Adland Sells out. To you!

Did I get your attention? Good.

Yes, well lets face it. Bandwidth Costs, and so does producing content. Just like in magazines. This site, runs on a few machines (called acme and apex), and is hooked up to the net 24/7 at some cool ISP's co-location. Naturally, stuff like hardware and co-lo space rent, costs what most call "money".

A lot of it.

It's a real drag yes. 67,000 films where played off the server last month and that amounted to 191 gigabytes of bandwidth more than expected. And the price?
Just about the same as decent 17 inch screen. And that's just one month. I've been forking that out of my own personal pocket since 1999. Like most ladies, I'd rather spend my own money on say, lots of shoes - but I have been paying for this sites survival instead.

Them bills with a lot more gigabytes on it will keep coming every month. I can either turn it off, ask you to chip in , or I could sell my soul to the devil and start popping up banners on parts of your desktop never touched before. *shiver* Having ad-revenue being the only monetary support for a website will make us fall into the trap of the numbers game, posting things specifically to get eyeballs such as topless celebrities and scraped stuff from other sources, instead of actually making a broad archive of all ads and reporting on adnews without Britney Spears in it.

Now that latter suggestion sort of goes against the idea of a site dedicated to the uncensored rantings and ravings of adgrunts, and the educational viewing of old collected commercials (admit it, you love 'em). The other idea, of asking you to pretty please to chip in is pretty much dying too. See, out of 18000 unique visitors on average daily, only two donated a few bucks (and that was way back last year ...).

Aw bugger, we have now arrived at the pay-per-play conclusion. You sign up and log in, you want to watch a film, you'll have to pay a monthly fee.

As a non-paying member, you are still a member, you can read all articles (except anything within the category commmercials), and comment etc, the only difference is that if you pay for a months subscribtion, you see films too. You
will not be paying for the content of watching the films - you are paying for the bandwidth you use while watching the films. Hopefully, two bucks will cover it.

Compare it to borrowing my car, you can borrow it as much as you want, but fill the tank yourself, as you are the one using the gas. ;-)

Do read more...... There's lots more.

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THOSE WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE (SO FAR)
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Adlisters, who use this machine for their mailinglist, came to the rescue. Once they knew what was up, they all ran off to p*ypal and chipped in to cover it.
With this I want to thank these people not just for doing that, but also for being great adlisters. (that list is such a pleasure!)

A big thanks to cowgal Dea Vise , our man Clayton , Holger the dane, Alex the popstar, Perry Schaffer and Michael Porte from wheresspots, Shanky , Huw Gildon, Mische our german sunshine, and Brent.

and a massive thanks to cip who created the automagick credit cardthingiewidgetmahthing!

you guys really helped. Much apreciated.

I'd also like to thank Shannon for being the patron saint of the archive, Clayton (again), Robblink and Caffeinegoddess too for posting good newsarticles and funny gossip at this site. You guys rock! :)

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THE HONOR SYSTEM
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Also there is an honor system at play. I know what it's like to be a poor starving art student or adgrunt on placement (no) pay. Those who write relevant articles and get eight approved in a month get a free month of filmwatching. Those who send in their own films (4 quicktimes) get a free month of filmwatching.

Naturally, when i say "your films" I mean a commercial that you shot at your agency, something you produced or directed, any spec ads you just adore that *you* have turned into a suitable size QT movie (under 4 meg). Or simply pop us a reel in the mail. :)

Anything arriving with, saaay, "adeater.com" or saaaay "adcritic.com" stamped in the corner is not your film, and not anything I can post here without having those big gun sites come kick my butt. ;-) ...Don't do that, thats called theft and you know better than that. If you didn't play a part in the creation of the ad, we unfortunately can't accept it.

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HOW TO BECOME A MEMBER
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I know that p*ypal is not the only internet-paying option out there for US residents, it is however the only option that I can use, as a non US resident, (i'm Swedish) and that other europeans and worldwide customers can use without too much hassle. We gotta think bigger than "amazon bucks" here on a site with 75% non USA visitors. world wide web and all that. ;-)

It's pretty easy to setup, and you can pay via your credit card.
This feature is why I choose it - a lot of people worldwide have CC's!

The trick to it is: Log in , then click on the p*ypal link, pay two US Dollars, and the database will credit your "useridentity" with one month of films. Easy! (the database system does it automagically! it's so cool!)

Related links of interest:

Netdivers survey results to their "pay for content" survey - which also links to articles about content and having to get paid for it.

Evolt.org "end of free content" article

and the new adcritic-creativity combo press release announcing that: "it will consist of a premium level of content for business subscribers. Users will be able to subscribe online for a low monthly fee when the service launches early this summer." When they say low fee they mean 70 USD.

so even backed by a large publishing house like Crain, giving films away for free is simply not feasable, due to the costs involved.

Welcome to reality, even the web doesn't have free lunch. Bugger.