use far more analysis in making these types of marketing and advertising decisions. Your assumption that all of these companies out there are being taken advantage of by online advertisers is rather naive.

Re:Advertising Bubble

[ceoyoyo]

There is certainly a place for marketing in the world. The web in particular seems to have gone over the top abusive though. And the maxim "it's easier to sell a good product" seems to have suffocated beneath the gelatinous buttocks of "I can sell anything."

Re:Advertising Bubble

[ceoyoyo]

Many studies have shown that much of the financial system is essentially random. It's just that everyone else is making random decisions too, so the pigeons all do their dances. There was one study that actually had monkeys pick stocks. They did as well as professional traders.

Then there are the actual criminals, of course. Such as those who manage IPOs.

Re:Advertising Bubble

[Jason Levine]

You'll also find plenty of blogs posting PR content verbatim. I get requests from PR companies all the time for my blog. They want me to promote their product using their words and I'll get "paid" in high resolution images of their product or to be entered for a chance to win one of the products. I ignore/delete these requests (after all, my credit card company doesn't let me pay off my bill using high resolution images) but too many people jump on board and do whatever the company says. They mistake company-provided content with quality content and hurt their blogs in the process.

Re:Advertising Bubble

[gstoddart]

You gave a bad example. Twitter is a service that is still trying to establish a real revenue stream.

Twitter is a great example of what I was giving an example of.

Twitter is, essentially, an advertising company .. that's the revenue model. It just piggy-backs on inane garbage like when the Kardashians shit.

Twitter went IPO for $28 billion dollars, in the 10 years since Twitter has been operating, they've lost $2 billion dollars.

You'll note that the poster I replied to, and quoted, said tech companies are basically ad companies, and essentially ponzi schemes. Here it is again:

they are giant advertising platforms, but spend most of their revenues and investor money on user acquisition through advertising. This is like a giant ponzi scheme really.

So, in terms of an example of a company which is essentially an ad platform, which has failed to make any money, and which was overvalued from the start and is losing money ... exactly like a ponzi scheme ... I didn't give a "bad" example.

I gave an example of exactly what I was trying to give an example of, and in agreement with the poster I was responding to.

Twitter is a bullshit vehicle which collected $28 billion of other people's money at IPO, has lost $2 billion dollars flailing about trying to have a business model, and whose stock keeps losing value.

Giant. Fucking. Ponzi. Scheme.

Re:Advertising Bubble

[Irate Engineer]

For that reason I find their ads incredibly annoying, and despite Zuckerberg going on about how they make them relevant, he would only be true if I was some kind of consumption machine that wonders around the internet like a virtual godzilla eating up every product that is shoved in my face.

I think this is the core problem; this is exactly what advertisers want their clients to believe - if they see it they will buy! EYEBALLS! MOAR EYEBALLS!

Uh, no...it doesn't work like that, it never worked like that. Yet the advertisers blindly press on with more and more aggressive attempts to force people to see things they do not want, and use eyeballs as a metric of their "success". Advertisers don't have to prove that their advertising actually works to increase sales - they generally just have to spin enough FUD to frighten their clients into believing that reducing advertising will reduce sales. If more advertising is correlated to increased sales, correlation == causality, the ads worked! If sales are dropping off, the remedy is automatically more advertising.

I'd be interested to see if any connection between adblocker use and sales has been or could be documented. My gut tells me that lost eyeballs does not equate to lost sales - people merely go Google to target what they are looking for, gather information, and buy what suits them. How many people are buying stuff based solely on ad exposure?

Re:Advertising Bubble

[gstoddart]

Many studies have shown that much of the financial system is essentially random

Once set in motion, the financial system is essentially random. I will believe that.

But, increasingly the entire premises are just a pure con job -- from valuations of stocks at IPO being magical thinking, to the expectation companies will grow 10% year over year forever, increasingly the entire financial industry sits on a foundation of complete lies and bullshit.

The value of a company is no longer tied to its assets or revenues, but the hope that unicorn poop will create billions of dollars out of thin air, despite there being no rational reason to think that.

WHY was Twitter ever valued at $28 billion? Unicorn poop.

Re:Advertising Bubble

[monkeyxpress]

Step back and look at the wider picture though. What sets the price of X? Why is it, say, $1 to get 1 more customer and not 1c? If all the advertisers were companies that built fridges, then the value of X would settle at a price at or below the profit on every fridge they sell. If they go any higher they will be paying people to buy fridges which is not sustainable. However, if the advertisers are companies that are trying to acquire users so that they can make money from advertising, then each time they spend some more of their investor's funds on advertising, their revenue projections, which are the other side of X, go up. This makes their business plan look more viable and draws more investor money into the market. If these companies come to dominate the market, then you essentially have a ponzi scheme developing.

The only guard against this should be fiscal prudence by VCs and investors, but interest rates are zero the stock market is so awash with money it doesn't matter if this is all unsustainable as long as you exit through an IPO/sale before the music stops. In fact, it is an ingenious way to make obscene profits in an otherwise moribund economy.

Re:Advertising Bubble

[SvnLyrBrto]

Amazon's margins are so small because they invest the bulk of their profits back into the business in order to grow it. If, at some point, they were to decide: "Okay, we're as big as we want to be. Let's stop growing.", they'd be much more "profitable".

And really, what IS the better alternative to using the profit to expand? You could throw it all away in the form of dividends. That would make assholes like Carl Icahn happy. But what good would it do for Amazon? Or you could sit on a cash stockpile of a couple hundred billion like Apple and... what... earn interest?

Re:Advertising Bubble

[henni16]

There are different kinds of advertising:
On the internet you often have "Buy OUR crap. Now." ads which hope people click on them and buy stuff. But for the reasons you stated, most ads outside of search engines won't lead to direct sales that way because people rarely come to websites like Facebook looking to buy stuff *right now*.

Another kind of ad are more about brand recognition, about getting your name out. So that people who aren't looking to buy something *right now* will either remember your name or at least recognize it again on a more subtle level.

I mean, it's not like a company putting an ad for a lawn mower in a magazine or airing one during the Super Bowl expects people to jump up and run out to buy a lawn mower right after they see it (i.e. offline they usually don't expect the equivalent of a click-through leading to a sale when someone views their ad).
BUT: the next time you need to buy a lawn mower, you might remember their name and make sure to look at their products before coming to a decision what to buy.
Or, if you are in the store in front of a line of lawn mowers and have to make a decision between a few models which are similar on features and price, a lot of people won't toss a coin, they'll often - maybe just subconsciously - favor the manufacturer whose name rings a faint bell over ones they've never heard of before.

This probably becomes more important the cheaper and harder to distinguish the products are.
When buying a car, there's lots of stuff you can look up to compare or have preferences for.
When standing in front of a wall of unknown toilet cleaners with tiny price difference and your usual one [ how did it become your usual..?] is out of stock, name recognition or the design of the bottle might influence how "randomly" you select one of the other options.
And if your random(?) pick works for you, it might become your new usual product.

Re:Advertising Bubble

[wvmarle]

You gave a bad example. Twitter is a service that is still trying to establish a real revenue stream.

After all those years it's operating, and a $28 bln IPO, it's still searching for a way to make money. And you say it's a BAD example of an overvalued company?

Re:Advertising Bubble

[wasteoid]

What's your twitter id?

Re:Advertising Bubble

[gstoddart]

LOL ... nonexistent?

Malware

[HeNkarid]

Personally I would never click ads, but even if I wanted to, the possibility of potential malware or other nefarious deeds would still stop me from clicking it.

And I don't really care about ads.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I never installed an ad blocker to get rid of adverts. I installed an ad blocker to block the domains of all those pop over/pop under type ads that appear when I'm browsing my favorite purveyors of pornography. Also those noisy ads that start playing videos and then I have to hunt down the tab they are in. Or those flash ads that pop up when I scroll over words and I have to keep closing, or pop up over the whole screen till I close them.

I installed an ad blocker for annoying as hell adverts.

If sites didn't want users to sever all their revenue, maybe they should look at being more picky as to how their adverts impair their users use of their sites. When the ads are more consuming of the users time and attention than the site content itself then the site becomes useless.

Solution: static ads from 1st party

[DriveDog]

If you're complaining about me not watching ads on your site, how about showing me ads FROM your site, not a third party's; and static images and text, no video, no animation, no scripts, no multipage GIFs. Certainly never popups/unders/etc. I do NOT object to static images and text, for which I'm already paying the bandwidth to download.

Re:Solution: static ads from 1st party

[ceoyoyo]

It works just fine. I have a friend who streams. He has sponsors who pay him to endorse their product to his small audience. The sponsor watches his viewer numbers and those come into play when they renegotiate. I know of several niche websites that do similar things: instead of just slapping up a Google ad they make deals with relevant sponsors and show their ads.

Web ad services are so successful because a) they're the lazy solution for both advertisers and hosts and b) they give the marketers low effort data so they can say "see, we're all quantitative!"

Re:Solution: static ads from 1st party

[Frosty Piss]

If you're complaining about me not watching ads on your site, how about showing me ads FROM your site, not a third party's

The infrastructure required for a high-traffic web site of media company with a number of high-traffic sites is not insignificant, and like mail servers it's often a better idea to farm it out so as to be able to focus on content.

Re:Too Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather they stopped cluttering up search results and disappeared.

I know it! Geeze, I just had a problem this morning and when I searched for a solution, all these Stackoverflow hits showed up with posts by people solving my problem.

The nerve of these people! BTW, their SEO optimization company is just brilliant!

I wish it was only 'low quality' ads.

[oneiros27]

How about the ones that start windows popping up all over the place? Or start playing at obnoxiously loud levels? Or the four videos that start sucking down cpu.

And it doesn't help that I tend to pop open a few articles to read (or questions on StackExchange (disclaimer: I'm one of the moderators on Open Data)), and if a video starts playing, I'd have to look through all of my tabs and figure out which one it was to shut it down.

And that's not the disturbing ones that seem to be tracking other sites I've been to (we saw you were shopping for (x), so now it's going to follow you around for the next three months).

... and then there's the malware.

A few years ago, there was an article about the FBI spoofing websites to foist their spyware on people ... and I commented that it'd be easier for them to start up their own ad network, and they'd be able to just wait for the right person to visit. I have no idea if law enforcement is doing it, but I'm pretty sure that the criminals are.

Advertising ROI

[sjbe]

I think the whole advertising situation will get better once the tech bubble bursts.

You seem curiously convinced that A) we are in a bubble and B) that advertising will go away or "get better". You can't really know A for certain by definition because bubbles generally can only be identified in retrospect and B will never ever happen. It's unclear what "get better" means to you but I'm pretty sure whatever it is won't happen.

My prediction is that eventually the industry will fall apart as companies realise the ponzi nature of current advertising prices, and that much of this expenditure is not converting in to sales.

I think you don't understand the advertising business. You think that companies are naively throwing money at advertising because they don't know any better. While there are some out there where that is true for the most part buyers of advertising understand very well the relationship between advertising dollars spent and the returns they get. It's not at all hard to get a pretty solid idea of the correlation between ad spend and revenue.

Re:Advertising ROI

[ceoyoyo]

It seems like advertising is backing away a bit, with the notable exception of the web. Ad-supported cable is dying but the no-ads premiums channels like HBO are doing well, and zero-ad subscription services like Netflix are cleaning up. The tech industry does seem to have more than it's share of advertising companies masquerading as something else. And the number of multi-billion dollar acquisitions for things like chat platforms, many that have subsequently been sold at a fraction of their purchase price, is suggestive of a bubble.

Re:Advertising ROI

[tlhIngan]

It seems like advertising is backing away a bit, with the notable exception of the web. Ad-supported cable is dying but the no-ads premiums channels like HBO are doing well, and zero-ad subscription services like Netflix are cleaning up. The tech industry does seem to have more than it's share of advertising companies masquerading as something else. And the number of multi-billion dollar acquisitions for things like chat platforms, many that have subsequently been sold at a fraction of their purchase price, is suggestive of a bubble.

Ad supported cable is dying because a la carte is forcing what was once subscription based revenue (and thus concentrating on programming for a niche) is turning into ad-based revenue (and thus programming must attract eyeballs). So programming that could count on steady subscription revenue and concentrate on the topic at hand must now switch models and alter their presentation to go after what attracts eyeballs. This is a complete change and it's why ad supported cable channels added a bunch of "drama" and other things to formerly fact-based documentary programming. That drama (faked or scripted) attracts eyeballs. The more eyeballs, the higher the ad revenue.

Subscription based services like HBO and Netflix only care about growing subscription revenue, which means they don't care about eyeball quantity - they care about attracting subscribing eyeballs only. Their programming will be directed at what their subscribing public wants and what kind of subscribing public they want to get the dollars from.

So Netflix and HBO will be making programming aimed towards that demographic. You and I feel they're "winning" because we currently are in that demographic - the people who will likely see that programming and subscribe to the service.

But the market is still ripe for ads - the Superbowl for example, gets so many eyeballs its ratings are stratospheric. Which is why it costs over $100K per SECOND of ad time during it (that's $3M for an ad spot). For comparison, a prime-time 30 second ad spot generally commands $80-150K.

Sports, in general, are the highest rated programming on TV which is why they generally pre-empt other programming - the ad dollars spent is immense.

Re:Advertising ROI

[ceoyoyo]

When a significant number of people cut their (ad supported) cable and subscribe to Netflix (no ads), then ad supported programming is decreased. All the stuff about the channels pandering to their audience may be true, but it's irrelevant. Note that, despite the existence of Hulu (apparently, I'm in Canada) Netflix continues to expand. There is a growing market for ad-free television.

The super bowl is a special event that happens for a few hours every year. Yes, ads for the super bowl cost a lot. But they also cost a lot last year. We don't know how well an ad-free Super Bowl would do, because it simply aren't offered that way. The super bowl is also a bit of a special case because the ads cost so much that advertisers put more effort into making them entertaining. How well would an ad-free Netflix-like sports service do against regular ad supported sports?

Security-minded too

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't just about low quality advertisements, but the fact that advertisers have abused trust one too many times serving malware/spyware/adware. Advertisements are a security risk in and of themselves, and increase page loading times quite a bit.

Re:Security-minded too

[SoftwareArtist]

Exactly. I have NoScript installed. That isn't an ad blocker as such, but it does end up blocking a lot of ads. But that's the advertisers' fault, not mine. There's no reason ads should need scripting or plugins. If you can't make your ads work within reasonable security constraints, that's your problem.

...and cause page-loads to hang

[coats]

If an ad-site causes page-loads to hang for 30 seconds or more, its IP address is well-worth black-holing.

Or if you want me to look at it, pay me my fully-loaded rate for that wasted time (note that there is a 0.25-hour minimum).

Re:Too Bad

[SQLGuru]

At least it's not Expert Sex Change links where people have a similar problem and people post answers, but you can't see them because you don't pay for their service. Those days were the worst.

[Actually, today what sucks is all of the foreign sites that are scraping forums and Stack Overflow and just reposting the exact same content. You think "oh, another place that might have a different answer than the one on SO that wasn't quite what I wanted" when in reality, it's just some hack taking revenue away from SO.]

I agree with them

[koan]

I think I may actually be allergic to ads, at least my lawyer thinks so. (cha ching!)

But they hit the nail on the head here: "Our belief is that if someone doesn't like them, and they won't click on them, any impressions served to them will only annoy them-- plus, serving ads to people who won't click on them harms campaign performance. ... Publishers can't win by forcing ads — especially low-quality ads — in people's faces. "

That sums me up and the schadenfreude exuding from me over the death of Flash is palpable.

Re:I agree with them

[swb]

While their belief that people who don't like them won't click on them is true, advertisers are kind of like proselytizing religions. Their deepest motivation isn't to convert the mostly converted, but to reach those who are the hardest to convert. Marketers are convinced of the idea that selling to the man who doesn't want to be sold to is only a matter of reaching him with the right campaign.

Re:I agree with them

[Actually, I do RTFA]

stackoverflow cannot block people with ad-blockers, because then they are blocking the people who answer questions and build their content.

Most other sites don't have 100% of their value coming from powerusers.

Re:I agree with them

[CastrTroy]

Actually, if you're a power user on stack overflow, or any sites on the stack exchange network, then they cut down the number of ads they show you. When I go to their sites, I never see any ads. I just see links to other sites on the network or "careers" ads. I don't see any links to any third party sites.

Worth repeating...

[QuietLagoon]

...Our belief is that if someone doesn't like them, and they won't click on them, any impressions served to them will only annoy them-- plus, serving ads to people who won't click on them harms campaign performance. ... Publishers can't win by forcing ads — especially low-quality ads — in people's faces. ...

Ad is not the problem, intrusive ad is.

[zijus]

FTA on SD : "it is the overabundance of low quality ads that practically force the public to seek out ad blockers"

IMO it is missing the point : intrusiveness is the problem. Overabundance is just one type of intrusiveness. Intrusive means : consuming the resources I own ( cpu, mem, disc) or that I pay for (bandwidth). Putting my very own resources at risk with the malvertising. Rendering my interface slow. But mostly : too big, too visible, too noisy, flashy. AFAIK it's one of the points fought by AdBlockPlus : Ad is not the problem, intrusive ad is. It is enough to have one single intrusive ad - the contrary of abundance - to make me install all I can (ADB+, etc file, FlashBlock, etc). Z.

Happy(-ish) SO user

[codeButcher]

I've been happily using Stack Overflow for a couple of years now. I've learned a lot, despite many participants often being at the school/junior professional level, thus only regurgitating the stuff from tutorials without necessarily much depth of insight or practical use experience. I've also been able to contribute some things, which seem to be helpful to a number of people.

I never realized there were ads on the site until this article. But then again, I've had AdBlock / hosts file since before I signed up...

I always imagine that it is fair that when people contribute some original content, if the site does not remunerate them (in money) for it, some other incentive might be in order - e.g. free use and option out of advertising (kudos Slashdot). (And unlike e.g. Facebook, to which I've contributed countless translated words and phrases in the beginning years... and where the translated interface's overall impression is still that of a million unpaid monkeys typing away at a million keyboards even today.)

Considerate adds What a concept

[n2hightech]

Absolutely Right! I do not mind adds served considerately. On the side or below. When an ad pops up over my screen I close the window and go somewhere else. Most content is not worth being annoyed over. If the publishers want people to look at their pages impose some limits on what the advertisers can do. I would like to see a web browser designed so popups and pop overs are not possible and a filter that makes all links to sites that do not impose considerate advertising standards just disappear. In other words every link on a page is previewed if it is found to contain crappy adds and maybe even paywalls that link is either removed or replaced with a warning saying bad ad Pay wall etc so you do not even have to click it to find out. When traffic to those sites dry up they will begin to act better.

The problem with ads is the browser/network

[sinrakin]

It's not ads per se that are annoying, it's how they affect the browsing experience. Reading Slashdot a few seconds ago - I read one or two sentences of an article, then an image loaded and reformatted the page and the paragraph I was reading disappeared. Found it again, read half a sentence and another image loaded and it disappeared again. I don't have time to chase my article all over the screen. On other sites, I'll read half a paragraph, then it will suddenly wipe everything out (not just scroll it off the screen) while it tries to load some huge object from the network. Or half the page will come down, then stop while it hangs trying to do a DNS lookup or load a giant Flash video from some ad network that's not responding, but none of the remaining text will load while it hangs. This happens so much that I've either stopped reading some sites, or installed ad blockers on computers that I use often. I don't hate the ads - I maybe click on one or two a year - if that's enough to keep things profitable I have no objection. What's unacceptable is the way they negatively impact what I'm actually trying to do.

what is the likelihood of that?

[Chas]

It's possible that this declaration by SO might help to clarify to advertisers that it is the overabundance of low quality ads that practically force the public to seek out ad blockers. But seriously, what is the likelihood of that?

I'm not sure. The number is a negative value somewhere between googolplex hypercubed and infinity...

Re:Too Bad

[N1AK]

It's also a pretty naive position. As things stand the difference between people with ad blockers and without isn't how much they hate advertising, it's how tech savvy they are. If IE came with ad blocking by default then (assuming it worked) it's not like its users would be rushing to turn it off, and it's not like those users suddenly went from loving ads to hating them.

Re:I havve older pc's

[avandesande]

I hope you have disabled Flash. Trust me, it is a huge upgrade for your computer.

Timing and frequency

[Anonymous Coward]

So this is the, what? Sixth time an article in this vein has appeared on /. in the past two weeks maybe? Around about the time ownership of the site moved from to a company that mainly deals in ads. At this point I'm getting a little irked of seeing the same story and starting to wonder if maybe Whiplash and Co. are hoping to glean some insight from the comment section of how to overcome the stain that ads have left. Perhaps it's a sign some companies are willing to adept and get on board with what works and what doesn't, but what are the odds of that?

Re:Timing and frequency

[jafiwam]

They would just post a thread to ask that. People are offering up solutions. Desperate to have a solution even. As a user, I don't want the content to go away, but on the other hand, I am not tolerating asshole ads either. If someone can take the asshole part out and find a happy medium then I wouldn't complain about it.

Re:Too Bad

[emho24]

I use Chrome and the Personal Blocklist (by Google) extension to block them from appearing in Google search results. I will *not* run an installer that does who knows what to my pc, so they get the blacklist. The fact that they are changing their practices is too little too late, the trust was murdered forever ago.

Re:Too Bad

[Jason Levine]

It used to be that ExpertsExchange would show the answers but hide them under a "pop-in" window that wouldn't go away unless you paid... Or unless you used developer tools to remove the elements causing the popup. Then you could read the content for free. Sadly, they've caught on to this and now don't even serve up the answer on the page. (Which, to be honest, is the proper way of doing things. Not that I agree with their business model, but if you're going to do that you don't put the content on the page and then hide it since it's trivial to reveal it.)

Re:Too Bad

[jafiwam]

At least it's not Expert Sex Change links where people have a similar problem and people post answers, but you can't see them because you don't pay for their service. Those days were the worst.

You are right, site-scrapers are annoying as hell. I don't get why the search engines don't completely blacklist them. They must not ever use their own search tools to solve problems.

Experts Exchange is easy to beat. Just scroll down past the ads and junk on the page and the actual conversation is there.

Re:Too Bad

[CastrTroy]

I personally don't use an ad blocker on my machine. I do use flash block. Most of the sites I visit just don't have that many ads. If a site has so many ads that it becomes annoying, I don't go back to that site so much.

Stackoverflow had ads?

[Rinikusu]

Hrm.. Never knew.

Re:Too Bad

[operagost]

I didn't realize there even was a flash blocker. I just have my flash plugin set to "Ask to Activate" in Firefox.

This is exactly what ads on the Web feel like

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Ads on the Web really feel like this.

Now imagine that stupid ad playing multiple times on top of the TV show you're trying to watch, including the audio. That's what the Web feels like with most ads.

Please note that I really don't mind the text-only or static image ads. But I despise the animated, dynamic, auto-playing video ads. Those things waste my bandwidth and my CPU cycles. It's also wasting the battery power of people using mobile devices.

Pay-per-click is a broken model

[countach44]

If I see an ad for something, it had served its purpose. If a buy a Honda partly because of an ad I saw two weeks ago, but didn't click on, it still worked. Maybe the idea of measuring clicks is that clicks and ad effectiveness are well correlated... but I'm too lazy to find any studies.

Re:Pay-per-click is a broken model

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I work for an ad agency.

The company I work for "has ways" to determine ROI; If you buy a car based on an ad you saw a couple weeks ago, they are fairly good about linking those two events in some fashion or another. People smarter than me are working on it. I just work on some of the mundane configuration side of things. It's a bit frightening how good it is.

I work there because it's a good gig - I despise the industry, but it's a secure paycheck, and the people I work with are good folks. And yes, I run ad-block on my personal machine.

Re:Pay-per-click is a broken model

[Infiniti2000]

I think the method is a very strongly motivated post-purchase questionnaire type of thing. Basically, they pay something like a $25 gift card, wherein at least one of the questions helps link the purchase to the ad that motivated it. I think they must get enough responses from such measures to justify it.

Re:Pay-per-click is a broken model

[spads]

Ok, but then you are missing out on the (supremely) empowering experience of actually ~~clicking~~ on the ad.

Re:Pay-per-click is a broken model

[T.E.D.]

The company I work for "has ways" to determine ROI; If you buy a car based on an ad you saw a couple weeks ago, they are fairly good about linking those two events in some fashion or another. People smarter than me are working on it. I just work on some of the mundane configuration side of things. It's a bit frightening how good it is.

But are you sure those "ways" are actually effective? I've talked to quite a few laymen recently, including last week a successful marketing professional, who were convinced that read-receipts were an effective way to judge when and how many people read the emails they send. The marketing person was even quoting me general statistics based on this.

But of course not all email clients honor, or even support read receipts. I'm not even sure most of them do. Some folks try to get around this by embedding externally-hosted images, but any good email client shouldn't automatically present those either. So while a "read-receipt" can (probably) be used to tell that some person has at least glanced at your email, they don't really tell you anything about who hasn't.

What I'm at getting here is that marketing people have a nasty tendency to have completely unwarranted blind faith in their tools, when they don't really understand how those tools work and what their actual limitations are. So I really would take any info from them about tech with a grain of salt, no matter how certain they are about it. In fact, the more certain they are, the more suspicious you should be.

Re:Too Bad

[legoleg]

I think you're talking about sourceforge... this was about stackoverflow.

Re: Too Bad

[slazzy]

It's not easy to spot scraping sites so easy, they can "spin" the content to make it all a little different programmatically.

Agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

Adblock Plus will allow unobtrusive ads by default. These are still ads, but they don't pose infection risks. I always allow those. Want more people to see ads? Make them unobtrusive. It is as simple as that.

Re:Agreed

[malditaenvidia]

Which is one of the many reasons why Adblock Plus should be deprecated in favor of Ublock Origin.

Re:Agreed

[BronsCon]

Why? Because it encourages the ad industry to change for the benefit of all of us, including those who don't use an ad blocker? I fell that's a damn good reason to keep using it, myself, and just turn off the whitelist if you don't like it. Yes, you can do that, it's one checkbox in the config.

Re:Agreed

[malditaenvidia]

No, because it doesn't do what it's supposed to do and it wastes cycles while not doing it.

Re:Agreed

[allo]

And fails to do so.
Even without this feature, for example the easylist privacy contains unreasonable exceptions for fucking GOOGLE ANALYTICS on some sites. I guess they payed to be able to track their visitors while others cannot (because its a damn privacy list).

Re:Agreed

[eric_harris_76]

Depends on who's doing the supposing.

People vary.

Re:Too Bad

[SQLGuru]

In the "times long ago", the answers were only available for paid access (or changing your User Agent string).....but Google started ranking them lower for serving up different content to the spiders than to the real people, so they moved the answers all the way to the bottom and just obscuring them. So it isn't as bad now as it used to be.

Re:Too Bad

[Luthair]

I rarely to never find useful answers on StackOverflow, further many unrelated issues appear and often end up ranking higher on search engines than the actual documentation or bug report for the project. I wouldn't have an issue with the site if it didn't completely pollute search results, its 'network' is a forum and should be treated as such (being present only once in a search engine results page).

Re:Too Bad

[Luthair]

Why? I don't find the site useful and would be happy to not have it wasting half the entries on search results for any programming topic.

Re:Too Bad

[Luthair]

The trouble with the blocklist plugins is that they simply remove the entries from the view and you don't get more results.

Re:Too Bad

[avandesande]

Unfortunately though with flash block a lot of sites will think you have flash installed and will dish up flash instead of html 5... I believe youtube does this. I disabled flash completely a few months ago and have been pleasantly surprised- very few site are flash only. My number one beef with flash is instability and slowness and this is gone now.

Ads are dead

[OrangeTide]

I hope everyone uses ad blockers and squeezes ads out of existence entirely. Businesses will have to find new ways to promote themselves. For example, I like reading product reviews or getting referrals from friends. Referrals alone can scale huge for a business given the way we are all connected through facebook, google+, twitter, whatever.

As annoying as APK's post are, he is still right, a hosts file really does work. It even blocked a some of the video ads that were inserted into a stream. For almost zero effort on my part.

 

Re:Ads are dead

[hawaiian717]

the way we are all connected through facebook, google+, twitter, whatever

If ads go away, how will Facebook/Google+/Twitter pay to operate their servers? No social network, no connectivity to build referrals.

Don't want to discourage posters

[randomlygeneratename]

Some good coders who post good solutions may stop posting if ad-block is not allowed. The people reading the answers will probably still go, regardless of ads. So, it would hurt the community. Not that all good coders block ads, or all people in search of answers don't mind ads... but there's a diversity of personality types required to make Stack Overflow work.

Re:Ghostery = 'souled-out' & inferior vs. host

[cybordeath]

Everyone also knows you're APK, do you think putting your initials in lowercase makes people think you're someone else?

Why don't you do us all a favor and go back to spamming ars AlecStarr?

Re:Best adblock & more 4 speed/security

[cybordeath]

At least advertisers don't spam us like you do. I take it your vacation is over, and you're back in full force?

Re:Ghostery = 'souled-out' & inferior vs. host

[djkrogoth]

y?

Re:Too Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

For years you used to be able to just scroll down and see your answers. I was away from IT for awhile and have noted that that is no longer the case.

I've also noticed that Expert Sexchange links don't seem to be nearly as prevalent as they used to be.

Re:Too Bad

[BronsCon]

Of course they're not, they no longer have the answer in the content that gets indexed by search engines, so they no longer show up near the top of the results.

Re:Opinions vary among /.'ers (quoted)... apk

[BronsCon]

Your application could be the best thing ever written but you are still toxic which, by association, makes your application toxic. Period. I hope Whipslash deals with you as he's promised, and soon.

Re:Opinions vary among /.'ers (quoted)... apk

[BronsCon]

5.) Someone who hates having a product crammed down my throat. Especially the way you do it.

No surprise here

[wwalker]

Stack Overflow's main value is in user-generated content. The users are the ones who write questions and answers, and rate them to filter out garbage. It's no surprise that they would rather have 20% of users block ads, than to lose that 20%. When someone comes to Stack Overflow with ads blocked, the site will still potentially gain something from that user, in the form of a question/answer/rating. Wired, on the other hand, has very little user-generated content, as far as I know. So if someone browses Wired with ads blocked, the site has absolutely nothing to lose by kicking them out (or asking to pay). Along the same lines, Slashdot would probably not care about blocked ads (if the new owners are smart), New York Times -- very much so.

Re:Too Bad

[amicusNYCL]

Sadly, they've caught on to this and now don't even serve up the answer on the page.

Is that why I don't see them on Google any more?

I seem to remember blocking experts-exchange.com from appearing in my search results on Google if I'm logged in, but I don't even see a place where I can manage that list now.

Re:Too Bad

[avandesande]

Then use ad block

Re:Too Bad

[amicusNYCL]

I don't think their position is naive. People who block ads might be more savvy than the general population, but those people have also gone out of their way specifically to block ads. It's true that they do hate advertising, or at least the practical effects of it (slow page loading, possible malware, etc).

Re:Opinions vary among /.'ers (quoted)... apk

[BronsCon]

Who do I really represent, then? I'll answer for you, since you're too full of shit to answer for yourself: I represent myself as an end-user. Period. My real name and identity are attached to this account for public view, you can see who I am and what my affiliations are, so I suggest you take a look for yourself and stop talking out of your ass; everyone else can see the truth, as well, so your bullshit just becomes stinkingly obvious to the world when you try to shovel it toward me.

I don't like APK's posts about his program because he has made several personal attacks against me, continuously spams multiple-page ads into forums I participate in (yeah, that's what someone who doesn't want to see ads wants to see... really?) and just generally seems to be somewhat of an entitled and egotistical dick. I don't like his posts because they're precisely the kind of shit I use an ad blocker to avoid seeing. They're ads.

Re:Opinions vary among /.'ers (quoted)... apk

[BronsCon]

Calling out a spammer for spamming is not an attack. Spamming, on the other hand... But yes, my post history is there for all to see, unlike yours; who's trying to hide their lies?

Re:Too Bad

[Jason Levine]

You can always add "-site:experts-exchange.com" from your search if you get too many of their listings in your browser.

Of course, if they're providing full results to Google, you might be able to spoof being GoogleBot to see their full content.

It's the UE, not the ad itself

[TheKarelian]

I don't mind ads per se. I mind ads that play noise, play video, and seize control of my mouse focus.

Re:Too Bad

[jthill]

Yay for the personal blocklist.

Re:Too Bad

[Lotana]

I am forever grateful to the people that developed Flashblock. Without that handy plugin the web is an unbearable place.

Re:Too Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

There is that, but there is also the fact that Google took action against that specific site and reduced it's relevance in search results.

Re:Opinions vary among /.'ers (quoted)... apk

[BronsCon]

Because I moderate, I browse at -1 in order to look for abuses, so I ca counter them. This is even Slashdot's suggested way to browse when modersting. To add to it, I see the value in AC posts, just not in APK's ads.

Care to quote where I ever claimed to have attacked APK in any way? My posting history is visible the the entire world, should be easy, right?

The real question is why I keep referring to you in the 3rd person as though I don't know I'm replying to you, APK. You toxic bastard.

Re:Opinions vary among /.'ers (quoted)... apk

[BronsCon]

On the off chance that you're not actually APK...

When and where do I ever admit to starting with APK? Show me. Link to the post, it's gotta be that simple if it ever actually happened.

As for how obvious it is that I'm in bed with advertisers, provide sources for this? Keith Bronstrup. Look me up. Find the association between me and advertisers, go ahead. Post all the details, go for it, it should be easy since it's so obvious.

HINT: You'll find it impossible to legitimately post such information, because no such association exists. The only way to make it easy on yourself is to make shit up, which you're clearly good at.

You see, some of us don't hide behind anonymity because some of us have nothing to hide. You, on the other hand, refuse to show yourself for what you truly are: a spammer and a troll. I feed you because it's entertaining and I've got plenty of karma to burn.

Re:Evidence from your post history as asked

[BronsCon]

What stops me is, as I said:

I see the value in AC posts

Sorry, APK, I'm not going to throw out useful contributors just because you insist on advertising your "ad blocker".

Further, your first example of an attack was a joke, not an attack. If you took that personally, APK, that's on you; you clearly went looking for it, as I didn't seek you out to say it. Unlike you, who often seeks me out to reply to me directly, in an attempt to start shit. Your second example was simply you responding to me asking what words I put in your mouth be again claiming that I put words in your mouth; you never did demonstrate me actually having done so. In fact, you put words in my mouth in that reply.

So, then...

Re:Opinions vary among /.'ers (quoted)... apk

[BronsCon]

What fake name? And if the name I gave is fake, what is my real name? You can find my birth certificate held with the City of Cleveland - Division of Vital Statistics. As for how badly I "fried" myself, well, I'm glad you linked back to your own post rather than posting it again, as I address those claims in response to that post.

I didn't start crap, APK, you came looking for crap. The truth I am pointing out is backed by my posting history, there for all to see. Your bullshit, however, is masked by your anonymous posting; but we all know you're APK, nobody in their right mind would defend your behavior, even if they agree (as I do) with you that the hosts file is actually a useful tool. You remain toxic and so does anything you touch.

Re:Evidence from your post history as asked

[BronsCon]

Here's the thing: In your first link, APK... err... you didn't show up until I had posted, he... err... you most certainly were not "there first" as you claim. And you still have not shown me where I put words in your mouth. I did not get what I asked for, because you can not give it to me, because it does not exist. You go away no. Shoo. You've not only beaten yourself, but driven your failure into the ground. As for moderation, I have never moderated one of your posts, APK. Not once. By the time I see them, they're already -1, so why would I waste the points? As I've said in the past, you're right about ads and advertising practices; I've never disagreed with this. However, you and your approach to social interaction are toxic and that makes everything you touch toxic by association. Your hosts file engine is not the massive accomplishment you claim it is, it is built on the POSIX implementation of the hosts file, which you had no part in, and simply compiles lists that many other people have worked hard to assemble, something else you had no part in. I could write it in a few hours; less competent developers could do it in a day or so. Get over yourself and quit seeking me out to reply to me, it's a waste of your time.

Re:BULLSHIT BronsCon

[BronsCon]

No, BronsCon is not the name on my birth certificate, the Bronstrup (as visible in the email address just to the right of my username) is the last name on that piece of paper. As for you, APK? Hiding behind anonymity while calling me out for using a false name? BronsCon identifies me in many places on the internet, and I've given you (and the rest of the world) my full name in this very conversation and at least once in the past. As for the rest of your post, Alexander, I replied to it the first time you posted it, no need to repeat myself like you do.

Re:Evidence from your post history as asked

[BronsCon]

There's always the AC I replied to, as well. Unless that was you attacking yourself, Alexander. But you're right in this case, you had posted in the thread before me; my mistake for not fully expanding the thread to see this. There is huge difference between lying and being mistaken and I was certainly the latter in this case and you certainly didn't bust my for anything. I still wasn't replying to, or attacking, you; I was making a joke. That you took it personally speaks volumes about you.

Re:Evidence from your post history as asked

[BronsCon]

Enough integrity that I gave my real name and don't hide behind anonymity. You busted nothing, Alexander, there was no lie. Good job.

Sadly, I'm running out of troll food for the day, so the fun will have to come to an end shortly.

Re:BULLSHIT BronsCon

[BronsCon]

As I said in my reply to your other AC post, Alexander (and you can call me Keith, by the way, I feel we should be on a first name basis at this point and I've given you that information at least twice now), I was mistaken, I did not expand the thread fully to see that you had posted there. I was also not replying to you.

And you still have yet to prove that I have any ties to advertising. You won't, because you can't, because I don't. But go ahead and prove my "lie", Alexander.

Re:Evidence from your post history as asked

[BronsCon]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. BronsCon is a shortening of Bronstrup Consulting, the name of the business I operated when I created this accoung, Bronstrup being my real last name, Keith (and I've given you this at least 4 times now, Alexander) being my real first name. And, again, there is a huge difference between lying and being mistaken. Where are the ads on my site? Nowhere, there are none, I'm not making money on ads, and I'm not selling them either. And I'm clearly not fearing you, Alexander, but you go right no and think that. In reality, I'm laughing at you. Laughing hard.

Re:BULLSHIT BronsCon

[BronsCon]

You just shitposted this same post twice. My response is attached to the first copy, Alexander, so you can read it there.

Re:Evidence from your post history as asked

[BronsCon]

Third copy of this same shitpost. Speaking something you believe to be truth it not a lie; notice how, once corrected, I stopped making that claim? Yeah, because I wasn't lying, I was mistaken. If I claim that again in the future, go ahead and call it a lie, because then it will be. Meanwhile, your claims that I have ties to the advertising industry are flat out lies, Alexander, as is any claim you make, while posting anonymously, that you are not, in fact, Alexander P. Kowalski, and any claim you make that I fear you in any way. All lies. Every bit of it.

it worked before without ads

[pereric]

I wouldn't be too sad if Facebook or twitter went away. Facebook is basically blogging and blog syndication plus chat / calendar and such. Ad-supported and super invasive. Being popular because it's popular ("everyone else is using it"). It's a one-provider system. Without facebook (you could hope) we would perhaps get a multi-provider system for social networking, event invitations and such - where you can choose different client software and providers (or perhaps operate your own server) with UI, feature set, and privacy policy that actually suit your needs.

Anyway, ads are not needed - it has been done before without ads. You could get the social network - e-mail, a good NNTP newsfeed and perhaps some web space as part of the deal with your ISP. Or perhaps from a separate paid provider, or from your university. There are pros and cons - but you sure *can* do without ads.

Re:Too Bad

[Luthair]

Sorry but its a threaded discussion starting from a single post. You can gussy it up with voting, checkmarks and gamification but its still a site that is over represented in search results.

Re:Evidence from your post history as asked

[BronsCon]

Post delayed because I hit my posting limit...

Shitpost copy #4. Beautiful.

I wonder... do you waste so much of your time on me because you haven't yet figured out how to beat me? Here's a helpful hint: we need not be enemies and you need not beat me. Just stop. You've been entertaining and, because of that, I'm willing to forgive and forget. So just... stop. You won't win, because there is nothing to win; you'll never prove what you're trying to prove because there is nothing to prove. Yes, my wife's blog has ads on it, she's made a grand total of $3.24 in the past 4 years. Oh, you got me, I'm making so much bank on ads. Yup. Really profiting, since hosting for 4 years clearly cost less than that.

Honestly, I've been telling he to just lose the ads, as they cost more (in terms of the time I spend helping her with them) than they bring in, but several orders of magnitude. But you're clearly right, I'm profiting from those ads. Pity me, looks like I lost.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Re:Evidence from your post history as asked

[BronsCon]

Wow, I had all that time to proofread that post and I didn't. That's a fail in my part and I'll own it (because that's what I do when I fail; notice how I haven't owned any of the "failures" you keep trying to point out, Alexander). The last paragraph should read:

Honestly, I've been telling her to just lose the ads, as they cost more (in terms of the time I spend helping her with them) than they bring in, by several orders of magnitude. But you're clearly right, I'm profiting from those ads. Pity me, looks like I lost.

And the last two sentences are dripping with so much sarcasm you should need a towel after you read them, in case you didn't notice.

Re:Evidence from your post history as asked

[BronsCon]

Haha, you speak just like one of the advertisers you claim to despise. Doubletalk. Seriously? You have proven nothing, you can't prove anything, because there is nothing to prove and I'm not convinced you even know what a fact is, Alexander. Just. Give. Up.

Re:Evidence from your post history as asked

[BronsCon]

You talk about integrity, Alexander, but then you masquerade behind the Anonymous Coward moniker and pretend to be other people, using a network of "bridges" (not that you know what those even are or you'd know, simply, that the term you are looking for is "proxy") to evade an ever-growing collection of IP bans in order to post your messages. Yeah, that's integrity, and just the kind of ethics I like to see displayed by the people whose software I allow to run on my system. Yup.

No, wait, actually, it's unethical, disingenuous, and toxic behavior. Alexander, just leave it alone, lest I start campaigning for your Hosts File Engine on your behalf, pointing would-be users of your software to threads like this where you show your true colors. And there won't be a thing you can do about it because, legally, facts are fair game, and the written record of your words here is a matter of fact.

I'll advise you once more to just leave it alone. Here we are, both acting like 5 year olds, the difference is I'm admitting it; I'm openly admitting that I'm not letting this go until you do, simply because it is for your own good. Seriously. This is for you, not me; it is only with people like you that I get like this, and people like you aren't the type of people I'd ever have as clients, so I'm not concerned with my reputation here, but you should certainly be concerned for yours.

Re:Evidence from your post history as asked

[BronsCon]

:)

Re:Too Bad

[N1AK]

I don't think their position is naive. People who block ads might be more savvy than the general population, but those people have also gone out of their way specifically to block ads.

You entirely missed the point, which is that the people who haven't blocked ads don't necessarily want to view ads either but most don't even know blocking exists. If 100% of browsers came with ad blocking on by default then I doubt more than a couple of percent of users would turn it off.

Re:Too Bad

[amicusNYCL]

You're right, I read that backwards.