How to subsidise sub for his time and effort.

[xanth]

Hi there,

I am in awe of the work that sub does on this program, the time must be quite considerable. I put my two cents worth in by both donating money and contributing by writing a New Zealand XML EPG that is distributed also freely.

This is not a wish but rather a suggestion. I don’t know how much money is made by sub for doing this but here’s an idea that may help.

How about, in the TV guide, having one “channel” that is dedicated to advertising. What this would mean is every half hour or hour is a different vendors advertising. Obviously, you would not be able to schedule to record it, but if you clicked on it, a more detailed view of that advertisement would be the pop-up. This ad channel could also be updated via the XML EPG downloading the information from http://www.gbpvr.com. So the ad would have a limited life, and the advertising company would pay sub for the pleasure of the ad for that life time. Like real ads on the TV programs themselves (that we don’t watch) prime time would have a higher cost. Etc etc.

Don’t get me wrong, I hate ad’s as much as anyone and don’t like them force down my throat but the way I view this, is like the glossy pamphlets in the mail, I glance at them and throw away the ones I don’t like, but some do interest me, those I’ll open up and have a look. Very similar to what I suggesting here….

[Etacovda]

actually, thats a pretty good idea, but im not sure how people would react to it, especially since to make it work properly you shouldnt be able to turn it off in your epg. It wouldnt worry me any, id just notice it when scheduling recordings + channel surfing so it wouldnt be intrusive.

[agidius]

for that to work, it would have to call home to download the ads and update the "life"

[res_au]

He does great work sub!

[xanth]

for that to work, it would have to call home to download the ads and update the "life"

That wouldn't be too hard.

[nkh]

I think it's a nice idea, and, of course it would work even if the user has the option to turn it off. Just like the paypal thing (hopefully) works, even though you can download GB-PVR for free.

How it's implemented is another thing. It could be in the tv guide, it could be a picture on the main menu, it could be a picture on the osd.....

It would however, mean extra work for Sub, selling advertising space, unless there's a Google Adsense kinda thing that could work in this application (you can't really send people to websites through GB-PVR, and you can't have people sign up to things through the ads).

[whurlston]

I'm pretty sure we will not see something like this in GBPVR.

[sub]

Yep, I appreciate the reason behind the idea, but its not something for GB-PVR.

[peely]

I'm more in the persuasion of paying a fair price for good software, which is absolutely what I intend to do after my PCH arrives and everything has been QA'd by the missus'.


Neil.