You may notice a change to the homepage this week. Beginning on Friday, May 19, there will be a partner ad running on the homepage. It will be placed toward the bottom of the page and will run for the next 3 months only.
The ad will feature 7 SAP partners. These partners offer innovative ways to supplement or extend SAP solutions, services, and products. They have been partners selected based on a previous arrangement with SAP.
We wanted you to know ahead of time so this wouldn't come as a surprise. Remember, it's only for 3 months!
...and the extra money your earn by this will go directly in the improvement of the SAP Community pages? Great!
I don't think, that this is done to make a profit, it is more about promoting stuff, trying to show to the partners, that there is some value in the new SAP Community.
I suppose, that this is done to fulfill a prior obligation towards these partners... not much we can do about it, anyway.
I hope, that these ads will be served directly by SAP and not by some third-party, and that the team will inspect each ad to eliminate the chances of spreading malware.
In the old platform, I think, that there were some unobtrusive text-based advertisements. I guess, that most people would not mind text ads, if they don't get much in the way of navigating through the site and if they are clearly marked as 'promoted content'.
After all, the percentage of people with ad/script blockers here is probably higher than in other places, some users will not even notice the change.
the percentage of people with ad/script blockers here is probably higher than in other places
So I hope we will not be confronted with the notorious "Please deactivate your ad blocker to visit our valuable site..." warnings...
I hope so, because I usually stop visiting such valuable sites...
I doubt that this will happen here, the site is still struggling to attract contributors and the potential profit from advertising would be minuscule compared to what the company gains from keeping the site clean.
Well, we're not getting paid for running the ad. But it's a nice idea!
I use AdBlock, so it's unlikely any complaints would come from me regarding the ads. :)
There were small ads on SCN before, never really bothered me for the same reason. IMHO it's totally fair to have some ad space on the home page. Much better than some companies sneaking in their ads as "blogs".
Should be like the ads in newspapers - in a section all on their own at the back.