Pending Founder Announcement: Securing Our Future, Funding MedBud

[node]

Another scenario - user(s) in forum advise how to switch the advertising off - are they ok to do this?

 

[Muiredach]

Another scenario - user(s) in forum advise how to switch the advertising off - are they ok to do this?

100%, infact I strongly believe we shouldn't even try stop ad-blocking whatsoever.

EDIT: I should probably expand on this. I don't allow myself to be subjected to ads across the internet, all are disabled across my home network based on DNS records. My personal belief is that for those that want to block ads, do it - I consider it your right. The simple fact is that many don't block ads, and many will leave ads enabled just to see what's actually displayed or on offer for patients.

 

[node]

What about tracking cookies and all the rest - I use https://themarkup.org/blacklight,
This is MedBud today


Its not going to have anymore is it?

 

[Muiredach]

No, not beyond server-side reporting, all we use is Google Analytics - about 18 months ago we experimented with a platform called 'Simple Analytics' but it just simply didn't have enough detail for us to truly consider, given that we also use viewership stats for public reports.

As in the OP, we hope to use Google's API to automate our analytics/view reports going forward, though due to many browser's privacy features this already only captures 25-30% of visitors. For ads, we'll have to have some kind of server ping here if/once ads are successfully loaded, as it's currently planned this will just record a '+1' and the time.

 

[node]

In the "Our Promise to you" section I think it could be good to add MedBuds assurance(s) on privacy, or certainly on the registration page.

 

[Muiredach]

That makes sense, though that is already on the login/register page in another form:

 

[node]

That makes sense, though that is already on the login/register page in another form:

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Been a while

 

[utopiate]

I believe you have a keen eye for your audience and think this has clearly informed your approach to this. I'll add this, could you be mindful of things like flashing ads etc as this could be an awful experience for those with certain conditions. What I mean to say is could the ads be mindful of its userbase and their medical conditions.

Additionally, pop ups and other really intrusive ads will make me switch my adblock on I'm afraid. I'd like to whitelist the site as I don't think you get any revenue from adblocked users. Obviously as you have planned, the types of ads are relevant and likely useful for patients so all good.

I'd also consider a small subscription model as an additional revenue stream for you all. I would like to offer my time but a full time role in a related field leaves me pretty exhausted these days. However, a small financial contribution each month and of course my witty banter in the forums, I can do

 

[Lank72]

I believe you have a keen eye for your audience and think this has clearly informed your approach to this. I'll add this, could you be mindful of things like flashing ads etc as this could be an awful experience for those with certain conditions. What I mean to say is could the ads be mindful of its userbase and their medical conditions.

Additionally, pop ups and other really intrusive ads will make me switch my adblock on I'm afraid. I'd like to whitelist the site as I don't think you get any revenue from adblocked users. Obviously as you have planned, the types of ads are relevant and likely useful for patients so all good.

I'd also consider a small subscription model as an additional revenue stream for you all. I would like to offer my time but a full time role in a related field leaves me pretty exhausted these days. However, a small financial contribution each month and of course my witty banter in the forums, I can do

Top banter squiffy!

 

[Muiredach]

I'll add this, could you be mindful of things like flashing ads etc as this could be an awful experience for those with certain conditions.

As it goes, I've already written this into our draft policy - noted as an epilepsy warning. We are going to allow 'animated' ads, but there will be a ban on flashing changes to text, background colour etc.

What I mean to say is could the ads be mindful of its userbase and their medical conditions.

Salient point here, agreed.

Additionally, pop ups and other really intrusive ads will make me switch my adblock on I'm afraid.

As it stands the plan is only for horizontal banner ads in our header and footer, there's no plan to add things like pop-ups - I'd be hugely against this myself.

I'd also consider a small subscription model as an additional revenue stream for you all. I would like to offer my time but a full time role in a related field leaves me pretty exhausted these days. However, a small financial contribution each month and of course my witty banter in the forums, I can do

Appreciate the offer there, and it is something we've been considering. The most important point here is that we don't want to bias any access to medication/company information based on a pay wall - but automatically hiding ads, perhaps a special user banner here on the forum, or some kind of public credit seems fair. Some kind of supporter package for £3-5 per month, with discounts for annual may be worth considering.

As I said in the original post, we want to ensure the bulk of our funding comes from the industry and not struggling patients - though it definitely makes sense to allow willing patients to contribute too.

 

[Muiredach]

Shortly, we should be able to post the content from a draft copy of the advertising information page here – with acceptable/disallowed ad types, full artwork requirements, legal terms/conditions and proposed pricing. Just awaiting some further feedback before posting publicly

 

[Muiredach]

Early draft copy open to feedback from all, please ignore the slightly clunky formatting - presentation will be improved before launch once policies/content are finalised.

The actual calendar/calculator is still being built:

 

[Muiredach]

Some bits being considered:

• We don't ever want to have to chase companies for debt, but 30 day payment terms are quite standard across the industry. Right now as proposed above we'd allow advertisers only with 3+ months good history with us to potentially defer payments for up to 30 days. The mandated interest rate for defaulting on agreed payments dates above is huge, and intentionally so as a deterrent.
• The perhaps safer (but less company friendly) approach is to always demand 100% payment upfront to confirm booking slots, and never allowing any debt to occur.
• The T&Cs right now state no performance tracking/analytics, I will be trialling a system for this as mentioned previously in the thread - which would effectively just be an anonymous view counter with dates/times.
• It might be worth allowing an optional separate light/dark mode submission for banners, but it does increase the manual processing time of submissions on our end.
• We still need to write the policy mentioned above on any company pressure applied to MedBud, for example threatening to withdraw ad spend unless MedBud does X. We very much want a strong system with an anonymous public warning on first occurence, followed by a full public name and shame if issues persist - again as an effective deterrent.
• We're considering writing into the banner display logic that if X particular ad is displayed in the header, it must be excluded from the footer (if the same is randomly loaded again, reload) - this is to cover situations where the same ad would display in both positions on the same page.

 

[utopiate]

Cracking...I don't think we have anything to worry about. I am really pleased for you guys. I really hope this provides the revenue you need as the site and forums are exceptional. I can see the amount of work that has gone in so really appreciate the resource. I'm gonna just assume you are not a template bunny like me and have developed it yourself lol...lot of work. Much appreciated.

 

[Rimmerworld]

Hey Ralph

I hope everythings good outside of MedBud and the family are well. The absence has been noticed you can tell this is a huge commitment and were all grateful as without MedBud we are screwed the clinics would have us bent over a barrel.


As for Medbuds funding, Allowing companies who sell products any form of access control or say over the site should be avoided as it will slide into brand wars weve already seen them fight and do nasty anti patient practices like only selling thier products with clinics they have a relationship with you still can not order a lot at Mamedica®. What they would do is start to remove them from MedBud as well. Mamedica would love to buy MedBud and turn it into thier own hub and further abuse thier powers.


An advertising model is the best way to keep these wolves at bay while remaining independance and gaining funding. So i say go for the advertising if you need to but make it relevant and classy. No neon dildo adverts please!

 

[node]

If possible, please make it so we can pause them like Ocado.

 

[node]

Sorry if its been mentioned and I have had to med quite a bit earlier
- Is this across the entire MedBud domain or only the wiki?

Also if a user buys a product or service from an ad on x.MedBud.wiki - can MedBud help them if/when it goes wrong?
If not you might need to add to t&c/legal/disclaimers.

 

[Muiredach]

The absence has been noticed you can tell this is a huge commitment and were all grateful as without MedBud we are screwed the clinics would have us bent over a barrel.

Honestly, all this year I've been a bit 'over my limit' on how much I can get to in a day - and things have been suffering for it. Just hope we've found what will in the long-term become a workable solution

In the short-term, I'm worried about just managing ad bookings on-top of the general daily workload

Allowing companies who sell products any form of access control or say over the site should be avoided as it will slide into brand wars weve already seen them fight and do nasty anti patient practices like only selling thier products with clinics they have a relationship with

Agreed, MedBud must stay independent overall. We hope eventually the tribalism within the industry dissipates.

No neon dildo adverts please!

Drat! That was going to first major deal. More seriously, we've banned any sexualised content already:

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If possible, please make it so we can pause them like Ocado.

This would only be possible if every animated advert was served as an MP4 video, which can be quite bandwidth heavy. I'd expect a lot of animated ads may be submitted as GIFs or APNGs, and for those it's always more bandwidth efficient to encode into WebP. There's no ability for browsers through Javascript to pause animated images with on-page controls.

I'll have to do some testing here on converting animated images always into MP4, and the quality/size differences - but that's the only way it'd really become feasible.

- Is this across the entire MedBud domain or only the wiki?

It will include the forums too. I'm not sure yet whether we should allow exclusions, say if a company only wants to be on the UK version of the database, or wants to ignore the forums etc. For the moment, I think we'll start with 'one size fits all'.

Also if a user buys a product or service from an ad on x.MedBud.wiki - can MedBud help them if/when it goes wrong?
If not you might need to add to t&c/legal/disclaimers.

This is something that actually does need consideration, and as you say writing into T&Cs. I'll think on this and get something drafted

 

[Muiredach]

I've managed around 17 hours of coding yesterday and today so sfar getting the calendar/booking system built, I'm still only perhaps half-way there. Next week I'm going to practice some ruthless pragmatism and try avoid all non-essential comms, just to get this across the line:

 

[node]

Prohibited:

Fake Cashback sites (e.g weshop)
Pyramid Marketing Schemes/MLM etc
EDIT>
Fake apps, that steal data etc, or perhaps any links to apps period - or at least that are outside the App store or Play.