IAB Brings 56 Small Internet Publishers, including AboveTopSecret.com, to Capitol Hill

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Thanks SkepticOverlord and Springer.
As a new member, again, I'd like to thank you. I've enjoyed the site for years, and upon joining, one of the first things i did was take part in the appurtenant survey.
Hope the results send a message to the Congresscritters(again, thanks Cryptonomicon - I'd let that noun drop from my vocabulary long ago, & forgot, but it is apropos).

reply to post by EchoM


GLP is not competition, in my humble opinion.
Sure, ats has some trolls & such, but really not comparable.
Just my $.02, feel free to disagree.
And, as a disclaimer, I've not spent any great deal of time there, since there's ATS instead.

reply to post by XmikaX


Without "businessmen" you wouldn't be replying on the computer you have, let alone on the internet at all.
Let alone probably all products you own and enjoy. Seriously, can you yourself make a semiconductor? or build your home (apartment, etc), or do you shear your own wool, spin it and make your own clothes, grow your own food, cut all the timber for your residence and construct it yourself? Personally, i think somewhere in those lines businesspeople helped you enjoy the life you live.
Just a different perspective, but please give it some thought.

Originally posted by ISeeTheFnords
reply to post by XmikaX

 

Just a different perspective, but please give it some thought.

didn't wait for you to think lol

you do not have a different perspective just short views & lack of values or involvement:

none of those businessmen you're referring to have ever pretended to fight for my freedom of speech

then who the hell said i was enjoying this corporate globalisation ? well let me reassure you : if you might, me i'm not for sure (and even though i'm trying my best to using it to my advantage)

last but not least : don't confuse and mix up technology, scientific progress and businessmen no need of businessmen to progress in sciences and technologies and when you see that our society relies on nuclear (welcome in japan) and petrol (welcome in the gulf of mexico) you must reach a very different conclusion on that particular matter... give it a thought & change your life as i did before telling me to "think"

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Wow, did not really have any idea about what's been going on behind the scenes here at ATS.

Congratulations on a job well done, I salute both of you for your efforts and hope that something positive will come of this in the future battle for our freedom of speech.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


I truly thank you for stepping into this role. It is so much bigger than anything you could have imagined walking in all those years ago.

We are powerful, you are powerful.

It is an honor to know you as my friend.

What more can I say other than that I am proud.

good job SO & Springer, fighting to keepthis site going.
If it wasn't for ATS, So much knowledge would go unshared and unheard. This site is a platform for many in terms of realising how the world really is.
It may seem selfish to some that they went there for the money, but in the end no money = no ATS. with the amount of followers ATS has, it would be hard to keep it running without any backing.

Congratz if you keep your money comin in. Its a good hustle you guys got goin on.

Also you could pursue other means of revenue, personnaly i dont like the fact "third partys" are stickin their cookies all up in my comp/cell.

I think there should be no tracking of any kind! I hate it when people try to sell me stuff anyways.

Oh and read the fine print.
"This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributers. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership"

In short you attract the crowds with the crazy content and they profit from your beliefs/opinions.

There is nothing wrong with that just dont get it twisted.

i'm worried for 129 (so far) members and their critical thinking ability;

can't you guys recognize hypocrisy & opportunism when you are exposed to it ?

advertising doesn't rime with freedom of speech

it rimes with freedom of lying

with deceiving

with ego cultism

with consumerism

with neocons & corporate globalisation

reply to post by XmikaX


I'd much rather live in an America where people are free to be opportunistic hypocrites than one where the government and major corporate entities control everything and restrict/regulate that freedom into oblivion.

Whether you believe ATS, and others are only after profit, is irrelevant, what is important is that they remain free to do business as they wish, and we are free to use their services as we wish... No one if forced to participate here.

How would you like having your choices limited to only a few major entities that control everything, content, advertising and information and news?

If that is the world you want to live in, go for it, but please don't bitch about it when it happens... Besides, there will be no place for you to bitch about it, and if there is, no one will be listening.

The free web is too big now, and must fail... They have never been more afraid of freedom than they are now.

This is only the beginning.

Stay tuned, indeed.

Great job Bill and Mark, nice pic too.

I hope your words ring true with that bunch.


Rhain

reply to post by XmikaX


Finally someone who gets it!

Besides... those who want to block ads, already have the means to do so. Those who want to continue supporting ATS, will just have to "opt in", but it'll have to be their choice. So long as everyone is put in the condition to make an informed decision, where's the problem?

reply to post by Fractured.Facade


so you are saying we should chose between pest or cholera and just shut the f*** up ?

unlike those ats fonders i chose the path of truth, the pathof being rather than having, could you ?

or don't you have a clue of what i'm talking about ? (as trying real hard to defend that materialistic world of lies -that you seem to enjoy so much- would indicate)

Originally posted by XmikaX
reply to post by Fractured.Facade

 

so you are saying we should chose between pest or cholera and just shut the f*** up ?

At least you are free to choose, for now.

unlike those ats fonders i chose the path of truth, the pathof being rather than having, could you ?

Having a place to freely share your truth with others with maximum exposure costs money, and yet it costs you nothing here and now... All of that will change if the government passes this legislation. Of course then the only path you will have will be the one they lay for you.

or don't you have a clue of what i'm talking about ? (as trying real hard to defend that materialistic world of lies -that you seem to enjoy so much- would indicate)

Obviously, I have no clue what you are talking about, (as I am clearly wasting my time) Time is money, please forgive me whilst I go find more ways to make some, before that opportunity is taken away.

This is a test.

This is only a test.

If this had been an actual emergency, the Attention Signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news or instructions.

Originally posted by Fractured.Facade

Having a place to freely share your truth with others with maximum exposure costs money, and yet it costs you nothing here and now...

wrong :

1.you are free as long as it doesn't disturb the advertisers & the business model;

2.freedom does not allow exception

1+2= you are not free

Time is money, please forgive me whilst I go find more ways to make some, before that opportunity is taken away.

you'll die as you were born : naked...
money is the sole value of the fearful, the reason of the weak; good luck then

Originally posted by XmikaX
can't you guys recognize hypocrisy & opportunism when you are exposed to it ?

With regards to your contributions in this thread, "opportunism" appears to equate with an opportunity to piss on the carpet in your host's home.

advertising doesn't rime with freedom of speech

"Advertising" rhymes with many things -- "free speech" being one of the items for which the US Supreme Court has indeed tied to advertising.

Your angst seems to be incredibly deep-seated. It appears as though you're unable to come to terms with someone else who has:
(1) - quit his job to build something for which he has passion
(2) - has a passion directly related to free expression
(3) - experienced a degree of success due to his efforts/talents
(4) - has a desire to share what brought success to those seeking it
(5) - has a desire to involve himself in the "system" to ensure others may experience success

If there were a viable monetization system/model that could have provided for the growth of ATS from a micro-niche 100,000 unique visitors-a-month site in 2004 to a "phenomenon" of nearly 3 million unique visitors a month -- and remain free to all -- other than "advertising," I certainly would have opted-in. However, given the massive expense of delivering such a site, combined with the need to invest in growth, there is no other model that provides the revenue for such a venture.

Advertising has been the "monetization engine" of free or inexpensive daily content for more than 150 years. The anonymous "behavioral targeting" of online advertising is among the least intrusive, most effective, and least-personally-invasive of the majority of other targeted marketing techniques. Cookie-driven targeted online ads are very seriously making the difference between tens-of-thousands of important online publishers and small businesses staying alive -- or not.

When you CHOOSE to visit a web site, you automatically enter into a value proposition where you trade a small amount of your time (and perhaps non-personal online preferences) in the form of a few ads (less than magazines for which you pay) for the ability to access the content. You enter our home, in exchange you see some ads.

The act of choosing to visit a free-to-access website is very different from nearly all other media entities providing content, in that each individual person represents an incremental expense.
- magazines build-in publishing offsets with the cover price
- newspapers build-in distribution offsets with the newsstand price
- cable TV providers have a built-in infrastructure offset with the basic subscription price
- and so on


This IS a serious free-speech issue in that the form of the proposed legislation would impose impossible to sustain legislation on small independent web publishers, but not large online media organizations. Your choices for content will be predetermined in the form of legislation that removes the only currently viable revenue model from independent websites, while providing a built-in de-facto "out" for major media.

If you can't see that, then your anti-ATS (or anti-Bill and anti-Mark) angst is clouding your vision.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


it is philosophical you just cannot tie "right" to advertise, "right" to track user behaviors with freedom of speech;

whatever the conditions are it is intellectually dishonest. I can create 10 new forums in the next hour in 10 different countries advertising for new free-speech forum on hundreds of other websites in the next 2 hours and it won't cost me a penny. but that's not my passion to create forum, sorry, i prefer to participate occasionnally.

the very concept of advertising is one of the main ptb tool to spread lie & ignorance in this world. that's fact, indisputable.

what's your ATS motto ?

how do you define success ? by the amount of bandwidth consumed and the ad money generated ?

i'll consider that you are successful when i'll have observed less ignorance in this world.

and i'll come to term with you when you stop this unacceptable mixing of your freedom to make more money by feeding us with ignorance (through those ads... at least) and our freedom of speech.

good luck with your money making project; some of us are trying to make other differences in this world than a bank account positive cashflow.

ps: the havana in the avatar is telling more than your words lol
pps:& thanks to fix my french - as a (french) poet said "orthography is the science of the donkeys"

Originally posted by XmikaX
it is philosophical you just cannot tie "right" to advertise, "right" to track user behaviors with freedom of speech

Why?

The "behavior" of "customers" has been "tracked" and quantified for decades. The only philosophical dichotomy is in the artificial "issue" being manufactured surrounding the anonymous profiles used by online ad networks who attempt to target more effective advertising.

Where were you when the phone book companies sold your very personal information to the data aggregation firms without your knowledge?

Where were you when your regional department of motor vehicles sold your very personal information to the credit card and data aggregation firms without your knowledge?

Where were you when federal and state politicians merged your tax records, with your credit card records, with your census data, and combined all that with your very personal information simply to mail you unsolicited targeted information and robo-calls for their re-election campaigns?

Where were you when the laws were passed requiring Internet Service Providers to retain your entire online activity and associate that with your very personal information for a minimum of three months, which is soon to be extended to two years?

And you become indignant when an expensive-to-operate website seeks to defend the anonymous non-personal profiling of website users simply for the purpose of more effective advertising?

I can create 10 new forums in the next hour in 10 different countries advertising for new free-speech forum on hundreds of other websites in the next 2 hours and it won't cost me a penny.

Good luck keeping the costs under "a penny" once real traffic happens.
TANSTAAFL

the very concept of advertising is one of the main ptb tool to spread lie & ignorance in this world. that's fact, indisputable.

It's disputable, most certainly. But no counter-point will penetrate your angst and reflexive dismissiveness, so the effort would be lost.

how do you define success ? by the amount of bandwidth consumed and the ad money generated ?

In our current culture, is there a better way?
More bandwidth = more people reading what our members post.
More ad revenue = an increased ability to expand the enterprise to further spread what our members post.

Success has many metrics, long ago (maybe 2005) we promised our members and users our primary efforts would constantly be directed toward ensuring their contributions to ATS would get noticed by the world. With more than 6 million monthly visits and close to 40 million monthly page-views of our member's threads, one aspect of success would seem clearly defined.

ps: the havana in the avatar is telling more than your words

Clay likes his stogies.

Excuse me, sorry to inturpt, just wanted to say Thanks
carry on...