h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Edited Guide Publishing News
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To all researchers who helped create a backlog of Edited Guide Entries (EGEs) to publish, thank you so much for your hard work in building the Guide to Life, the Universe and Everything. The Guide Editors will be publishing the fruits of your research to Pliny's Front Page over the next few days to clear the way for even more entries to come.

To help keep the pace of the new publishing schedule, photographers and illustrators are invited to send their artwork directly to artists AT h2g2 DOT com. The authors of Edited Guide entries are also encouraged to participate in the illustration of their entries. Please refer to the publishing guidelines: http://www.h2g2.com/help/entry_faqs#images


h2g2 Gets A New Advertisement Placement Service
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More good news: Not Panicking Ltd switched h2g2 to a new advertisement placement service. The new service uses an entry's text to select an advertisement to display. As a result, the adverts shown on h2g2 are much improved. The adverts have improved so much that we've been inspired to hold a friendly competition ...


Best & Funniest Advert-Entry Combination Competition
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You are invited to send one screenshot per week of the best match of an Edited Guide Entry and the advertisement displayed. Plus you may also send one screenshot per week of the funniest combination between an EGE and its display advert.

Send your screenshots to comms AT h2g2 DOT com. Each weekend the Comms Team will select a winner in each category. Winning screenshots will be posted here: A87761163


Calling All Community Artists
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Several of the Community Artists have begun using the online collaboration tool Trello to collaborate on producing artwork for the Guide. If you are part of the Community Artist volunteer scheme and wish to work collaboratively using Trello, please request an invitation by sending an email to artists AT h2g2 DOT com. Make sure to use the email address you wish to use with Trello. For more information about Trello, visit: http://trello.com

Oooh, !

I don't know if I dare check out 'Morning Glory' or 'Animal Sex'...

trust you to think of that Icy!

Oh, but that would require me to look at h2g2 in Pliny AND switch off Adblock.

I got a bit of a laugh the other day when I saw the ad for Fisher Investments. I've been getting mail from him for years [not interested, though, nor would he be interested in me if he realized that I'm not the high-roller he thinks I am ]. I used to read his column in "Forbes," but haven't done that in many years. I imagine that a *lot* of people get letters from him, so why not here as well.

Okay, this ad thing has wonderful possibilities.

I just looked up Lanzababy's entry on 'Pest in Your Pasta'. It had an ad for a pest-control company, plus one for gluten-free bread.

The current issue of the Post gets me an ad for 'alpine luxury holidays' and swimsuits. Duck Tails and the Fountain Pen Adventure both have an ad for high quality fountain pens. Gheorgheniplex wants to give me vouchers for holidays, restaurants and cosmetics - maybe the aliens need it. 24 lies a second sends me to the Prague Film School and wants to sell me a sci-fi game and books.
TRiG's article wnats to sell me 'Quality Anchors' , meeting 'data innovators in Dublin' and 'Best FRench Hotel Barging'.

I have an ad-block filter built into my head - I just don't notice the ads. When I was a child and we watched television together, my father always insisted on turning off the sound during the ad-breaks, and perhaps as a result of this, I'm not much interested in ads.

Really? I'm fascinated by them. Always have been. I've always liked persuasive language.

After living without a TV for nearly a decade, and only having access to iPlayer and DVDs, I've lost my ability to tune out TV adverts. I dislike them, but they are always so loud and colourful that I find them hard to ignore.

I like the tailored to Entry approach though. I find it more interesting than the nonsense that I usually get on websites.

For some reason, nearly every ad I get is for gambling - sometimes horse racing, sometimes online casinos.

TV ads are certainly loud. There's an American law going through to quieten them down a bit:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/03/calm-act-approved-by-congress-should-make-tv-commercials-slight/

I don't mind ads.

On the Feedback pages I get them for 'how to video: instructions to...', 'load and performance testing', 'software tester wanted' and something about problem solving.
I like it.

Why do I get ads for "The art of polite conversation" and "How to win friends and influence people" on pages I visit?

I often get stuff about loosing weight and XXL fashion.

I get either bodybuilding equipment, Gillette products or male modelling agencies.

Me too Tav - it's because we're girls, therefore must be obsessed by our weight.

But h2g2 doesn't pass the information that you're girls to the ad agency.

Unless we're using a variant on AdSense, in which case Google will analyse your history to guess your gender, age, etc.