In the coming weeks you are going to see some changes to the look of Hunt Talk. I will explain them below.
Video tab - We are in the process of building a YouTube Channel for On Your Own Adventures, the TV show. We will no longer have the video tab here. It is expensive to stream/store videos on proprietary streaming platforms. By building a YouTube Channel, we eliminate the storage/streaming cost and you will all be able to watch everything for free, as they are loaded to the channel.
That will put a serious dent in my DVD sales, but the dent it puts there is probably less than the cost I have incurred for storage and streaming. And, the YouTube Channel allows us to put a lot of cool stuff besides just past episodes.
Resources tab - This may disappear. Not sure yet. It gets very little traffic. In our effort to clean up the site and make it look more fresh, that might be gone.
TV Show tab - This is going to change in one of two ways. We will use that for explaining our new show, Fresh Tracks on Sportsman Channel and On Your Own Adventures on YouTube. We might end up with two tabs, one for each of the shows. Not sure on that yet, either.
Hunt Talk advertising - You are going to see more advertising. I have entered into a six-month deal with a large national advertiser. They will take over serving ads on the top, as we have in the past. They will also have an ad on the right column of the site border. And, they will have a pop-up ad that will occasionally pop-up at the bottom of the screen. You can close that ad, if you so choose.
We will see how it works for six months, then decide what the permanent solution will be.
I am saving some ad spots for our TV sponsors. You will also see our TV sponsors being listed as sponsor of certain forums. We will also promote them more on the "Partners" tag of our TV show, possibly even adding a Partners section within the Hunt Talk forum.
Right now, the site is costing me about $30,000 per year. All the ads you see here are free of charge to our TV show partners, generating no additional revenue.
I know some will complain about the ads, especially the pop-up ads. I would ask that you accept that slight inconvenience as the value of having this site provided for free.
I had considered a subscription model and was very close to going that route for some additional features. But, that was more work, a little more revenue from those wanting the additional features, yet not enough to make a difference in the net financial picture.
By reducing some of the site activity in the video and resource pages, my hosting, storage, and streaming costs will go down. By selling the majority of the ad space, revenue will help reduce the cost I incur to keep this site up and running.
So with that, feel free to provide comments. Just understand that the decisions have been made, so your comments are probably an exercise in typing skills.
Video tab - We are in the process of building a YouTube Channel for On Your Own Adventures, the TV show. We will no longer have the video tab here. It is expensive to stream/store videos on proprietary streaming platforms. By building a YouTube Channel, we eliminate the storage/streaming cost and you will all be able to watch everything for free, as they are loaded to the channel.
That will put a serious dent in my DVD sales, but the dent it puts there is probably less than the cost I have incurred for storage and streaming. And, the YouTube Channel allows us to put a lot of cool stuff besides just past episodes.
Resources tab - This may disappear. Not sure yet. It gets very little traffic. In our effort to clean up the site and make it look more fresh, that might be gone.
TV Show tab - This is going to change in one of two ways. We will use that for explaining our new show, Fresh Tracks on Sportsman Channel and On Your Own Adventures on YouTube. We might end up with two tabs, one for each of the shows. Not sure on that yet, either.
Hunt Talk advertising - You are going to see more advertising. I have entered into a six-month deal with a large national advertiser. They will take over serving ads on the top, as we have in the past. They will also have an ad on the right column of the site border. And, they will have a pop-up ad that will occasionally pop-up at the bottom of the screen. You can close that ad, if you so choose.
We will see how it works for six months, then decide what the permanent solution will be.
I am saving some ad spots for our TV sponsors. You will also see our TV sponsors being listed as sponsor of certain forums. We will also promote them more on the "Partners" tag of our TV show, possibly even adding a Partners section within the Hunt Talk forum.
Right now, the site is costing me about $30,000 per year. All the ads you see here are free of charge to our TV show partners, generating no additional revenue.
I know some will complain about the ads, especially the pop-up ads. I would ask that you accept that slight inconvenience as the value of having this site provided for free.
I had considered a subscription model and was very close to going that route for some additional features. But, that was more work, a little more revenue from those wanting the additional features, yet not enough to make a difference in the net financial picture.
By reducing some of the site activity in the video and resource pages, my hosting, storage, and streaming costs will go down. By selling the majority of the ad space, revenue will help reduce the cost I incur to keep this site up and running.
So with that, feel free to provide comments. Just understand that the decisions have been made, so your comments are probably an exercise in typing skills.
