History of Ask Jack's Forum Failure

The Ask Jack web site started life about eight years ago using basic discussion forum software. The idea was that people could actually "ask a human" to get simple answers for difficult questions. Even at that early stage of the Internet's development, there was a lot of "forum spamming" or people posting messages solely consisting of links back to dubious web sites. Quite a few questions were asked and answered during that period but it took an incredible amount of time and resources to ensure timely and accurate replies. Eventually, the shear drudgery of deleting spam got to much and the forum was closed down.

I guess for an online forum to be really successful requires a certain "type" or number of visitors that either ask the questions or are willing to take part in and encourage discussions maybe even volunteer to act as moderators.

The Department of Health recently released figures show that people who are on incapacity benefit for one year are likely to stay there for eight years. Once they have been "on-the-sick" for two years or more, they are more likely to die or retire than work again.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson seems to have taken up the battle against "The Great British Work Shy Sick" as he has compared GB (not Gormless Gordon - Great Briton) unfavourably with the rest of Europe yet again.

Perhaps Alan Johnson is angling for a new cabinet post of "Secretary for Death" which, I guess would give him the acronym:

SOD (off) Johnson... as he is already known at most outside smoking venues of empty, near bankrupt pubs and clubs.

The real question is why people are not being treated quickly and effectively by the NHS or do doctors simple give up on the sick and vulnerable in our society after one year?

Seems to me, tax payers money would be better spent treating sick people than demonising them through the press and media.

The Tea Musk Times Ripped Headline for Today

It seems the format war over next-generation DVDs between Sony, in the Blu-ray corner, and Toshiba, in the HD DVD camp, may be over, meaning consumers seeking sharper movies on high-definition DVDs no longer have to choose between rival incompatible formats and run the risk of being stuck with a 21st century equivalent of Betamax -- Sony's videotape technology that lost out to VHS in the 1980s.

As long as there's been technology, there's been competing standards, right from George Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel promoting different rail gauges in the early days of the railways and onwards to the present day, when 'format wars' in media distribution are commonplace.

The AskJack web site "lives and breaths" only because of revenue generated through on screen advertising.

AskJack's primary source of context adverts is Google Adwords and Mirago PPC search results displayed using the AskJack Research Tool: www.askjack.co.uk/search/london+nightclubs a very quick way to get filtered search results and further research options.

Results from in-depth research and development by 32 Corners Ltd (owners of AJ) carried out during the last year, has revealed a certain distaste for "in-your-face" advertisements and a certain blindness to text ads by a significant percentage of visitors. The evidence for this can be calculated through failing revenues and less time being spent on information pages.

A survey of fifty regular Internet users found that these are three most hated forms of online advertising:

• Floating ad layers that mask the important page information and require a click to close the ad. Often this will trigger a "pop-under" new web page to open in the background.
• Pop-under or pop-over pages opening as new browser windows.
• Animated banners flashing at a frequency rate that could cause headaches or epileptic fits.

Making Money Online Can be Hard Work for Ardvarks

Most people contact in the survey didn't seem to mind some advertising being displayed in a web page, providing it didn't overwhelm the content and was at least relevant to the information being presented.

Blinkx.com, the online video search engine has a PPC program similar to the contextual ad system used by Adsense Video. Blinkx claim to be able to deliver ads that match video content in a non intrusive way. It is up-to the web site owner to make sure videos that any displayed videos are actually relevant to page content.

This article aims to explore the way Blikx ads actually work, the set-up process and ways to make additional revenue.

Does anyone have any helpful tips or suggestions to help with this project?"

Well, to my dismay I was bombarded with "flame" after "flame" replies in the forum. It seems there's a lot of Joomla designers out there who absolutely HATE the idea of Microsoft, Microsoft FrontPage, HTML table code and (in there esteemed, unenlightened opinion) ANYONE stupid enough to consider building a Joomla template using ANY Microsoft product.

I replied to first person's vile response by explaining that I have been using FP for over twelve years. I know it has limitations and faults. However, it was one of the first programs that allowed web developers to actually see what the web page under development actually looks like while data was being inputted. This speeded up the whole development process and probably aided the growth of the Internet as a whole. FrontPage was designed to interact with all of the Microsoft Office Programs and that probably accounts for many of the perceived bugs user often come up against.

This (reasonable and polite) comment was met with absolute derision and outright hostility by many of the forum members. Not only did the forum replies become far more abusive, someone also did a bit of research and found my email address. They then began an email spam campaign of such intensity that I had to close the email account down.

So be warned; so called "Joomla Support Forums" can be dangerous places to ask innocent questions about FrontPage, unless you intend to trash the software and anyone using it.

OK... This is MY RESPONSE

Although Microsoft discontinued FrontPage in 2006, replacing it with Microsoft SharePoint Designer and Microsoft Expression Web, there are still very many people using the older software both professionally and personally to build their websites. It will probably be several years yet FrontPage-designed websites disappear completely from the ever-changing face of the internet.

The tips below are for FrontPage 2000, but the list of links at the end gives resources offering useful tips and tricks for other FP versions too.