The Drabblecast

I don't know what the forum looks like in other people's browsers, but banner ads recently started appearing at the top of each page I look at. These ads are mostly for the standard internet junk like online dating and such. It seems to me that these are most inappropriate for a forum where topics of scientific inquiry (anal probing, aerosol pig brains and sentient jellyfish) and philosophical profundity (jelly as panacea, mysterious crimson seas and pacts with world-eating insects) are discussed.

So I propose that our members should design their own banner ads that are more Drabble-appropriate. These can be either still or animated, but they should be the exact size of the ads at the top of this page. I'll be making my own... sometime. In the meantime, post yours here.

I probably don't need to say this, but keep it clean, folks!

Brilliant!

A good opportunity to learn about the animation feature in PhotoShop...



Getting it to display correctly was a little tricky... Anyone needs help, please ask.

AWESOME!

I wish I knew how to make those!

What a riot! Good job.

I love these! What program are you guys using?

PhotoShop (CS3). I just just got Flash and am itching to experiment, but I don't think you can post flash movies here...

These are AWESOME!! I'm with Norm, I wish I knew how to do stuff like this. It's a pretty big step for me to be familiar with a forum. Really like the ringwasp one (of course) and the Jolly Jelly Co.

I really would like to see these integrated into the Forum or DC website somehow.

It would be truly Phreak if these banner ads could be imported for use on websites of forum users, authors, and friends to link to the Drabblecast episode in question.
Plus, these were great, but they need to continue. More, please! And who can tell how to make that work?

Still ones are just regular graphics. Make them in Paint or anything else.

If you want them to move, you have to have a program that makes animated GIF files. It's pretty easy in PhotoShop once you've learned how to do it, but PhotoShop costs, like, $800. I'm sure there are free programs that make animated GIFs, but I don't know what they are.

Most commercial banner ads (like the ones the snooper robots puts on the forum pages) are Flash movies. The only way to make those is drop a couple hundred $$$ on Flash. I've got Flash and can make them, but you can't post Flash movies in the forum, which is why I made the GIFs.

If anybody would like me to make a Flash ad to use on their website, please ask. (No promises on when I'll get it done, though... Unless you pay me, in which case you'll get it fast. )

Mr. Tweedy wrote:If anybody would like me to make a Flash ad to use on their website, please ask. (No promises on when I'll get it done, though... Unless you pay me, in which case you'll get it fast. )

Could do BbannerAdle? How much?

strawman wrote:

Mr. Tweedy wrote:If anybody would like me to make a Flash ad to use on their website, please ask. (No promises on when I'll get it done, though... Unless you pay me, in which case you'll get it fast. )

Could do BbannerAdle? How much?

Well, if it's for Drabblecast promotion, I'll do it free to make up for my lousy donation record. If it's for your company/business or for you personally, write me privately and we'll talk.

Let's get some feedback, to make sure I'm not the only one who thinks this idea is awesome.
Question: a) How many of you contributors have a website on which you would be interested in adding something like the banner ads posted above, that people can click through to the Drabblecast?
b) What should it link to (The main page or the specific episode? I guess it could be specified.) In other words, if Aliya Whitely liked the Jolly Jelly Company banner, she would very conceivably want to post the banner on her website, rather than a hypertext link.
How about it, authors?

Mr. Tweedy wrote:If you want them to move, you have to have a program that makes animated GIF files. It's pretty easy in PhotoShop once you've learned how to do it, but PhotoShop costs, like, $800. I'm sure there are free programs that make animated GIFs, but I don't know what they are.

The Gimp makes animated gifs for the cost of the download. It's not Photoshop, but it's pretty powerful.

Mr. Tweedy wrote:Most commercial banner ads (like the ones the snooper robots puts on the forum pages) are Flash movies. The only way to make those is drop a couple hundred $$$ on Flash.

Not quite true---you'll find some other software exports flash files. Blender's very good for making the animations, and I think there's a plug-in to export flash. Failing that, OpenOffice Presenter (which is similar to MS PowerPoint) exports presentations in flash. I'm pretty sure I've seen other software that does too. I'm not sure if you want to post a movie of your third quarter sales projections, though.

strawman wrote:Let's get some feedback, to make sure I'm not the only one who thinks this idea is awesome.
Question: a) How many of you contributors have a website on which you would be interested in adding something like the banner ads posted above, that people can click through to the Drabblecast?
b) What should it link to (The main page or the specific episode? I guess it could be specified.) In other words, if Aliya Whitely liked the Jolly Jelly Company banner, she would very conceivably want to post the banner on her website, rather than a hypertext link.
How about it, authors?

I would probably use both on my blog (when I actually start posting to it!). A small square button would be good in a permanent sidebar, and if I want to blog about a good story I've heard, a banner would be good in the post.

strawman wrote:Let's get some feedback, to make sure I'm not the only one who thinks this idea is awesome.
Question: a) How many of you contributors have a website on which you would be interested in adding something like the banner ads posted above, that people can click through to the Drabblecast?
b) What should it link to (The main page or the specific episode? I guess it could be specified.) In other words, if Aliya Whitely liked the Jolly Jelly Company banner, she would very conceivably want to post the banner on her website, rather than a hypertext link.
How about it, authors?

I have a small site I could put some banners on, but I don't think I could convince my business partner to put them on our company page.

Tom