User blog comment:Susanolivia/Beta Wrap-up/@comment-227331-20101005225401

You know what? I listened to your reasons why you're keeping the fixed-width settings and why you're going with the "industry-standard" video ad size as a reason to have a bloated sidebar. In earlier posts I gave positive and negative feedback, but you only brushed over the negative and didn't respond to any attempt at a meaningful back and forth conversation. So since playing nicey-nice Doesn't get jack out of you guys, here's the blunt, rude version.

Your excuse that you "have" to have the ads that big? Is a total crock. Considering that I do work in graphic design and have friends who talk about their jobs in marketing and advertising I know for a fact that you can talk an ad company into working around YOUR template. You wanna know this ground-shattering miracle of a secret?

YOU TELL THEM THAT OTHERWISE YOUR USERBASE WILL GO DOWN. How hard is that? Did you know that when ad folks hear that they become much more tractable? Why? Because they want freakin money! If there aren't people who click through to the ads or watch them, then they're not making money. It's a simple process. In addition video ads are known to DRIVE AWAY CUSTOMERS. I know I'm capslocking here, but I can't find the wiki code to make my text sprout freakin' neon lights and arrows pointing to the important parts. If I did, then I bet over half the userbase would have already been using it.

So there's your great answer from the mouths of ad teams and designers: Stick with text/silent flash ads, and talk to the people who want to use your adspace. Congratulations, now you can fix the overly huge sidebar, and take that load of tripe out of the TOS about modifying the interface. Oh yes, and one more thing...

AND GET RID OF THE EFFING FLOATING FOOTER