Optional Pop-Up "Encouraging Local Downloads

[dokool]

As dwchang illustrated in a recent LJ post of his, AMVs suck up bandwidth quickly. And it's really a pain when people download off one's server hundreds and thousands of times, but click on the Local download significantly fewer times, when the point of Local downloads are to take some of the pressure off our bandwidth.

While perhaps actively encouraging people to take advantage of Local downloads as a whole isn't the proper solution (as that would result in the GD server slowing down, etc), I think creators should have the ability to say "Hey guys, there's this thing called "Local" that doesn't cost me an extra $10/gig. Try it."

My idea? An editor can go to Edit Videos then go to edit the links for his video. If he has a Direct link, he can turn "Local Pop-Up" on or off.

If "Local Pop-Up" was activated, then if somebody clicked on that Direct link, instead of the video, a pop-up would appear:

The editor encourages you to use the Local link for this video. Local downloads may be significantly faster than Direct downloads. Would you still like to download Direct? Y/N (Selecting No will take you to the Local download)

If the user hit Yes, then the Direct download would continue. If No, then the user would be forwarded to the Local Download page.


-DOKool

[Lyrs]

however much i hate pop-ups, it sounds like a good idea. however, i think that attaching that message to the video information/download page would seem a better idea...

...however people don't always read the video information.

[derobert]

And it's really a pain when people download off one's server hundreds and thousands of times, but click on the Local download significantly fewer times, when the point of Local downloads are to take some of the pressure off our bandwidth.

Hmmm... maybe people use the non-local downloads because they can't use the local ones --- they aren't logged in, they haven't been a member for two weeks, etc.

I think local downloads are taking a lot of load off non-local ones, though. In the first 8 days of October, we've had 1.2TB (yes, terabytes --- over 1200GB) of local downloads. Can we get to 5TB this month?