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It’s for IKEA and it’s really fun. Link.

The ad was awarded Gold by AdsOfTheWorld for best online ad.

We are happy to offer you “25 best practices in banner advertising”, a short FREE ebook that will help you to dramatically improve the way you advertise online, and eventually create successful banner ads.

The book can be downloaded for free here:

Download ebook

Why you should read this book:

• The ebook contains dozens of practical pieces of advice that you can apply right away
• It comprises all the basics of banner advertising
• It’s short and easy to read
• The book is based on the experience that we, the people here at BannerSnack, have accumulated interacting with the banner advertising business
• It’s free

Feel free to post this ebook on your blog or share it with whoever might benefit from reading it. Thank you!

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It’s known that WordPress won’t allow users to post flash content on their platform, unless they host their blogs elsewhere. However, there are a few exceptions; WordPress allows you to post *some* flash content, things like YouTube or DailyMotion videos.

What I’ve discovered is that WordPress allows you to post many other kinds of flash content on your blog.wordpress.com blog, including SnackTools widgets like banners and music playlists. You only need Gigya.

Read more here.

A playful banner ad for BannerSnack. Let’s see if you can make it ’til the end.

You can share or comment on this banner here.

We’re giving away 10.000 BannerSnack licenses for up to 10 months, depending on how well you score at the “Are you a true photoshopper?” quiz.

So take this Photoshop test, have fun and win a BannerSnack license that you can use to create banner ads and other flash content.

Before:

After:

ActionScript 3.0 (AS3) replaced ActionScript 2.0 (AS2) back in 2006. Ever since then, the new language proved to be a great success, for many reasons. I will especially name the ones that are relevant to us, the end users:

1. ActionScript 3.0 is faster. Because for AS3 code, Flash Player 9 & 10 use the video card directly, AS3 flash animations use less CPU power. In other words, your computer works better with AS3 flash.

2. Smoother graphics. As a consequence of using the video card directly, ActionScript 3.0 can render smoother, video game-like graphics.

3. 3D effects. In ActionScript 3.0 you can create 3D animations like those you can find in the BannerSnack app. In ActionScript 2.0 it’s virtually impossible to do that.

4. Complex effects & custom tweening. ActionScript 3.0 allows programmers to create more complex, movie-like, spectacular and eye-catchy animations than ever! Look at what BannerSnack or FlashEff can do – 90% of what these apps can do would be impossible with AS2. Moreover, AS3 allows you to use custom tweening (ease-in, ease-out, ease-in-out/strong, back, bounce, elastic etc.) for better CPU resource management and more spectacular animations.

5. Better text animations. ActionScript 3.0 allows for more complex text effects, improved readability and faster & better text rendering. Like with all effects you can find in BannerSnack, most of the text effects can’t be technically developed in AS2.

In spite of Flash Player 9 & 10 having a 99% market penetration, Google AdWords still require your flash ads to be created for Flash Player 4-8, which only can play AS2.

We want to change that, so we started this Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/as3petitionadwords. If this cause resonates with you, please become a fan or express your opinion on the Wall.

Let’s take a look at the following greeting card, which I made it with BannerSnack banner maker:

You too can create personalized Christmas greeting cards, by following these simple steps:

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve just made everything better!

Firstly

The BannerSnack and PhotoSnack apps are now updated with lots of cool new features that will make your life much easier and fun. Also, some old features were discontinued. Find out more about the new releases for BannerSnack and for PhotoSnack

Secondly

Starting today, a new SnackTools platform and payment system has been released. The new subscriptions are different from the previous ones. Now you have access to every editing feature without limitations, for free. However, in order to get rid of the watermark and/or to download the files you will need to pay a few “points”. Also, you have the option to get these points only when you need them, so you are no longer conditioned by an ongoing subscription.

For those having an ongoing subscription: all current ongoing subscriptions remain active and you will not be charged more than previously. Moreover, you’re going to get a larger value for the same money as follows:
As a loyalty offer, if you previously had the $9 monthly subscription, it will be automatically upgraded for free to the new $19 monthly subscription. Also, if you previously had the $19 monthly subscription, it will be automatically upgraded for free to the new $39 monthly subscription. You will pay exactly the same amount you paid before but you’ll get everything inside the new subscriptions for as long as you keep the subscription going. You can cancel this subscriptions anytime from your SnackTools account but in that case you will not be able to recall this offer.

Canceling your subscriptions will take effect only on your next billing cycle. You will be able to use the new license until the end of your current billing cycle.Finally

Please take a couple of minutes to evaluate the new payment options.

We apologize for any inconvenience that could arise with this update. The main purpose of the update is to increase your satisfaction by making everything better. For any issues that you may have, please use the feedback button that can be found in the right side of our pages.

It’s a common practice for online services to offer two kinds of licenses: free & premium. The free licenses usually imply including a linking watermark on the widget or file the user is getting – be it a video, a banner, a poll, a photo gallery, you name it. The premium licenses include different extra features, among which one of the most important is getting rid of the linking watermark.

Google AdWords employees don’t think so. They think adding a watermark on your banner ads is OK. Here’s the result:

They’ve got a link to their page and a marketing message on your banner ad! An ad for Google AdWords in the space where your ad was supposed to be! You might as well think that AdWords is a free service, but it isn’t.

What if SnackTools would have a similar policy? What would happen if BannerSnack stuck its watermark – or “user bar” as Google like to call it – on your banners, no matter if you pay or not for the service? Here’s what the ad above would look like:

B-E-A-utiful! Your banner advertising campaign will certainly be a GREAT SUCCESS! Sure, they might say that the black bar contains a link to your website, but the banner already links to your website!

More seriously, this is not even by far the biggest problem AdWords has. Their biggest problem is their stubbornness as they still refuse to accept ActionScript 3 flash banners (4 years passed since the standard was introduced). As you probably know, the banners you create with BannerSnack are all ActionScript 3, thus the compatibility problems with AdWords.

We hope 2010 will bring us some good news from Google. Not for us, but for you, our community, so you can work with AdWords, which otherwise is a very handy and cost-effective service.