I know we have already talked about this, but it just seems so overwhelming lately! I feel trapped inside an "as seen on tv" commercial with some guy in a bad sweather yelling at me about finishing my degree "AT HOME NOW!!!" for "LOW COST- NO MONEY DOWN!" The 3 ads for Charter Oak on the right plus the big banner and the "search" (cough) feature we provide just feel so dirty and millish. LOVE this site, not lovin the new face of this site. I seriously don't think I'll be suggesting to friends that they come here, I feel like it undermines the credibility I'm trying to establish by earning a legitimate degree through a legitimate college. It's an image issue for me. Sorry
I have a hunch that the new ads keep the forum free for us to use. With that in mind, I am not complaining.
It's worth nothing that we are using ads that we develop, simply because a lot of the ones provided by the schools themselves are obnoxious and tacky. As far as the ads the currently point to Charter Oak... let's face it, a lot of people who are looking for a degree are looking for the fastest, cheapest crappiest degree they can get. I wish that weren't the case, but it is. So for those people, I would MUCH rather send them to a credible, state-affiliated, regionally accredited program than have them go to some other site and get pointed to a mill. We will be adding more banners to the pool, and a much larger group of keywords, so the Charter Oak ads will be appearing less frequently, and the ads will eventually be a lot more context-specific. And as for the degreefinder... yes, it's imperfect. But we're working on that too. We used to have a really nifty one that listed every known DL program, whether or not they advertised with us, and our intent is to get back to that. But the technology (and the data) behind that application is almost 8 years old so it pretty much has to be rewritten from scratch, which is an expensive undertaking when it has to be able to support the amount of traffic that DegreeInfo gets. But it's something we are committed to doing, and the advertisements currently on the forum are helping to pay for that and all of the other resources that are under development or currently operating.
I didn't mean to insult the forum's progress, your hard work is not lost on me. I just feel a mismatch between the quality of what we really have here vs the message in the marketing. Maybe it's just me, but I understand what you are saying.
Hi Jen - The image issue has existed for a long time and it will continue to exist into the future. In some minds it will never go away. I think that we champion the cause of distance learning as well as anyone in the world. If our marketing is a step or two behind the times or seems otherwise to be a bit unpolished it's because none of us are full-time pros at this stuff. We're all just part-timers trying to put out as much info as possible so that people feel like they have choices that can positively effect their careers and lives. I guess it's OK if you decide not to invite your friends over but maybe you can just let them make up their own minds. There's no need to feel bad about it.
