Whats up with random hotlinks on NT?

[Bad Religion]

Is it just my browser (Google Chrome)? I see hotlinks in posts and in the forum descriptions on NT. Something about being linked by VigLink?
"Batman" was hotlinked in a PS3 thread post I made...

 

[stick]

Word, on the homepage the words "Nike" and "Reebok" are hotlinked to their respective websites.
EDIT: Here too

. I didn't hotlink those intentionally.

 

[Bad Religion]

Yea, neither did I. If you hover over them it mentions this VigLink company adding them.
I visited their site. Might be a new method of ad revenue for NT?

 

[KMante]

I was about to ask the same thing

 

 

[whyhellothere]

the first steps of the new nt
for better......
or for worst.........
only time will tell.

 

[kookcle]

Check the LAKERS thread for the answer

 

[megatron]

This happened like a month ago then disappeared. Method Man what's up?

 

[fenixconnexion.]

i noticed it with my sig

 

[omgitswes]

Not a fan of this at all.

 

[Methodical Management]

Yea, neither did I. If you hover over them it mentions this VigLink company adding them.
I visited their site. Might be a new method of ad revenue for NT?

It is and it's something that was implemented without our prior consent.  
Our charities do benefit from it, so I hope that makes it a little easier to swallow, but it's not something that I'm a fan of and it's not something I want to have moving forward.

Most of you have used the site for years.  You know that we're not and "anything for a dollar" type of operation.  We put the user experience first and foremost and, in this situation, I agree with you 100%.  

If it were an internal link to relevant content, like a tag, that would be one thing.  To have an external link in a user-generated post title is, I think, intrusive.   I don't think forums should put ads into your content.  

I didn't even notice it when it was just on the front page myself until very recently.  Apparently this is something that's been subtly creeping into the content and I'll see what can be done about it.  I would hope that, for example, increased revenue from better targeted ads in our existing units could offset whatever's being generated by this stuff.  

I can't promise that we'll be able to remove it overnight, because it's more complicated than that, but I will work on it.

 

[whywesteppin]

Thanks, meth.

If this was something we had chosen to implement, I could see it being o.k... But not like this.

 

[Methodical Management]

It's even on our management pages, if you can believe that.
It's been implemented network-wide.  If you go to, say, my profile page (I know, nobody ever uses them, but it's the closest example I had on hand) and scroll down, you'll see that the word "Nike" in a user's comments have been converted to links.  Technically, those pages are "outside" NikeTalk.  Our charities won't see a cent from whatever money is made by inserting those ads on our profile pages.  

I'm with you guys on this one completely.  I know a lot of other forums do this, but I think it looks really cheap.  Whenever you manipulate user-generated content, you're discouraging the people who breathe life into such sites.  

All I can do is hope that people will bear with us and trust in the management team we've assembled at NikeTalk - and to make sure your bookmarks are set to niketalk.com, not niketalk.yuku.com, just in case...

 

[cyber smoke]

So annoying