At several meetups in December and January, I asked during the opening announcements if there were opinions one way or another about using ads to support the LA Drupal video channel at ladrupal.blip.tv (which we use to post meetup presentations, podcast episodes, etc.).
There weren't any objections and in an experiment intended to offset costs and help make LA Drupal self-sustaining, pre-roll and post-roll ads were turned on.
In the last 30 days, LA Drupal has earned less than $5. This is less than the $8 a month that a "Pro" account costs (which is currently paid for by a sponsor *), which I upgraded it to last summer in order to get the necessary machine time to convert some of the longer videos, like the Git with Drupal workshop in June.
This brings us to today and I think it's a good time to check in. The only feedback I've seen so far was from @lauras on Twitter:
@LADrupal The prerolls on your blip.tv channel are a fracking nightmare, btw. No pause even. Hope they're lucrative at least.
To which my response was:
@lauras thanks! we polled our members last year about turning on ads and had no objections. now ads are on and we're soliciting feedback. ^C
So, what do you all think of the ads? Should we do away with them completely and ask sponsors to pay for things like this, or should we keep them as they are? Do you want overlay ads as well, which would potentially increase revenue?
Please discuss.
* As a disclaimer, the sponsor is Exaltation of Larks, where I am employed. I mention this to be transparent but I didn't include this information in the main post since I see it being irrelevant to the purpose of this inquiry. ^