How does AB exist?

[darth vader]

dear AB editor (and co) - it seems you have a wonderful idea and site here yet i can't work out how you are earning a living out of it? I've just read in the Mirror that someone's offered the FriendsReunited authors 25 mill for their site and i wonder how you make money out of this one or are you simply doing a service for the Internet?

[j2buttonsw]

Apart from the infernal pop-ups, there is only one Ad box (currently selling First Direct) so they can't earn much from advertising. My additional question is whether AB is soley (sp?) helping people who don't know how to use Google?

[Gef]

There is only one ad box at the top of each page but in the last two minutes I have seen ads for O2, first direct, lottery and sky.

[sft42]

j2ButtonSW you should know more about this as you have already admitted on the site to taking the Mail's shilling and being in the employ of the company who runs the whole shebang....and the answeris advertising of course....if you don't run software like zone alarm you get plagued with pop ups. perhaps come monday mikewith will weigh in with a more informative answer.

[xyzzyplugh]

but cookies, adviva, bluestreak and the other one, atdmt; are they not also ad-spyware cookies? How much does yahoo and google earn for doubleclick and valueclick they gather muchoplenty information with their plagueishness. Methinks.

[j2buttonsw]

Sft42, to be fair, I work for the company that has the Service Level Agreement for Front of Mind and try (often in vain) to repair the AB computers (or laptops). I have asked them myself how they make money but they are infernally shy! If I had know they were associated with the MAIL, I would have been more particular (I'm an Independent man meself).

[AB Editor]

darth vader - the short answer to the question "How does AB exist?" is, of course: Magic!

Slightly longer: well, no-one's made a multimillion pound offer for the site, to the best of my knowledge ;-). (E-mail us if you want to, BTW) We do have long-term strategies, without getting too technical or giving away too much. Don't worry, they shouldn't affect or impact on this site. Across the industry in general, our collective cyberbelts may all be a little tighter these days, but there's no harm in that. And we work bl**dy hard here and on other projects to pay the bills!