FunOfficePools has always been free, but ad revenue has dropped while ads have gotten more intrusive. Our fix: ads are now outside all content areas — sides and bottom only, never in the middle of your picks or standings.
We're also adding premium membership ($10/year): no ads plus new enhancements and insights for pool players and commissioners. We're not taking anything away from free users — the site works just as it always has. We just want to offer something extra for those who want to support the site. Contact us anytime if you need help, donor or not.
FunOfficePools has always been free to use for playing and running pools. We have been fighting a losing battle with ads as we find them to be less and less effective and more and more obtrusive. Our ad revenue has dropped significantly while our page impressions have grown. So in our redesign we tried to tackle this in two ways:
1. We now have put all the ads outside of any main content areas (picks, standings, etc.) The ads are generally on the right side and left side of the pages and/or below the content (think ads in a U-shaped pattern). We hope the new ad layout works better for everyone - we've been testing it and it definitely looks much better than it used to.
2. We are increasing the benefits for those who donate. See the
Premium tab for all the details. We are not taking any existing features away - in fact we've added a very significant redesign of the site making it work on phones and tablets for the first time ever included in the free version. We've also completely rewritten many pages making them much more functional. We are adding some new features that will make the site nicer to use and some new pool manager tools that add enhanced features in running a pool. None of the premium features are necessary to use the site and the site still has the features we've had for 20 years and they remain free. We do intend to continue adding new enhancements for premium users (and we'll continue to update the site for free users). So the site will still be as usable as it has ever been for free users - we are just adding some niceties for those who donate. A donation is only $10 a year and gets rid of all ads and enables our new enhancements - with our drop in ad revenue we greatly appreciate any donation you can make. Our expenses have gone up so any donation helps cover them. We will continue to welcome free users and as most of them have found out, contact us if you need help - we'll be happy to help you out if we can whether you donate or not.