OK, I said Friday for the results. It’s now Saturday but let’s just leave it that migrating to the new server has had a few more bumps in the road. YES, we can create new posts and they will get published at the time we choose.
That was the main indicator that the GO LIVE worked – can we do the main mission of the application? Indeed, it does so.
But it also exposed a whole raft of other things that have ended up on a punch list that we are working on AND still trying to drive this ship. And I’ll admit, moving over the email server is one of them so if you have been emailing me, it’s not that I’m ignoring you, I just can’t get to my emails. Not even by Webmail instead of my normal email app.
But, the results!
So as you can see, we do have some folks that don’t like them as they cover up content either from the bottom or on the left side. Several of you (before Thursday afternoon’s migration start) sent me screenshots. They do – but not by a lot.
- A plurality of you, however, are either ok with them completely or understand that we have to have some mechanism to pay for our hosting charge that has now doubled (for 3X the server) – 4875%.
- A large number of you, however, don’t like them but at least will keep coming back – 38.75%
- And then 11.25% said that they may not return to GraniteGrok or just get rid of them.
So, the ads will stay – for now.
That said, we are going to ask UnderDog Media to see if they can make the left side ads a bit skinnier and ask our webmistress if she can push the middle/content area over to the right a bit. From the ads that I have received, that just might be enough of a tweak to keep content from being covered up.
And Moe did suggest, in the comments, that we put them on the right side. Well, we already have stuff there that we didn’t want covered (Daily Grok, GrokGear, et al). And we have some other plans for that area coming up.
Several of you discussed doing what a lot of sites are doing – a Freemium type of deal where all the content is free but you get the ads or a nominal amount / month ($2) to be free of them. I’d rather say that if you are supporting GraniteGrok already (or in the future), we’d try to find a way to eliminate them (can’t get rid of the DISQUS ads as that’s the “price” of having the comment system for free).
And knowing that the only people who have a monopoly on good ideas are those that actually have good ideas, we’re open to suggestions. Like one that if a few more people became monthly donors, we could get rid of them. But I don’t want to be in NPR / NHPR / PBS territory. We’d rather EARN the money instead of begging for it (we much prefer to be “makers” rather than “takers / moochers”).
As Thomas Sowell says, EVERYTHING is a tradeoff in life. Sometimes, they are easy decisions. Otherwise (and mostly), they aren’t.
