http://ayende.comAyende @ RahienCopyright (C) Ayende Rahien 2004 - 2021 (c) 202660Grimace, Don't be insulting, I would never do something like that http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment28http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment28Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:27:11 GMT@Glenn: I sure as hell hope Ayende won't stuff *Prof with spyware and trojans :) http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment27http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment27Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:51:06 GMTThe font on the purple and brown text could be much improved if you chose something that was designed for the way you are using it. A condensed sans-serif would almost definitely be better. Putting some sort of box around the ad and putting the brown text on the bottom reversed out on a colored background would improve readability between lines a lot as well. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment26http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment26Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:40:15 GMTAt this years tech-ed I had some time to kill so I went to a presentation on how to make money programming in your spare time. It was presented by Joseph Albahari, [http://www.albahari.com](http://www.albahari.com), who made LINQPad, [http://www.linqpad.net](http://www.linqpad.net). He had some very interesting, from the front line, stories about advertising on stackoverflow.com. There was some massively stupid increase when he added key words like 'free' and 'limited time' etc. That was just the tip of the ice burg, he had a lot of gems or information. I would recommend trying to get in touch with him to get his thoughts, and or slides / presentation. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment25http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment25Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:31:47 GMTAgreed with most other commenters, this isn't attractive and it has far too much text. And it's animated... I'd not click it out of spite. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment24http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment24Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:21:30 GMTEvony, as in The absolute rock bottom of internet advertising: [www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001286.html](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001286.html) http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment23http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment23Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:47:40 GMTThinking about it, you have a working viral marketing network that many of my clients would kill for. Why on earth do you want to put that at risk with banner ads? http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment22http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment22Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:37:32 GMTI would go with specific testimonials--the testimonials from your previous post were more useful and convincing than the taglines from your ad above. Just a thought, take it for what it's worth, etc http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment21http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment21Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:28:22 GMTHm 1 200 ? (EURO) / 316 $ US WTF with euro symbol? Firefox -En version http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment20http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment20Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:58:49 GMTAyende, you and I both know that you're a developer and not a graphic designer. I think you should shell out a few bucks for one that will make this banner look just a bit nicer. (And I do mean a few bucks. You can get something decent for 20$ in some places, I believe). Your design has way too many colors that don't match together at all. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment19http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment19Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:20:08 GMTOne thought is really what's the point? Anyone who's using Hibernate/NHibernate likely knows about Ayende and the prof. That said, I know your after criticism about the banner specifically and not your advertising strategy. In which case I agree with others that there are too many colours and different fonts. Also 3 sales messages seems wrong, maybe just choose 1 and then have a "click here to know more" message or similar. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment18http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment18Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:58:32 GMTI went totally banner blind and missed the ad completely. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment17http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment17Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:24:01 GMTI think it has too many colors. I know it is only 4 colors, but four different colors for 3 pieces of text? Also as far as consistency is concerned, you use a different font to your other NH Prof icon. HTH http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment16http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment16Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:19:36 GMTTo be frank, I think gif animated ads are outdated, entirely not web 2.0. I think all you'd need is your logo, app name, a catchy phrase with a link to a page where you'd easily find information, samples, etc. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment15http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment15Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:18:16 GMTRamon, I agree. Note that I am targeting this ad for the Hibernate market, rather than NHibernate. I think that this blog does a good job of marketing NH Prof, I am trying to get more exposure for HProf, instead. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment14http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment14Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:11:49 GMTGlenn, Evony? http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment13http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment13Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:10:37 GMTFrans, I agree on the banner blindness, but I have tried ad words, and it hasn't proven effective. I am using this as another try to see if traditional advertising works for me, or if I need to focus more on marketing via social means, like this blog. Thanks for the comment on the questions, I'll take that into account. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment12http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment12Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:10:07 GMT The best advertising is using it in your examples. People that google for nhibernate performance issues already get on your blog posts and see that "cool" tool. Didn't need it yet as my problem is more a how the f**k getting this done in for example the criteria api and performance in the data access has not been an issue most of the time. Also, NHibernate is still a niche market if you compare it to other ORM of custom stuff. I think it it much better to promote NHibernate as that will ultimately create more users having performance issues that will eventually get at your profiling tool. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment11http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment11Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:42:02 GMTOf course, you could go all Evony :D http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment10http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment10Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:37:42 GMTIf this is 1 banner, it's way too much text. Banners hardly work these days, as most people are banner-blind. The banner now requires the user to read all three sentences, and they're not that easy to read as well. You should instead invest some money in google ads and the lounge for example, and use a couple of different phrases and headlines. The reason to use different headlines is that it's very likely that some headlines simply don't work at all while others do work. This is from years of advertising for software, so I'm not making this up. As I said on twitter: it will be very surprising which slogan will work best. Advertising is about providing a solution to a problem the reader recognizes. So asking a question isn't good. You should confront the reader with the solution already. Like "Hibernate Profiler, for bottleneck-free applications", or something like that. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment9http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment9Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:23:08 GMTJohnno, I am aware of that, but I still think that this is useful, and I reduced the animation time to make it less annoying, based on your (and others) feedback. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment8http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment8Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:22:43 GMT@Ayende @Glenn this is the cynical developer market you are aiming for. A lot of them block ads and those that don't may not appreciate the garish flashing ad. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment7http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment7Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:20:04 GMTI once read that banners with the words "click here" in them got about 1% more clicks than banners without those words. Food for thought ;) http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment6http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment6Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:15:30 GMTJohno, Nevertheless, it is an affective method. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment5http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment5Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:12:57 GMT"@Johnno Yeah, that's why it works :) " Really ? that's why I use AdBlock. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment4http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment4Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:12:34 GMTVery nice combination of the three phrases, much more powerful than on their own. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment3http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment3Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:10:15 GMT@Johnno Yeah, that's why it works :) http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment2http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment2Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:08:47 GMTI personally despise animated advertising. Its a distraction to the content of the page. http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment1http://ayende.com/4306/advertisement-appreciation-day#comment1Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:07:38 GMT