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News announcements and other topics => News => Topic started by: Nastrand2000 on September 01, 2007, 08:09:24 AM
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We all know you have to make money off this site.....but please kill the sponsored adds after every post
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Maybe Stefan needs to by a new car.
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Hi,
I am currently testing out new ads on the forum,
cause the members are increasing, but the clicked
ads was decreasing.
I have now only text ads inside the topics, so
this is less intrusive and I will soon change a few things
cause I have to try out other text ads.
Also I will have a real paid membership,
where you will get rid of all ads for a very small
fee per month or year...
The income from this will go in major parts to the active
users, that produce reports and add new content.
Stay tuned for more.....
Regards, Stefan.
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You may kill off the goose that is trying to lay the golden egg!
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I have now only text ads inside the topics, so
this is less intrusive
On the contrary, this is the most intrusive thing possible. The forums are the main things that we read. We can tune out the things outside of the forum frame, but with this, we are forced to scan past them.
By the way, there is a theory, which I think is valid, that goes something like this. Ads should only be displayed to the unique or relatively infrequent visitor, and return visitors should get ads turned off. This may seem counterintuitive, but it makes sense. Think about the unique or first time visitor. There is a good chance he or she just stumbled on this board by sheer accident. For example, if I was searching for new motor parts, and for some reason google threw me over here because new motor sounds like newman motor, and if there is an ad for motors, I may click on it. However, if I was a frequent visitor, I frankly would not care what you advertised, because I did not come to the site for helpful suggestions about things I may want to buy - I came on to read the forums. Anyway, that is the theory.
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I don't think I'll visit this forum again, if I'm forced to see ads after EVERY post.
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I don't think I'll visit this forum again, if I'm forced to see ads after EVERY post.
Okay, I changed it now, so that at least 2 or 3 postings are between ads.
How much would you be willing to pay per month / year
for no ads at all ?
If every member , who would not be willing to see any ads at
all will pay 1 to 5 US$ per month, we could finance the
guys, who already do projects on a shoestring budgets and
ad articles and test reports over here.
Non paying members would still have access, but only
with inbetween posting ads.
So, would you at all be willing to pay a monthly / yearly fee
for faster access without ads and/or to more test reports,
where you could get yourself be paid for, if you have done these ?
So compare it to a magazine subscription.
If you have subscribed for instance to the Magazine Nature you
also have to pay a monthly fee for the new monthly issue of the magazine.
I am setting up a poll, so please vote and let me know your opinion.
Many thanks.
Regards, Stefan.
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I have now only text ads inside the topics, so
this is less intrusive
On the contrary, this is the most intrusive thing possible. The forums are the main things that we read. We can tune out the things outside of the forum frame, but with this, we are forced to scan past them.
By the way, there is a theory, which I think is valid, that goes something like this. Ads should only be displayed to the unique or relatively infrequent visitor, and return visitors should get ads turned off. This may seem counterintuitive, but it makes sense. Think about the unique or first time visitor. There is a good chance he or she just stumbled on this board by sheer accident. For example, if I was searching for new motor parts, and for some reason google threw me over here because new motor sounds like newman motor, and if there is an ad for motors, I may click on it. However, if I was a frequent visitor, I frankly would not care what you advertised, because I did not come to the site for helpful suggestions about things I may want to buy - I came on to read the forums. Anyway, that is the theory.
Hi shruggedatlas,
yes you are somehow right and I agree.
I could disable all ads for members and only leave the advertisement
for guest visitors, who have not registered yet here.
But that would drive up the userbase even more and produce more traffic that is
not being paid for.
I really want here the best minds of the whole world who will
find the solution to our energy crisis and only together we will
solve this "puzzle".
So as here are many poor students from all over the world,
but which are smart and clever and have bright new ideas,
I want to give them some support by giving out monthly
money for their work and articles and test reports.
But this could only work, if the memberbase would be willing to
pay a monthly fee like a newspaper subscription.
In this moment overunity.com only generates about 200 to 300
US$ in revenue each month and if the userbase will increase as fast as it now
goes, I might need to change soon the hosting features will
will cost more money and which could handle the bigger traffic...
So I am really looking into alternative revenue plans and
also to support the community via payments from a possible
monthly membership.
So please post your views about this and let me know
your comments.
Many thanks.
P.S: OverUnity.com will always be free to browse
also for visitors, but with ads.
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This is the worst kind of ad placing I've ever seen on a forum, it's bound to make people dislike the place a lot.
If people does not like or care about advertisements, triplicating their appearances won't make them more prone to click on them; it'll make them think the place turned into a spam-ridden dump.
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This is the worst kind of ad placing I've ever seen on a forum, it's bound to make people dislike the place a lot.
If people does not like or care about advertisements, triplicating their appearances won't make them more prone to click on them; it'll make them think the place turned into a spam-ridden dump.
Since I made this change since yeasterday the clickthrough rate has been risen.
I really need to checkout how it goes for a few days, so I have to decide
how to do it more userfriendly and the least intrusive.
During the next days I will try different setups as I add different text advertisers.
I disabled already the Google Adsense graphic banner ads, so only text ads and no more long loading
flashy annoying graphics banners. So I hope you liked that already which makes
the site load faster.
Regards, Stefan.
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Column ads on both sides of the forum content are very unobtrusive, and column text ads are possible too.
Not to mention there is a lot of total column space on each forum page so you could easily fit those annoying ad posts on the side columns, and even more.
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Stefan,
Just wondering, did you also shrink the text size here?
Just a bit harder to read quickly, I was used to the old color/size of the text.
Thanks...
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Column ads on both sides of the forum content are very unobtrusive, and column text ads are possible too.
Not to mention there is a lot of total column space on each forum page so you could easily fit those annoying ad posts on the side columns, and even more.
Yes, but many user members don?t even click once a day these ads at the borders...
So now as in between the posts the clickrate has gone up.
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Stefan,
Just wondering, did you also shrink the text size here?
Just a bit harder to read quickly, I was used to the old color/size of the text.
Thanks...
Yes, I changed the font to fit the Google adsense fonts.
Unfortunately I can not change the Google fonts and
so to have the same fonts I had to change the forum fonts over from Verdana to Arial
so the Google ads look more integrated.
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i don't understand why you want make money, no one will pay, if you make poeples pay your site will be empty.
also ads between post SUCKS HARD. i will begin to look out for other forums similar to this one now!
We have enough crap ads TOP LEFT RIGHT now in the middle its completly to much
Anyway no one will click on it, if that append its an error, if you made thousand from this site in ADS its a lot to pay all stuffs related to the site.
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i don't understand why you want make money, no one will pay, if you make poeples pay your site will be empty.
also ads between post SUCKS HARD. i will begin to look out for other forums similar to this one now!
We have enough crap ads TOP LEFT RIGHT now in the middle its completly to much
Anyway no one will click on it, if that append its an error, if you made thousand from this site in ADS its a lot to pay all stuffs related to the site.
Hi TheOne,
I just had a look at your homepage with your blogging
AmanatsuSpace Creator website,
where you also use huge advertisement and graphics banner ads...
Also I am allowing to have your banner over here for free...
So why do you complain then ?
Normally I would have to charge you to display your banner all
over here...but I don?t do it...(or should I ???)
Imagine me being able to pay you for writing test reports for OverUnity.com
or paying you for posting interesting things over here...
This all will only be possible, if we can get money via a membership
subscription.
Regards, Stefan.
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Stefan,
Just wondering, did you also shrink the text size here?
Just a bit harder to read quickly, I was used to the old color/size of the text.
Thanks...
Okay, it will get better , if you enable ClearType in your Windows
system.
Just right click on your empty desktop space,
Display Properties / Appearance/ Effects /
Use the following method to smooth edges and screen fonts:
Then Enable ClearType.
This helps alot.
Regards, Stefan.
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only at the (top) or (top or right) or (top and left)
not everywhere :)
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I think that I have put up with all the ads all along. Then the coocoo clock came and more ads.
I thought I made it clear, if I find something I do not want the "big" prize money.. Why add more crap to get a few bucks that no one will want. Their find would be worth a lot more if they kept it and sold it. So why do you need to add more ads.
Now one between each post.. I think we will see a lot of talent leave. When a couple projects and people leave, I will be gone too.
Just my thought on how cheap this website has became over time. It is not about free energy anymore.
The CooCooClock was helpfull, but many people did not understand how to disable
it on their own, so I disabled it now.
Left and right border ads just don?t work much and and I disabled already the Google
Adsense Graphics banners, so the site loads faster.
If the Clickbank graphics ebook ads are also bring no money, then I will disable them also,
I still have to wait a few days, how it goes.
If anybody knows a good paying text link sponsor like Google Adsense, please let
me know and I will only put text links ads here, so the site still loads faster then.
I have made the experience, that "pay per sale" ads
don?t bring much money as over here are mostly poor students,
who have not the money to buy anything from e.g. Amazon.com
or other sales places...
So the only thing which works is "pay per click" ads.
If some of you know Adsense alternatives text ads which
pay per click, and the payout works,
please let me know.
At now over 8550 members this site has to generate some money,
so I can care more and full time job about it and I will also be able to do
my own experiments which will benefit the community.
I could also do a paying members only section where
only paying members could see my new upcoming experiments
and the nonpaying members will only get abstracts...
This could also be done for other experimentors
and they will get paid by me then from the subcription
revenue.
Please let me know what you think and what you
would suggest to get this site into more professionalism...
Many thanks.
Regards, Stefan.
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I ask now all users,
who have graphics banners in their signature to
DISABLE them.
You can leave a text link to your homepage, but please
disable your banner, if you have one.
This will really fasten the site loading up and
if you post several times per page will not look
annoying.
I could also install a plugin for disabling it,
but currently I don?t have time for this.
Many thanks.
Regards, Stefan.
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I ask now all users,
who have graphics banners in their signature to
DISABLE them.
You can leave a text link to your homepage, but please
disable your banner, if you have one.
This will really fasten the site loading up and
if you post several times per page will not look
annoying.
I could also install a plugin for disabling it,
but currently I don?t have time for this.
Many thanks.
Regards, Stefan.
ok done. only text ads now :)
peace
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Stefan, this is quite a debatable subject, but here's my $0.02.
First, it sounds like more than just the advertising issue needs to be tackled here.
Second, I'm not so sure the "focus" can be divided as it seems you'd like.
So far this site has been an "open" one. By open I mean anyone can register and pretty much post whatever they wish, or not even post at all. "Guests" are allowed and always seem to make up the majority of folks using the forum. What are they contributing? Yet they benefit from the content. Granted the "content" is questionable at times, but that is the world of the "open" forum.
The issues as I see them:
1) Should there be advertising and if so how much?
2) Should folks have the option to pay a subscription that would remove ads?
3) Would these folks then be considered "members" and have more access to certain content?
4) Should members that contribute with "content" be rewarded somehow?
5) Should the "level" of forum content be more closely moderated in an effort to bring up the "professionalism"? This includes more strict control of false and erroneous claims of ou. If the professionalism needs to increase, to what level?
6) Should "guests" be allowed in the forum?
7) If "content" is rewarded, what determines if the content is worthy of a reward, and how much?
8] Will the forum function smoothly with a two-tier system of access, or should a decision be made to go one way or the other?
9) Is there a need for such a radical change in the first place vs. implementing a couple additional ads as has already been done recently?
10) How or why does the number of users affect how much revenue the site needs to generate? i.e. do the operating costs increase with the number of users?
11) Traditionally, folks come and contribute (or not) for free, and "take" for free. Is it time to change this arrangement?
As a start, I would encourage all to consider the above and post your thoughts. For me at least, a simple poll question doesn't address all the necessary issues brought up here. But maybe I'm just off-base.
Regards,
Darren
PS. Stefan, with all the added work and responsibility possibly created by your proposal, you might have less time for bench work than you do even now. Just something to think about, maybe I'm wrong. :)
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I don't expect this site to be run on the owner's charity; he has to pay bills too; but the number of ads on this site is worse than any other I can think of. It gives you the impression that the owner has given up his day job and decided to live off what he can make from ads on this site.
The only reason I still come here is that I was able to use Adblock with my firefox browser to get rid of most of the ad crap.
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Stefan
The rise in clicks is probably due to errors in mouse coordination by users trying to steer through the threads with this new format. As soon as this becomes second nature, the click-thru rates should drop.
Reality has it that with the limited number of daily members on this forum, the total click rate will normally be low. trying to increase this with veteran members to the board will not work.
The ads are also breaking the normal flow of discussions and ideas. We already have members with their repeated slogans at the bottom of their post and some with ads or animated logos, etc. All are distracting especially some of the bigger or flashier ones like TheOne. Also if you balance the inconvenience ratio with that of expected click-thru revenue, I think you will find the former to be higher. The thread should be considered sacred ground. Sides of threads is open territory.
One other point. This forum is a medium for information exchange and should not be involved in financing OU work of particular members. This would only open up a pandoras box of finance meritus and should not be part of this forums raison d'?tre. If you want to raise funds, there are other means that can be used.
- Drawings - sell virtual tickets for a weekly or monthly drawing - prize. Like we'd do in Baseball tournments when I was involved in the directorship, we'd called it half/half. Half the money collected during a game goes to the winner, the other half to the baseball association. This is a great way to raise funds. You can have prices like $2 per ticket, 3 for 5$, 7 for 10$. People can pay by Paypal.
- Ask for donations. Create a donation page, explaining the focus of this forum and it's push for free energy. There are hundreds if not thousands of organisations looking to help those enveadours that have some worth in the OU field.
- Ask for 3, 6 or 12 months subscriptions with two or three levels of membership. This may be a little harder and wind up being non-productive for the quick passer by that may have pertinent, even ground breaking ideas but low funds.
- Create a dedicated sponsors page were sponsors can promote their best deals. You can charge them for the web space.
Sponsors must realize that this is an altruistic forum destined to help mankind and that their participation will only help in the overall scheme of things and it may be a good part of their publicity strategy to help here. But this is difficult to achieve with a Google based ad system.
Guys here put in enough time, money and effort in pushing the envelope that asking them to also be bombarded by these ads, well, this just does not feel right at all.
But, I do understand your position. I use adwords in one of my companies that does water filtration systems on the net. I also know very well that you are looking to secure the future financial stability for the forums good by develloping a good revenue model.
Why don't you ask SM to put in a few thousand from his millions. After all, 25% of the threads are under his topic. OK just jok'in. lol Or, capatalize on the fact that tis forum harbours the most extensive discussions on SM devices. Get access to over 10000 Posts on SM for only XX$.
When pondering a revenue model, you have to access the true value of the service you are rendering.
Now, if a newbie was looking to enter the OU research endevour, chances are, some threads in the forum will be useful to quickly bring him/her up to speed. How much is this worth - the bringing up to speed. The fact that our errors would save others future repetition on the same errors. Well in dollars it's like saving any major effort in the 1000s$ and time saving in the months or years. Alot of the repository information value in the forum has already occured, plus the new threads and continuous growth.
While I am writing this, it has dawned on me that one of the best forms of fund raising would be as follows. A one time membership fee of $25-$50 dollars. As now, people could visit the forum and read as they please, but if they wish to post or see images, they would have to pay a ONE TIME ONLY membership. This would help fund the site without ADS. Question. How much money would the forum make if I clicked on an ad. Maybe 1 cent. So $25 would equal me clicking on 2500 ads. How long do you think it would take me to eventually click on 2500 ads. A long time indeed. So even $10 may be a good membership fee.
What I am trying to say is if you give people the opportunity and an easy method to pay for memberhship, they will still come and be part of this effort. Even if they have no interest in doing their own research, they would still have the opportunity to be part of the effort by helping finance the site.
You could then introduce a FREE PASS, where anyone with some idea to put forth but does not have the money for membership can send the idea to the moderator, who can then access and provide a FREE PASS to the person to become a member. This FREE PASS system must remain confidential between the person applying and the moderator. Others here would not need to know who received a FREE PASS.
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I have an idea of how to raise funds. I know that several of the devices mentioned on this forum have already been confirmed as overunity. Here in the States, if you generate more power yourself than you need (like through solar cells, for example), you can sell it back to the power company. Maybe it is the same in Europe where Harti lives. So I propose that Harti just uses one of these overunity devices and sell extra power back to the light company. This would also be good publicity for the site, as it would prove that we are not just full of hot air, but overunity is real.
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isn't it against the google terms to have more than 3 ads per page?
you can get your account terminated and then no ads.
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Many thanks to all your last proposals and very nice ideas !
I am really greatful that you have helped me through these decisions ! ;)
Now I have disabled again the inline between posting ads for members.
As guest users are about 3 :1 or 4:1 more over here, they will just see the
inbetween posting ads, but not the members.
Members now will only see some text ads from Google Adsense at the borders
and still some Clickbank ebook ads.
I guess this is the best solution for now, so guests will pay with their clicks
for the used bandwidth and member users have the benefit to read without being
disturbed by any inbetween ads.
I also will then try to implement a PayPal donation page
and maybe such a ticket sales system as proposed, where every month
a price money is offered. But this will come later, as I first have to see,
how such a system could be integrated into the forum software.
I really want to care fulltime about the forum and the energy topics
and I also don?t want to make myself too much dependant from
Google Adsense, as Google sometimes kicks users out for no
reason...
P.S: I am only using 3 Adsense for content pages ads and
3 linkblock ads and 1 search block per page, which is allowed by the google terms.
Many thanks for all your comments and proposals.
Regards, Stefan.
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I think that you lot need to give Stefan a break... He has to fund this site somehow !. Plus it wont hurt anybody if a few adverts were posted in between every few post. What harm can it do ?, The only difference it is going to make to us is the bit where we would have to do a bit more scrolling. GEEEE WHIZZZ.
So Stefan... If you want to put ads on your site, you go right ahead. I wont think any less of you if you do. ;)
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@Bulbz,
many thanks for the supportive words,
okay, but I leave the between posting ads now out for the members.
The guest visitors still will have it betwen the postings, so
they will mostly pay the bandwidth with their clicks.
It is nice to have all these permission settings inside the forum software
to set each membergroup to different advertisement levels ! ;)
The forum software with Tinyportal is really great ! :)
Regards, Stefan.
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hey hartiberlin,
I don't mind ads, as long as they are text ads that are color coded from regular forum discussions.
I use flash stoppers and adblock plus to stop 99.9% of all frame pic ads on pretty much all the sites i visit. since many users are using firefox and those extensions, those pic ads u post fall on def ears (or blind eyes if u will)
one way to decrease the cost of running this site is to:
1. get rid of as much bandwidth hungry graphics that are used on this site; we want a simple, clean yet useful and elegant interface.
2. avatars: get rid of them or set dimension limits. ex. 75x75 pixels. (these should be stored on 3rd party image hosters anyways, but your server still has to do work for this.)
3. use scripts that don't waste bandwidth.
4. i dont see a need for that recent posts section at the very bottom.
5. i dont see a need for all the member stats that show to the right of the screen (u can make a tab for this at the top menu for users who want to see this info; this stops the system from querying this data for every use that logs in or comes to the site).
6. try to minimize queries to the database by only showing what the users want, and not presenting info the user doesnt really need.(like all those user stats)
7. no real need to have all those features we see when making a thread or post.
I usually try to help out by not deleting my cache files on my browser .. this saves the website server some bandwidth.
edit: one more thing, get rid of the ability for users to put in a signature with images / animations.; if thats too harsh, then set limits to the dimensions of these sigs.
my half a cent.
devilzangel
..
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@devilzang
The stats are useful and I would actually prefer to see a copy of it to the right of Recent Posts cause that's where it is most useful. I would also like to see the "My wattsup" square copied to the left of Recent Posts. Recent Posts with My wattsup on the left and Stats on the right.
Your cache also holds those images that never change so they don't get downloaded but instead called up from cache when your reload a page. Bandwidth issues and answers are difficult. As soon as a simple time change, new line, graphic size change, etc., it will be reloaded.
Stefan
Good move indeed. Can you put back the original fonts for the members section? The Arial is killing my eyes.
Plus listen to this idea.
Members pay for XX number of posts. You can buy a minimum of let's say 50 posts for $10. So if someone wants to come in and ask just a few quick questions that chances are will assist him/her is making a successful OU device or saving loads of money, they will not hesitate to buy a few posts knowing it will help out the site.
Also, you can buy 50 posts and splurge them all on "one liners", or you could buy 50 posts and use them more diligently, using complete sentences (lol), and this could last you months.
Plus if guys want to come and ridicule, or spuriously question this quest, then they have to pay up also. So come on in, we're all ears.
50 posts for $10, 100 posts for 15$, 200 posts for 20$.
So if anyone decides to leave the forum after let's say only a month of investigations in the threads, cause you can easily spend a year in the threads if you wanted to right now, then you simply scrap your remaining posts or give them away to another member by sending an email to the moderator or doing it online.
The forum may also investigate to sell a CD copy of the complete site for $19.95 as of XX date. I would buy one right away. The information here should be preserved in many places for posterity in case something happens to the world. What if something happens and internet access is off all over the world for a year or more. With the CD, people could still review the site contents to a certain date.
Stefan, there are many things you can do if you wish to do it full time and revenue models are varied. Here again, the best and most successful are those who think out of the box.
I learned Perl language on my own and run my own scripts with access to my own cgi-bin for my company web sites. So I know the business some and can only wish you all the best in your future decisions. Keep OU alive.
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@wattsup,
do you know how the Google Adsense fonts could be changed to Verdana and
if this is allowed ?
Then I could change back the forum fonts again to the Verdana font...
Or isn?t is possible, that you just set your browser on Verdana
for all the pages you read here ?
I haven?t checked this yet myself. hmm...
Many thanks for the opinions about sales of posting...
I first have to check out the shop plugins for the forum software
and this all works together, so for now I leave it as it is now.
Regards, Stefan.
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You can change your Firefox browser for instance to
display again the Verdana font regardless of what overunity.com
has for fonts.
Just go the menu entry:
Extras/controls/contens/fonts and colors/more
and disable the point:
Let the browser use the fonts of the site.
Then go one step back and set
standard font to Verdana.
Then you have the whole forum again in Verdana.
Hope this helps.
Regards, Stefan.
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Stefan
Setting the font on the browser is not really the answer.
Check out this link that says you are allowed to change Adsense fonts.
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/08/change-adsense-font-size-type-color.html
Regards
wattsup
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Stefan
Setting the font on the browser is not really the answer.
Check out this link that says you are allowed to change Adsense fonts.
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/08/change-adsense-font-size-type-color.html
Regards
wattsup
Sorry, they still only allow it in the referral products, not in the pay per click ads...