All Adsense advertising has been removed from the Live Demos. Members who upload their layouts on Themebot will not have their web design templates cluttered up with generic advertising in the demos.
There are quite a few new features in the works designed to benefit members. This the beginning of a transition that will provide more valuable services for freelance web developers and visitors, while enhancing the presence of dedicated sponsors by eliminating the generic advertising. Integrity in business philosophy and supporting the open source community is the Themebot way.
The Kontera interstitial ads have been removed as well. Even though they were racking up a decent amount of clicks, they did not pay well, were somewhat annoying, were rarely relevant and caused the pages to load more slowly. So, Kontera had to go.
Furthermore, additional links are never added to member's layouts and no alterations are made to the files submitted for download. Many other web template sites add their own links and advertising to the designs that their members upload.
Albums by Web Designer is now integrated in the web layout gallery. There is a tag cloud in the gallery sidebar with a list of the top twenty members who have contributed the most web design templates on Themebot. Also, there is a link to each member's album below the themes.
Themebot is getting ready for a new round of upgrades. I thought I'd create a poll to find out which improvements are most important to visitors and theme designers. The poll is in the left column under the Main Menu if you'd like to cast a vote. Also, if you have any suggestions that are not listed, feel free to leave a comment in the forums.
Go ahead and vote for which of the above you think would be best improvement on Themebot. If you have any comments or suggestions, please leave a message in the forums.