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Turn ad blockers into supporters – lesson from AlternativeTo

Published by Siim Teller // February 20, 2012 // Discover // 2 Comments

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Ad blockers are a blessing for web surfers and a curse to website owners as it cuts down their ability to earn money from visitors taking advantage of their (hopefully) great content. AlternativeTo has found a very intriguing solution to this problem. AlternativeTo is a website that offers good advice on software - if you’re looking for an alternative to the software you are currently using then they probably have a good idea what that might be, all based on user recommendations. Run by just two guys called Ola and Markus it gets around 70-80 thousand unique visitors every day. What AlternativeTo does is show a special non-banner ad looking block in place of the topmost banner with the following text: Hi! For some reason we can't display an ad here, probably because of an ad blocker. If this ad is not displayed our design gets screwed up. We have full respect if you want to run an ad blocker but we would appreciate if you add us to your white list or consider donating via Flattr or Paypal. The free web is dependent on ads to continue to be free. Thank you, and we hope you find a great alternative! While the guys behind the site haven’t measured how well the banner is performing Ola wrote that it’s gotten them plenty good feedback. Stuff like: I saw your appeal to disable adblock, and I have done so because I appreciate the good work you are doing compiling list of alternative applications. Keep up the good work! When I saw it the first time I was immediately stuck with what a nice way it is in engaging visitors who normally ignore that area of the website and turn the whole experience more positive. For the curious - technically they just look for some div like (#google_ads_div_AlternativeTo_Header_ad_container) and if it can’t be found then they know that the ad was not loaded for whatever reason. Most likely because the visitor is using ad blocker. You can flattr AlternativeTo or you can hear the other side aka the guy who builds ad blockers: Michael Gundlach, the man who’s blocked 100 billion ads (the number is now more like 150 billion by now). If you’re interested in why advertising won over micropayments 15 years ago when the whole internet thing was just taking off and everything was possible then How Stuff Works podcast had a good show on just this topic back in November last year: TechStuff’s Two Cents on Micropayments (iTunes link)

What’s hidden in our newsletter header picture?

Published by Siim Teller // February 8, 2012 // Discover // 1 Comment

Yesterday I sent out our monthly newsletter that featured a header picture made up of a lot of logos, one scantily clad lady, one cute panda, and a gang of politicians wearing the Anonymous mask. 10 points if you recognized … Continue reading →

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The future of music, and the best of 2011

Published by Per Thulin // December 31, 2011 // Discover // 3 Comments

In 2011, the world continued to see a lot of conflicts around copyright and intellectual property. With the Internet, humanity has made an incredible leap in ability to share information and art. It hurts me to see so much energy … Continue reading →

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The top FOSS projects in 2011

Published by Marie Axelsson // December 30, 2011 // Discover // 3 Comments

“Lists we need moar lists!”, I say. FOSS is very close to my heart, and to support free software via Flattr is a very natural fit. Here are the; Top 5 FOSS projects in 2011 5. Adblock for Chrome has … Continue reading →

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Successful Podcasts in 2011

Published by Marie Axelsson // December 30, 2011 // Discover // No comments :(

The new year is getting close and closer. This is the most list intense time of the year and podcasts are very popular here on Flattr. Personally I believe it’s all about that the connection between a podcaster and their … Continue reading →

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5 great games in 2011

Published by Marie Axelsson // December 29, 2011 // Discover // 2 Comments

This has been a long year at Flattr, and we’ve gotten loads of great content you can support. I’m glad to see all these games out there. Let me present to you; Top 5 Games of 2011 5. Minecraft is … Continue reading →

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This has been a long year at Flattr, and we've gotten loads of great content you can support. I'm glad to see all these games out there. Let me present to you; Top 5 Games of 2011 5. Minecraft is a game this year you can't have missed. Everyone talks about those blocks. In most cases you pay for the game, but there's also a free version to play. Either way, this proves that people want to support stuff that is both free and not. [Flattr] 4. Pingus is a classic 2D puzzle game in which you have to guide a group of penguins through dangerous levels to reach an exit. You can accomplish this by assigning different actions to each penguins such as "build a bridge", "dig a hole" or "redirect other penguins". Pingus is Free Software and available for Linux, Windows and MacOSX. [Flattr] [caption id="attachment_5719" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Pingus - Lemmings clone"][/caption] 3. Frozen Bubble is another popular game with penguins, with colorful 3D rendered penguin animations, 100 levels of 1 player game, hours and hours of 2 player game, nights and nights of 2/3/4/5 plyer game over LAN or Internet, a level-editor, 3 professional quality digital soundtracks, 15 stereo sound effects, 8 unique graphical transition effects, 8 unique logo eye-candies. Simply put, a lot of cool stuff, for free. [Flattr] 2. FreeCiv, (previously on .net) is a Free and Open Source empire-building strategy game inspired by the history of human civilization. The game commences in prehistory and your mission is to lead your tribe from the Stone Age to the Space Age. [Flattr] [caption id="attachment_5722" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="an early Swedish settlement in FreeCiv"][/caption] 1. The Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based tactical strategy game with a high fantasy theme. There are at least two hundred unit types, sixteen races, six major factions, and hundreds of years of history. This game is huge, and the possibilities seem endless. [Flattr] More lists are coming, expect them!

In the Christmas spirit, let’s donate to a charity

Published by Marie Axelsson // December 22, 2011 // Discover // No comments :(

Christmas is around the corner and here at the office we’re really getting into the spirit of the holiday. What better way to celebrate in the spirit of giving than by supporting some charities here on Flattr? Givv collects a … Continue reading →

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Christmas is around the corner and here at the office we're really getting into the spirit of the holiday. What better way to celebrate in the spirit of giving than by supporting some charities here on Flattr? Givv collects a lot of charities under one roof. They've made available The AIDS Policy Project, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Save the Children, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Japan Disaster Relief Fund, American Red Cross and World Wildlife Fund, among others, on Flattr. The Swedish Amnesty International have signed up to be part of the micro donation goodness that we bring. Have you heard of Burma, or Myanmar as they call themselves these days? BurmaBlog is a non-profit NGO in the Czech Republic. Their goal is to restore peace, justice, democracy and human rights in Burma and to support and empower Burmese refugees. Curious about what's going on in Burma, have a look at this video. German Strahlendes Klima, translated Bright Air, fight for a greener environment through spreading information. Much like Greenpeace. In 2008/2009 they launched the short film "Uranium - is it a country? Searching for clues to the origin of nuclear energy" free for non-commercial distribution. Odyssey Charity - Life is Magical is a charity which enhances the quality of life for cancer patients, through imaginative programmes of challenging and dramatic activities using the outdoors. EarthRights International combines the power of law and the power of people in defense of human rights and the environment, which they define as "earth rights." Wilderness UK believe in the irreplaceable value of wilderness, which contains the wonders of pristine nature, and enables us to return to our origins and draw a deep sense of belonging and inspiration. They are part of the Wilderness Network. Robin Wood is a German environmental group with focus on the issues relating to forest, tropical forest, energy and transport. Their trademark is creative and spectacular actions for the cause. If you go to any of these profiles you can donate a larger sum, if you feel that the normal flattr click is not enough in this time of Christmas. Photo by Jim Winstead.

Wikipedia + Flattr = what our users are asking for

Published by Siim Teller // December 5, 2011 // Discover // 16 Comments

It’s a dream of us to be able to Flattr Wikipedia articles and we’re happy to see our users are asking for the same thing. Here are a number of tweets just from the past few days. View the story … Continue reading →

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Michael Gundlach, the man who’s blocked 100 billion ads

Published by Siim Teller // November 30, 2011 // Discover // 15 Comments

Well, Michael didn’t exactly do it alone, he had help from around 5 million users who have downloaded his popular AdBlock for Chrome and Safari so far. Loved by users, definitely not loved by online ad industry, Michael was kind … Continue reading →

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Well, Michael didn’t exactly do it alone, he had help from around 5 million users who have downloaded his popular AdBlock for Chrome and Safari so far. [caption id="attachment_5461" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Michael Gundlach. Photo by Wingate Downs"][/caption] Loved by users, definitely not loved by online ad industry, Michael was kind enough to give some advice to young developers on how to support their hobby projects, and share a little bit about how AdBlock was born a few years ago. Millions of people, including Flattr users, have AdBlock installed but very few know the man who built it. Tell us a little about yourself? My name's Michael Gundlach, and my wife and I live in the sticks in Georgia. I love boats and Ultimate Frisbee. I also love programming; I've been doing it since I was 8. As a grownup I spent a while programming as an employee, and then a while programming as a contractor; and then I spent a full year burning the candle at both ends, working on AdBlock at night while contracting during the day. Finally I took the plunge and quit my contract, so now I'm working on AdBlock full time. Where did the idea for AdBlock come from? I had used the excellent Firefox ad blocker, Adblock Plus, for years, so when Google Chrome added support for extensions in 2009, I searched excitedly for the Adblock Plus port to Chrome. Instead, I found a blog post saying they had no interest in making a Chrome version. I loved Chrome but it was painful to use without ad blocking, so I decided to build AdBlock. I had also been a little frustrated by how difficult it was to configure Adblock Plus, so this was an opportunity to make a powerful ad blocker that Just Works. Several months later Apple asked me to port it to Safari, so after a weekend of furious activity I was able to present AdBlock For Safari at Apple's WWDC 2010 conference. Do you know how many ads have been blocked by your piece of software? No, but let's make up a number -- estimates like these are fun to construct! There are 4 or 5 million AdBlock users across Chrome and Safari, and they've had it installed for an average of about 1 year. I'd wildly guess that an average of 1 ad per page is blocked, and I just Googled a random statistic claiming the average user loaded 88 pages per day in 2009. So 4.5 million users * 365 days/user * ~88 pages/day * ~1 ad/page = about 144 billion ads blocked. Call it 100 billion to be conservative. Dang, that's a lot of ads! What are your favorite free apps and software and have you supported the projects financially? Google, Chrome, vim, and Ubuntu are up there. I worked for Google in 2005/06 -- I'm a Google fanboi -- and I've submitted dozens of bug reports to Chrome, so I suppose those kind of count as financial support. I've probably *cost* Ubuntu money on the whole -- I've contributed code that's in Ubuntu, but I also ordered some free CDs years ago :) Would you say that traditional ads should die or is there still a place for them? There's definitely a place for them. It's the unsolicited, untargeted, aggressive, in-your-way ads that tend to frustrate people. If AdBlock had a way to add a "Show me ads if they don't suck" checkbox, I'd add it in a second and I'm sure lots of people would opt in. Can you give 3 tips to young developers who want to release their apps and code for free but could use voluntary donations to keep their hobby project going? 1. Put Google AdSense ads on your page. Ironic advice coming from the author of AdBlock, I know, but: many users like AdSense text ads, and 98% of internet users have never heard of AdBlock. I'd recommend against adding too many, or adding image ads, as they may drive away users before the users engage with your product. 2. Sign up for Flattr and for PayPal; getting a button set up takes about 15 minutes each. Pick a prominent place to request a donation, and explain honestly how you could use the money. Then, show half of your users the Flattr AND PayPal buttons, and show the rest ONLY the PayPal button. After a few months, see which group has done better. You may find that most of your revenue comes from Flattr, and you can't convince people to click the higher-yielding PayPal button. But if you have eager donors, the presence of the Flattr button may turn their $2 PayPal donation into a 10 cent Flattr. 3. Try the Freemium model, where you offer more features for those willing to pay any amount. If you're a small project, it's probably sufficient to redirect payers to a thank-you page that downloads the full version or gives them the magic code to unlock extra features. In AdBlock's case, I want the whole featureset available for those who can't afford to pay, but for most projects Freemium makes sense. What’s the next project you’re working on if it’s not a secret? Hah, I wish! AdBlock is two years old and still takes up all of my time. A lot of that is a good thing -- for example, I get lots of thank-you emails that I reply to, and many users email with questions and I get to help them one-on-one -- but the bug and ad reports never stop coming in, there are always more things I'd like to do with the project, and the browsers are constantly changing underneath me. The biggest task is triaging issue reports. The majority are simple issues that can be addressed by someone familiar with the project, while a few require my attention. I have a few awesome contributors who stem a lot of that tide. I would love more help; if you're interested in getting experience on an open source project, drop me a line at adblockforchrome at gmail. If AdBlock theoretically ever settled down to the point where I could work on something else, I might get involved with building open-source software for third-world charity hospitals, as there's no real good general solution out there yet. If you’re using AdBlock for Chrome or Safari then you might want to Flattr Michael for giving a choice of cleaner, less-annoying surfing experience :) If you’re a developer then an older interview with Michael at sleeplessgeek.blogspot.com might interest you. It looks at his agile development approach, choice of tools and why you should really release early and often.

Micropayments turn 3D

Published by Peter Ross // November 21, 2011 // Discover // 3 Comments

Blender, the free open source 3D content creation suite is available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License. This 3D version of the Blender logo is an example of the types of effects that Blender can … Continue reading →

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