| LED Digest 0004: Banner Standards |
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================================================== LinkExchange Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising" ================================================== List Moderator: Supported by: John Audette LinkExchange This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it http://www.linkexchange.com .................................................. January 30, 1997 Digest #004 .................................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== NEW ======================= "Banner Standards" ~ Neil Bonner ~ Christian Guittet "Where are LE Banners Displayed?" ~ David Rogers "LE Banner Creation Software" ~ Sean Oberly ==== CONTINUING ================= "Getting Banners Down to Size" ~ Ari Haviv ~ Adnan Hussain ~ Carl P. E. dos Santos ~ Leroy Padgett ~ Jason Truesdell "CTR" ~ Pickles "Designing Effective Banners" ~ Pontus Astrand "Banner Size" ~ John Lukosky ~ Ruth Kahn ==== BULLETIN BOARD ============= "Web Hosting Needed" ~ Mike Colucci ==== NEW ============================== From: "Neil R. Bonner" < This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it > Subject: We Need Format Standards! Hi all! Just wanted to say hello, introduce myself and vent about a pet-peeve of mine. I run a Web Design and Development company in Northern Virginia called, Michelangelo.COM ( http://www.michelangelo.com ). We've been in business just under a year. In that year we've had a lot of fun building some cool websites and raising the bar on website design. One of the things our company does is to produce on-line advertising campaigns for some big corporations. Currently we have banners running on Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista, ZD Net and some others. Which brings me to my biggest complaint about banner advertisements.... There is NO STANDARD SIZE FORMAT FOR BANNER ADS! <sorry for shouting>. For example, the following is a list of sizes measured in both dimensions and overall file size: Service Dimensions Size (K) Neil's Comments ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo 460 x 55 < 8K First kid on the block. Lycos 468 x 60 17.5K max Unlimited looping anims. Alta Vista 600 x 50 < 8K (what were they drinking?) ZD Net 460 x 55 15 K max Same as Yahoo except for K C|Net 476 x 54 ? (Earth to C|Net...) Netscape 468 x 60 < 10K Animations less than 4 sec. Link Exchange 400 x 40 < 7K No animation? <boo> Bannerswap 400 x 50 < 8K animations are ok. Of course I could go on, but why bother? You get the point. So if my client wants to run a campaign on Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista, and C|Net for example, we've got to build 4 separate banners. Generally the client is not thrilled to hear this as we bill our time out by the hour. This can (and probably does) have the effect of curbing the amount of banner advertisements. Solution: I'd like to see some of the really big advertisers out there (like Microsoft) force a standard size format. At most I'd like to see 3 formats that address the various size requirements (1 and 2 column layouts, etc). My suggestion is to standardize on the Lycos and Netscape size of 468 x 60 pixels and cap the size at 15K with unlimited looping. Our experience at Michelangelo is that 468 x 60 is a good size to work with. And the added "elbow room" of 15K allows for more interesting use of colors and animation. I'd be interested in hearing other opinions... Warm Regards, Neil Bonner +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Neil R. Bonner | Michelangelo.COM is a digital media | | This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it | design, development and marketing | | -*- | studio, specializing in original | | http://www.michelangelo.com | online content and presentation. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ ++++ new post - same topic ++++ From: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it Subject: Banner size Link Exchange is a great service to promote a web site and I am using it on my personal site (http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/1301/). My Click-Through ratio is around 30:1, which appears to be fairly standard although I would, of course, like to increase it. However, my banner is 4.34 kilobytes only (I keep it simple; have a look at: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/1301/banners.htm). I perfectly understand that it is necessary to keep banners small (not everybody has a fast connection to the Internet), but there are two limitations which I do not consider appropriate: 1) why cannot the *.JPG format be used as an alternative (it may pretty well be more efficient than the *.GIF format in many cases and, to-day, most browsers support it - in any case, my site heavily rely on the JPEG format)? 2) why is the 'animated GIF' format not allowed? I think it is perfectly possible to have a small 'animated GIF' file and I think the limitation of size is sufficient. I would be very interested to receive comments on both these issues and hope policy changes will be considered. Christian Guittet This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ++++ new post ++++ From: Private Life < This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it > Organization: Private Life Subject: Is there a way to find our posted sites... I'm confused about where my banner is being placed, is there a listing I can get to view those sites? David Rogers -- Private Life This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it P.O.Box 19484 Minneapolis,MN 55419-9484 ++++ new post ++++ From: "Sean Oberly" < This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it > Subject: Banner Creation Software I signed up for LE about 2 days ago and have submitted a banner from the hard-to-master Banner maker on the LE Site. Don't get me wrong I appreciate being able to send LE a banner, as soon as possible. However, I wish there were some suggested software or even links to software that I can use off-line to create a well thought out banner. This provides at least 3 benefits to subscribers: 1. time to create a well thought out phrase and personal design ( I felt rushed trying to perform this online and on the fly) 2. no delays! When I read about your service, I thought, "I have got to get this going as soon as possible!" I would hate to wait for someone else to make MY banner and then not like the one I received, free or not.. 3. more options for users. Now, you can design your own online(hard), get someone else to do it(waiting), or, do without(not an option). I must mention that I had not even pondered banner creation until I learned of your service. I am a newbie to the idea. But since you've got me hooked, I would love to be able to make the best banner I can using my own creative talents. I look forward to learning more from this valuable discussion list. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!!! :-) Sean Oberly, Independent Distributor Karemor International, Inc. Do you take vitamins? Do you like swallowing pills? What if there were a whole new way to take vitamins, minerals, appetite suppressants, and relieve pain? Wouldn't you want to know about it? Check out my homepage at http://www.theshop.net/seanokc/Welcome.htm ==== CONTINUING ======================== From: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it Subject: Getting Banners Down to Size The best way to get a full color banner down to size is to submit it to gifwizard at http://www.raspberryhill.com/gifwizard.html If you follow David Pettifer's advice of keeping it down to 3 colors, you will certainly achieve great results in file compression. This is important for if people wait too long to download your banner, they will either press the back button or turn off all graphics. Result: less hits. In fact, use this service for all the graphics on your page. Jpgs? I tried re-saving them under lview as a gif and it worked. Ari Haviv webmaster Official Torah Codes http://www.trailerpark.com/phase1/arielb/codes/ ++++ new post - same topic ++++ From: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it Subject: Gif Compression Hi my name is Adnan Hussain and I've been a member of LE since Oct '96. A lot of people have asked questions about getting their banners small enough for the LE requirements. I had a tough time creating a banner that both showcased my 3d art and met the size requirements, that is until I went to: http://www.raspberryhill.com/gifwizard.html Simply upload your banner to your web site and call it from this page. It helped me compress my banner without destroying color information which is very important when it comes to showing off 3d rendered art. As for click through ratios, I'm an average LE member. My ctr goes up and down all the time. Take a look for yourself at my stats: http://cgi.linkexchange.com/cgi-bin/pubstats.exe?X038531 I hope this information helps all of you. If you need any 3d artwork for your web pages at low prices, please look me up at: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/1696/ Or just drop by to look around my gallery just for the fun of it! Thank you, Adnan Hussain This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/1696/ ++++ new post - same topic ++++ From: "Carl P. E. dos Santos" < This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it > Subject: Banner file size I currently run a personal web site called Adventure Living, and I am an avid web surfer. In my travels, I have run across many people frustrated with download times. Therefore, I work very hard to keep anything I put on my site very small and fast. I strongly believe LE should not increase the maximum file size of banners beyond 8K. However, there is a very nice, very easy utility on the web that can help you reduce your file sizes. It's called the GIF Wizard and can be found at: http://www.raspberryhill.com/gifwizard.html Even on images people thought were as packed as possible, I have seen the GIF Wizard reduce file size by 20-25% without changing the look of the image! File sizes can also be reduced by using solid colors when possible. The GIF format compresses blocks of solid colors very well. And finally, the fewer colors you use, the smaller your file size. The number of bits required to represent each pixel increases as your palette gets larger. -- Carl P. E. dos Santos This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it Adventure Living -- Do you prefer to live life or watch it slide by? http://www.tiac.net/users/carl/ ++++ new post - same topic ++++ From: Leroy Padgett < This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it > Subject: Full Color? Scott Dial asked for ideas on getting his banner down to 7k. I'm no expert but I do have a few suggestions. He mentions full color and I'm not sure if he means 24bit True Color? A lot of browsers use a custom color palette therefore they will not display True Color anyway. I would suggest reducing the color palette of your banner to 256 colors or less. You can do this with LView Pro by selecting color depth then clicking Palette image and it will allow you to select 256 color, Windows palette (LView says 16 colors but my understanding it is 20), black and white, or a custom number. Make your selection then click OK then save image. I use Microsoft Image Composer (available free from Microsoft for a limited time) and find it is an excellent program (especially for designing images to be displayed on the internet). It will give you the option of saving your gif89a with a custom color palette created using only the colors in the image or you can use a "Balanced Ramp" which is a color palette designed specifically for web browsers. (Again I am no expert and my explanaitions may be a little vague at best.) I find using MIC is the easiest way as it will handle doing about everything you need to do creating banner without having to use other programs to change color depth or to save a file in whatever format you choose as it supports quite a few formats. I hope this was of some help and good luck! Leroy Padgett ++++ new post - same topic ++++ From: Jason Truesdell < This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it > Subject: Re: Banner Design and Photoshop Adobe has a free GIF89a export filter for Photoshop 3.0. I would suggest downloading this filter from their web page and exporting directly to GIF from Photoshop; you may get better compression results. If that doesn't work, when you are finished with the image, switch to Photoshop's Indexed Color mode and specify a smaller number of colors for the Palette. This will usually reduce the size. You should also be aware that images with lots of color variation within each single horizontal line of pixels will not compress as well as images with less variation. GIF images are compressed line by line, and the more solid color a given horizontal line has, the better the compression. ------------------------------------------------------------ Jason Truesdell | 1116 W 16th Place This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it | Kennewick, WA 99337 USA (509) 586-7197 | www: http://www.eskimo.com/~jmt | May the Duck Be With You! ++++ new post - new topic ++++ From: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it Subject: tales of the dreaded CTR I intended to write a short post to make everybody feel better. You see, when I signed on with Link Exchange back in August of '96, my CTR didn't seem to be doing much at all. In fact, it was at infinite:1 for quite a while. Eventually, I got it down to around 250:1. So what I was going to do was say, "Hey, my CTR is 250:1, so that should make you all feel better." Well, I just went to go check my stats, just to ensure that my numbers were accurate when low-and-behold! My CTR has improved to 48:1 since Sept. 12, '96! Which isn't bad, considering my page is just another personal homepage. So, my story of woe has become a success story! If that's not enlightenment for everybody out there, I don't know what is! Pickles º¿º ------------------------------------------- "Where have you been spending your nights?" ------------------------------------------- I recommend http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/5719 ++++ new post - new topic ++++ From: Pontus Astrand < This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it > Subject: Banner designs!!! Hello out there all ILE digest readers!!! I'm studying media and how people rect to it in a school in Sweden. We are learning the basics of what you're talking about -- that is how to get people to look at your ad, or in this case banner. So I thought I'd share my knowledge with you as there are no secrets. 1. Size An important factor. Sadly enough not appliable at those banners except in the text. So make your text big. 2. Color A human being reacts to colors in different ways, this as an effect of our animal instincts. But one thing is sure -- we react to sharp color. But don't go to extreme then it might turn around and work against you. 3. Contrast We react a lot more if there is contrast, like black on white,huge stuff next to small stuff, etc. 4. Humuor Use humour - it's a great weapon that'll make your click through ratios high and healthy. Pontus (mailto: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ) or visit Pontus Peerless Page at http://www.algonet.se/~aastrand/ ++++ new post - new topic ++++ From: "Johnny25 " < This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it > Subject: banner sizes I've been reading from people who want to increase the dimensions and/or K size of the ads. I think it's a misguided idea that would slow the growth of ILE tremendously. I think a lot of people would share this sentiment: I don't mind putting great big ads on other people's pages, just don't ask me to put 3 more kilobytes on mine. If your CLR is low, the you should be happy. Quit trying to screw with ILE's very successful strategy. Their job is hard enough now without us trying to get them to nickel and dime their file requirements. As far as file size goes, I've made three banners, and have yet to hit 5 kilobytes. Look at some of the file sizes for ILE's and other banners as examples. Reduce your color palette (not the number of colors in the image, the number of colors saved in the palette WITH the image) to achieve low file size. My philosophy is: if a web page runs over 30K, the impact/effectiveness has to be much greater to achieve user satisfaction. As web users, we all know that there is a whole lot of slow to download sites that aren't worth half the wait. Visit my site ( Official Parody of the Florida Lottery ) and see low-bandwidth in action. http://www.floridapolitics.com/lottery Low-K is OK John Lukosky ++++ new post - same topic ++++ From: Ruth Kahn < This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it > Subject: Banner Size Regarding Eliezer Brender comments about making the banner larger and allowing more than one banner to run at a time: Banner size has two sides to it 1. As an advertisement, a larger banner may be able to say more and attract more people to your site. I would love my banner to be larger. 2. As a webmaster of a site that is designed for the education market, my viewers don't want long load times for graphics. If the ILE banners loading onto my page were much longer, I might loose some audience. What good is it to get people to your site if they don't stay because of someone else's ad? Overall, I think that 7k may be challenging but I have seen some pretty terrific 7k banners-It can be done! As far as being able to run several banners at the same time (a great way to test their effectiveness), if ILE could work that out I think it would be terrific. Sincerely, Ruth Kahn ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ruth Kahn 1.516.751.2535-voice http://www.bytesandpieces.com Bytes & Pieces 1.516.751.8727-fax This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Specializing in Educational Software Since 1980 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." Oscar Wilde ==== BULLETIN BOARD ===================== From: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it (Mike Colucci) Organization: Software Store Products Subject: web hosting We just joined the ILE and we are now serious in setting up a real web site for distributing our software products. We have our e-mail address at a local ISP, but their web hosting services are too expensive. So for the present time, we are using AOL for our web pages. Question: Can anyone recommend a company that rents web hosting at an affordable price? We would require 50 Meg of disk space. Also, what features should a web hosting company offer that we should be looking for? -- Software Store Products e-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it www: http://users.aol.com/softwstore |
