Next-Gen Pop-up Ads 547
bje2 writes "CNet has a disconcerting story about a new generation of pop-up ads that use a "kick through" technique such that you don't even need to click on the pop-up ad anymore, you just need to mouse over it...wow, can they make our web surfing experience any worse?"
This isn't the worst (Score:4, Informative)
You surf peacefully, and suddenly the screen is filled with lottery ad and the computer shouts " 50 millions!!! " at you.
There are other things, like a anti-virus ad that looks like the computer has been compromised, etc, which are just plain agressive.
Re:This isn't the worst (Score:4, Insightful)
People say that Web advertising doesn't work, but I will click on a banner ad that displays something relevant to me. However, I absolutely refuse to patronize a site that uses popups or any of the above mentioned ad techniques. I don't care that Orbitz will save me several hundred bucks, I use a travel agent (who gets me decent deals anyway). I don't care that I can get nifty-looking spy^H^H^H home-monitoring equipment from X10.com; stuff that I might even buy under other circumstances (tiny cameras are neat!). Don't even get me started on the ones that try to defraud me by displaying Windows error messages (in Linux, no less!). These companies will never see a cent from me. Too bad, because they might have something to offer.
Re:This isn't the worst (Score:4, Insightful)
"The enormous success for Orbitz is directly related to these pop-unders," said Mark Rattin, creative director for Chicago-based Otherwise. "There's an enormous segment of the population that are appreciating these ads."
So you're not appreciating these ads? You're clearly in the minority. Further, Orbitz is dependent on these kinds of ads so it can stay in business. I hope you support business, what are you, some kind of communist?
The problem is that these companies (Orbitz, not the advertiser) don't get that people HATE that crap and they risk alienating their potential customer base. The advertisers are irrelevant since they are a lower life form to begin with and would sell their mother, wife AND daughter if they could make a buck.
From the statement of the advertising exec, people who don't like this form of advertising are in the minority, and possibly some kind of social deviant. We'll see an increase in this garbage until it becomes economically ineffective (lawsuits, customer non-response, ANYTHING). The other solution is technology, such as browsers that prevent this kind of thing (Mozilla, or my fav - Phoenix), that filter it out. I block unrequested pop-ups and won't install Flash.
I may sound heartless here, but when people bitch about these ads, I feel little sympathy. There are other browsers (and products in general) out there that actually are built to protect the user. Yet people won't try anything new. Those who act like sheep shouldn't be suprised when they're lead to slaughter
Re:This isn't the worst (Score:3)
I now block ad sites with hosts files, use popup-blocking Mozilla, and disable flash.
Fuck them.
I pay an ever-escalating fee for my connection.
If a site can't make it without advertising, then fuck them. They can go out of business for all I care. I don't need it anymore. Slashdot, and Ars Technica, and probably xlr8yourmac are about the only sites I'd really miss. Other than that, the internet is all about P2P, and email for me now (and even email is starting to become "not worth the hassle"). All the other stuff just is not worth this advertising crap.
And don't beleive that if nobody had blocked ads that it wouldn't have eventually come to this anyway. Those sleazy advertisers will resort to ANYTHING.
If you don't believe me, why don't you take a weekend trip to Las Vegas, and see with your own two eyes a culture of advertising scams run amok.
I refuse to do business with them anymore.
what's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
so their websites get more hits. but since they are hits that are basically forced, or unaware hits, how will this increase sales for the product being advertised?
Re:what's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, see, we are dealing with the accountants of the 21st century. We are in a world where Webvan and Enron were roaring successes because they were able to generate revenue. Never mind other pesky accounting details, like expenses.
And, well, as we know, in a day and age where the marketing department knows their new pop-up ad is a roaring success because it generates so many clickthroughs. Well, OK, lets ignore such minor details like the ads actually are drag-them-to-our-site-kicking-and-screaming-throu
- Sam
Re:what's the point? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would like to send out a standard form letter to marketing@foolishcompany.com telling them that:
a) I didn't even see their dumb ad so they wasted nomey on it;
and b) I will now be avoiding their products because they employ dumb advertising tactics.
The same goes for large format adverts, and for animated banners.
btw, if anyone from Sprint is reading this, well done for annoying me with a loop animated piece of crap at the top of the page I'm typing this in on. The product that doesn't work in my country, which I can't buy, because I don't even have any of the type of currency specified. I'd be boycotting you if you actually operated in any territory within 1000 miles of here, dumbasses!
Re:what's the point? (Score:4, Interesting)
Anti-advert technology (such as Mozilla's pop up filtering, which I have turned on, and it's gif loop blocking which I choose not to have turned on btw) is removing the negative feedback element, which I feel is important if the offenders are to learn not to offend. All that happens is that the adverts carry on annoying the technological underclass that dosen't block them.
Re:what's the point? (Score:3, Insightful)
In the end, it just has the effect of alienating users. I'm sure most of their success metrics (as touted by Orbitz) are of people who won't be back. Hello, turnover rate!
Re:what's the point? (Score:5, Funny)
Same game spam emailers are playing. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the same numbers game that the SPAM mongers are playing.
Ie, if you can get even one half of one percent to buy something, with over 1 million people hitting your site, you still get 5000 customers. If each of those customers buy just one thing, the company is making money off of their "efforts".
Those who don't like it and don't buy are considered to not have wanted to buy in the first place.
The same is true of passing out flyers, sending spam emails, or going door-to-door. A numbers game.
Re:Same game spam emailers are playing. (Score:3, Interesting)
This works for spammers because they're not going to be around (in that guise) long enough for reputation to be a factor. For well-known companies with a reputation to defend, irritating the heck out of a customer who might otherwise have considered buying from them at a more opportune time is not good business practice.
The same is true of passing out flyers, sending spam emails, or going door-to-door. A numbers game.
Flyers- make them pay for cleaning up the subsequent litter, and if it's still cost effective, then... their money, their choice. I notice that most people seem to take them either to be polite or somehow because it's too much hassle to refuse. Most of the time I just react to people trying to hand me a flyer by saying "no thank you" and not taking it. No big deal.
Same when I buy something small in a shop and the assistant wants to put it in yet another small plastic bag when I already have several. It's less hassle for me to say I'll just put it in my pocket than sorting the bags from the goods and disposing of them later on. And it causes less pointless waste.
Yeah, spam... no-one's going to defend that, but at least door-to-door salesmen, political candidates, etc. have to get of their fat lazy asses(TM) and face the people they're annoying.
Re:what's the point? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the same theory as the cologne commandos in department stores. They know the only reason you haven't bought their product is because you haven't been exposed to it. Any exposure, even that which you would initially consider unwanted or criminal, that exposes you to their product has infinitely greater chance of making you want their product than does no exposure. It's the marketing interpretation of dividing by zero.
Easy Fix.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Easy Fix.... (Score:5, Informative)
Nah, I don't think so. Doesn't Mozilla/Phoenix block the javascript open() on the onLoad event? These new popups were probably made to circumvent that kind of protection by using javascript open() on the onMouseOver event.
I don't think Mozilla blocks all open() calls regardless what since then a lot of web sites I've visited that popup stuff when you click on a link shouldn't work.
Re:Easy Fix.... (Score:2)
Or you could just turn javascript off completely.
Re:Easy Fix.... (Score:2)
Re:Easy Fix.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Easier Fix.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Weeeeee. We're in Surfin' Heaven! Nothin' like a B&W mono-spaced equally-formatted no-graphics page to inspire me...
Ok, maybe going a little too far... but these new methods of introducing dynamic content to an otherwise static medium actually CAN be useful, in the right hands.
In fact, all of them were developed with good intentions, and all can be used with purpose - it's just the few sockcuckers out there who take advantage of them that ruin it for the rest of us.
Re:Easier Fix.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? Care to point out a single constructive use of popups? (If I really want to open a link in a new window, I middle click it, period.) What about <blink>?
The web was designed for user control of presentation. Technologies that attempt to subvert this paradigm are *evil*. If you've got a good browser, you can only take what's good and throw out the rest (For example, in mozilla you can enable javascript but prevent javascript from opening popups). If you haven't got a good browser, switch.
Re:Easier Fix.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Almost every executible GUI program we use today has many of these kinds of "pop-up" dialog boxes - some more complicated than others (from confirmation dialogs to config screens). And all of them serve a useful purpose.
I'm a firm believer that developing apps using HTTP/(X)HTML as an interface is a smart move, as opposed to writing an executible for a specific platform - since it is a true write-once, run-anywhere tech (well, access-anywhere, at least from as far as client access is concerned.) And there's no reason we, as web developers, shouldn't be able to use pop-up windows for web-enabled apps.
Just because commercial sites the world over have abused pop-(up|under)s, doesn't mean the technology itself is useless.
ps. - I realize Mozilla allows you to disable scripts from opening "unrequested" windows (ie. where any "window.open" call is ignored, unless it applies to link you just clicked), but for a complicated site with various domains (eg. secure/non-secure), or other complications, it still isn't a robust enough solution to those of use developing true web-enabled applications.
Re:Easier Fix.... (Score:2)
You still need to validate the data server-side. It's not exactly smart practice to trust ANYTHING that is "validated" only from the client-side, especially with javascript. A malicious user could simply save your input page locally, remove or replace your "validation" code, and send something unexpected to your server through their newly-editted page.
For a first-line of defense, a JS form validator isn't bad - and it is a relatively quick way to tell someone "Hey, you forgot to enter your password"...but you still need to make the same checks server-side in case someone decides to "go around" your JS validator.
Re:Easier Fix.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny you should mention it. I installed Zope [zope.org] recently on one of my Debian boxen. I noticed it uses HTTP Basic Authentication, the "antiquated" (read: standard, universal) mechanism to which you refer. It also has a "Logout" button that works -- if you select "Logout", it returns a page with an authentication failure code, which a browser interprets as meaning that the (username, password) pair it is caching is invalid.
The fact that you, or your Web application developer, did not think of that indicates that the Zope people know HTTP better than you or s/he. It certainly doesn't indicate anything the matter with HTTP Basic Authentication. And there's a lot right with using the protocol's built-in authentication mechanism rather than writing your own: it is easier; it requires less code; it is standard and works everywhere, unlike JavaScript; and it is better tested than any new mechanism you invent, meaning that it is less likely to fail badly and let people crack your application.
Re:Easy Fix.... (Score:3, Interesting)
This could get very interesting.
AOL shipped NS 7.0 without popup blocking because that would hurt advertisers' interests, but reversed their decision because of public outcry.
MS, of course, isn't bothered just yet. Now if more people start blocking popups with mozilla/netscape, advertisers will start trying more agressive methods, in turn leading more people to switch.
Could this tussle lead to a spiralling backlash against MSIE?
Re:Easy Fix.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't be surprised that IE 7.0 will include controls to tightly control pop-over/pop-under ads, given that these ads do tend to hog system resources and slow the WWW surfing experience.
Doubtful (Score:4, Interesting)
Why you Ask? Because They will get Sued for Being a Monopoly or Stifiling Competition, and Lose.
Dont Believe Me? When Outlook Express 4 was in it's beta stages, It had a spam filter similar to the one that Hotmail and Outlook currently have. You dont see it in Outlook Express because a company that was sending newsletters sued them for being a Monopoly because the Spam filter would fiter the companies Legitmate E-mail. Even though Microsoft explained that it was the way they were sending the mail and there was an easy fix to it, they didn't budge, They won the case, and Spam continues to flow to inboxes.
Re:Easy Fix.... (Score:2)
Sure, because all developers customise their html for that vital 0.000001% of the market.
Don't get me wrong. I use Lynx too, I just don't kid myself that anybody cares.
edit your hosts.... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, I use mozilla a lot, but I still need IE for some sites.
Re:edit your hosts.... (Score:2)
No, really, I'm curious. What sites do you personally need Internet Explorer over Mozilla for? I'd be interested in checking them out.
**
ms update comes to mind.. and some other stuff that rely on being able to do anything on your computer.
Solutions (Score:2)
- use a quality browser : konqueror, mozilla, opera, phoenix block popups. The three latter are available on nearly any OS
- surf to quality websites only : google, nerd sites, tgp galeries, nearly any type of website has a version that respects the customers.
Problem solvedRe:Solutions (Score:2, Informative)
All the annoying flash and shockwave ads are gone as well. Bliss!
apt-get install adzapper
And then set your proxy. TaDa!
Does anyone have any URL's with examples of these (Score:2)
If we could find the Pop-Up Authors, we could... (Score:3, Interesting)
What is disconcerning about these ads that it's the same thing as if you were watching TV, and there was a product on the screen. By glancing at the product, your channel is changed to an Infomercial about that product. If it's anything like other ads, changing back to your channel will give you 4 PIP windows that support that product and other products by that company.
I thought it was bad enough when I saw the anti-pop scripting that existed on a site I went to. I still use my trusty Pop-UP Killer (may it rest in peace), and was rather annoyed to be denied access to a site based on my software choice.
I am seriously starting to wonder about the legality of pop-up ads and internet spyware. I don't have a problem with things that function like a TV commericial (banner ads, or Advertisement and Click-to-continue at Gamespy), but I despise it when someone else tries to determine what I should look at, and hate it even more when someone decides to put something I didn't authorize on my system.
I say we gather up all these pop-up authors in room. Tie them all together, and make them run Windows Me on 386s. After that, we'll just send them to Equitorial Guinea to be humanitarian workers.
Re:If we could find the Pop-Up Authors, we could.. (Score:2)
Doesn't some do that already? I recall cjb.net hosted sites doing this. Not because the hosted sites are evil of course, but because cjb.net adds some code to all of them.
In IE, you're asked if you wish to install a spyware (through a rather cryptic IE dialog about certificates for novice users) and then given the options OK and Cancel. I wonder how many "amateur surfers" click OK there.
Hmm? (Score:2)
Anyone with more success?
Bloody annoying... as any pop under ad (Score:3, Informative)
A favorite quote from the article: "There's an enormous segment of the population that are appreciating these ads". Eh, name one!
Re:Bloody annoying... as any pop under ad (Score:2)
Re:Bloody annoying... as any pop under ad (Score:2, Insightful)
link typo - but found something else (Score:3, Informative)
I went to epsn.com - another "search engine" owned by domain squatters. They call themselves "megago" this time.
However, it dropped down a Mozilla warning field!! Your only options are "Cancel" or "OK." Obviously, "OK" is the default, so if you hit return, off you go to some other website. Now that is a bunch of crap.grr..
Screenshot here [pbp.net]
It could be worse.. (Score:5, Funny)
It could be worse... They could make it so that your browser crashed whenever you went to certain webpa...
Oh wait. They already do that.
Nevermind.
Hrmm (Score:3, Insightful)
And I swear I'll break the fingers of anyone who makes that 'In soviet Russia....' joke.
Re:Hrmm (Score:2)
Why? All that the site is doing is sending an instruction to your computer, telling it to open a window/site/image etc. Instruct your computer to ignore this. You can place whatever restrictions you like on your computer!
Re:Hrmm (Score:2)
Re:Hrmm (Score:2)
U R TEH FUNNY! LOLOLOLOOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!
Re:Hrmm (Score:2)
One more reason (Score:4, Interesting)
This has started with things like disabling the blink tag and having pop-up blockers, and now we see that browsers should not allow certain actions to be triggered simply by a mouseover, and so on. Remember things like this the next time you see someone on bugzilla commenting about how the browser has to respect command X because it's in the standard!
Alternative browsers. (Score:2, Insightful)
Now I am not saying it's Mozillas fault, I'm sure alot of the offbeat layout problems are actually the designers screw up, but that doesn't change the fact that I cannot view the site. If adhering solidly to standardsmeans you cannot view more than just a few websites, then I guess I will have to use that "crappy" IE6. Another thing, I don't appreciate a piece of software that, after taking as long as it did to be released, makes my PC respond like a PII 400Mhz with PC66 RAM. God help you if you minimize Moz for awhile and do other things, you'd think it died when you restored the window! No other browser acts like that.
My point is, lets come up with solutions to this problem that are a bit more practical than "only use these browsers to view only these sites". Because that is NO solution.
Re:Alternative browsers. (Score:2)
Web ads, as they can be even more annoying, need similar rulings. Ads like these should be defined as harassment, and you should be able to file an information about that. The size, amount of scripting designed to circumvent (hey... where did I hear that phrase last?) user input or to annoy the user etc. should be strictly limited. It's very important that the USA receive such legislation because most commercial web sites with such extremely penetrant ads are US based.
Re:Alternative browsers. (Score:2)
Mozilla performing poorly on your system is a different matter. Have you tried Opera? The only reason I use Mozilla (well, Phoenix) today is because Opera 6 couldn't do the flashy DHTML stuff that some sites needed, and I *do* miss Opera's speed--however Opera 7 has just come out with vastly improved DHTML support... and a mode that makes any page look like it was rendered on a C64!!
Re:Alternative browsers. (Score:2)
this plus one click = no click? (Score:5, Funny)
How apt (Score:3, Funny)
How apt. Getting hit by all those popups can be very much like getting caught in a snowball fight.
No Problem (Score:2)
In addition, there's a good chance that this will piss off even Joe L. User sooner or later...
Hit 'em where it HURTS! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hit 'em where it HURTS! (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is a simple example of such (Score:5, Informative)
simple javascript, surprised no one has thought of this before.
Vote with your e-mail, not just your feet! (Score:4, Insightful)
As it is, we seem to be locked into an Arms Race of sorts - ad companies devise new ad format, ad blockers move to block them, repeat ad nauseum... Just blocking the ads will only attract the attention of the ad company, not the owner of the site displaying the ads.
guaranteed fix... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:guaranteed fix... (Score:5, Funny)
Whatever happened to smart advertising? (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason the ads get larger and more annoying, is that noone clicks on them - because no one WANTS those ads. This is *not* going to change by making them more annoying, only the oppsosite.
No, the advertising business does *not* understand Internet. Had they done that, they would have done a lot more targeted advertising, to people who WANTED it, and perhaps even used some effort to build up interesting web-sites related to the field they operated in.
Take, for example, a sports chain. Would it be as annoying if a sports chain co-financed a sports news site, or an outdoor activities site? There could be a prominent, non-intrusive link on the front page, pointing to "shop". This is only one example of things that would be less intrusive but perhaps more effective.
Instead of buying ads, buy a part of a well-used website, make the commercial section well accessible from the front page, but non-intrusive unless you REALLY want to see it.
Another thing they could do, once having bought access to an internet site, is participate in talkback fora. Teach a person that task, and make him inform about general topics AND advice about products. What makes me like and want to buy from a shop, is *service*, *well-informed personell* and willingness to help.
In other words - contribute to the community, make your name known through *that*, and I think one would benefit in the long run.
There might be better ways than my examples, they're just examples of ways *I* think are better than push-your-ads-in-the-face-of-too-many-people-stra
But no, the advertising business hasn't understood the media at all. It's all about pushing annoying ads in the face of unwilling customers, in the hope of catching *one* willing customer more.
Re:Whatever happened to smart advertising? (Score:5, Insightful)
Measuring that is hard, but the advertisers are idiots, so they don't know how to do the hard stuff, don't have the brains to figure it out, and aren't interested in doing the hard stuff in any case.
I have no respect for the advertising industry at all, if you haven't figured that out by now. :-)
Re:Whatever happened to smart advertising? (Score:3, Interesting)
Whether an ad is effective or not is not the advertising company's problem -- so long as the customer THINKS it is, and keeps renewing their ad contract.
It follows that the morons are the people *buying* these advertising contracts.
Re:Whatever happened to smart advertising? (Score:2)
Wasn't there recently (as in some months ago) a story about advertisers and stores getting together to create a humongous database that would tie together stuff like your IP address, the web pages you visit, stuff you buy online, etc?? As I recall, there was a rather vocal reaction to that...
If such a thing happened, it would be able to target any given PC with specific ads. The problem then is that those of us with multiple PCs behind NAT-enabled routers would almost certainly start getting ads aimed at other users in the house, probably with unwanted results... Imagine your wife being presented with that organ-enlargement ad you checked out last week, or guys getting feminine hygiene ads...
Hmmm, maybe there's a lawsuit lurking in there...
Ask not... (Score:2)
Blocked! (Score:2, Insightful)
I sit here and look at the ads on Slashdot while I'm typing away...I don't look for long and I'm not interested in what I've seen so far but the key part is that I am looking at them. If the ad popped up in my face or made me click links, etc I would immediately find a way to stop it and ignore whatever it says because I'm too irritated to care.
A way to fight back? (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally have been boycotting any company that uses a popup ad that I have run across. It doesnt appear to be doing much. But a boycott is something I can do forever while trying to get others to do the same.
though using up thier bandwidth sounds nice. theres gotta be a way to call for the download of a single
But that would be wrong too.
so boycotting it will have to be.
Ignore what I just wrote. And do not use it for evil purposes.
Re:A way to fight back? (Score:2)
Who needs spelling and punctuation?
Well I do.
Re:A way to fight back? (Score:2)
for (i=0, i null
or something like that.
Whoa slashcode screwed up my post (Score:2)
for (i=0, i<1000, i++)
wget someserver/somefolder/whatever.jpg > null
or something like that.
better: just slow down the connection (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A way to fight back? (Score:2)
As someone else suggested, throttle down the connection to a few bytes a second to maximize the hit on the server. I can think of at least one tool that work out-of-the-box, and it would be fairly trivial to write something to connect to a port and read bytes slowly...
Oh, sorry, did I say that out loud? Wups... :)
Re:A way to fight back? (Score:4, Interesting)
You need two programs to do that, bash [gnu.org] and wget [gnu.org]. You can write one (long) line to do just that:
shell$ for i in `seq 1 1000`; do wget --user-agent='Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.0)' --cache=off --referer=http://www.x10.com/products/ http://www.x10.com/images9/abkc_sidecam.jpg; rm -v abkc_sidecam.jpg; done [enter]
or you could even run something million times more effective, like this:
shell$ for i in `seq 1 1000`; do wget --user-agent='Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.0)' --cache=off --mirror -e robots=off http://www.x10.com/products/; rm -rfv *x10.com; done [enter]
Technically it's trivial, you can use Bash/wget, you can use Perl/LWP, etc. But the question is: wouldn't it be more evil than the popups themselves?
Re:A way to fight back? (Score:2)
I should not be forced to change browsers because they change ad styles.
Re:A way to fight back? (Score:2)
Those who think they shouldn't have to submit to the kinds of behavior they inflict on others rarely have a sense of humor about it.
2 Possible Solutions? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kind of like "Alice's Restaurant." If one of us does it, they'll think s/he's nuts and ignore them. If two of us do it....and so on. If several thousand people called them and voiced perfectly legit complaints about their method of advertising, and this went on to the tune of several thousand calls a day for a week or more, the costs would ad up and they just might feel they need to change their ways. It's a variation on some of the passive resistance tactics used in the South in the Civil Rights Movement.
Another possibility -- and IANAL, but I might be checking with a friend who is, would be to see if you can legitimately "sell" space and use of your computer. Specify that any banner ads are acceptable, but you are charging a company a fee of $100 per ad for each window that they open up on your computer without your requesting that window. Say you don't want their product, but you are offering them the chance to test their software and you will report all successful events to them when you bill them.
This is similar to the tactic a private citizen's group (I think they're called Private Citizen) has used to get many of their members off telemarking lists. They tell the marketers they may not call their list of numbers because their members don't want to buy their product. Then they make an offer for the company to test their telemarking system by calling their members, and the rate per test is $100 or more per instance. They also specify all a company has to do to accept this offer is to call their members. This has stood up in court!
Anyway, there's two suggestions. I think the first, if organized, like what people are doing to Ralsky for his spam, would have SOME kind of effect on Orbitz. I don't even know if the second one can be done legally.
What's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
And from the other side (Score:5, Insightful)
I develop apps for handheld devices (PDA's and phones), and this stuff is anathema to us. There isn't the screen real estate to show these fancy new fangled "windows", so everything appears in the foreground. Consequently, our browser pathologically blocks anything that might interrupt the user.
As handhelds become more popular for browsing (and it is doable even on teeny screens with the right display paradigms) this is going to become a bigger issue. If you think popups are bad on your 1600x1200 monitor, try dealing with them on a sub 320x240 screen. Yuk.
Intrusive ads... (Score:5, Insightful)
One would figure that most of these big-time players (who can afford to do something different than the small porn-sites popping up every day) would do it, if they want to keep the surfers there. Yet most of the time, the same annoying pop-up comes up each time I click on a link (e.g. next page).
One should think that these people would be smart enough to understand that after having seen the same lotto ad 5 times in a minute, and not even once clicked on it, that I don't care much for lotto. But no! The website in question will continually annoy me with the same intrusive add, time after time, with the only reasonable conclusion that I will leave the site, and surf somewhere else. Thus the company looses one potential web-surfer and ad-revenue income.
Damn it! Why are they so stupid? This is what cookies are for! They should track my browsing behaviour, find out what I'm interested in, and serve me those kinds of ads. At the very least, they should rotate the ads. And once they have my cookie, they should limit the number of times they will show me the same ad in a given period.
There is a reason that web-advertisements are not effective! Even when they have all the tools they need to track my browsing behaviour, profile my browsing habits, check which ads I click on, etc, they still keep pestering me with the same ad for the same product ten times in a minute! Even when they know the only outcome of this is that they loose the opportunity to sell me other stuff!
Obviously, I can take some steps myself for myself to get rid of the annoyance, such as pop-up blockers and so on. But that is not my point. What I do not understand is why even the big guys (content-providers) insist on giving the cheesiest advertisers the opportunity to drive customers away from their site. One should think that they would be smarter, but obviously they are not!
Crazy 'Net marketing paradigm (Score:2)
'Net marketers truly operate with a crazy paradigm. Why is it they think that by annoying people as much as possible, they get more customers?
Careful what you wish for... (Score:5, Funny)
Three words:
CowboyNeal bestiality ads.
I'm going to go scrub my brain with brillo now.
LOL (Score:3, Interesting)
This of course is BS, but the sadly uneducated tech. media of today write an article about.
X10 did this, I got sick of reading in Computer Weekly etc. how X10 became one of the most visited sites on the Internet.
Visted???? Visited my pointed haired a***.
Proxomitron (Score:4, Informative)
Hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it just me or could that last sentence be restated as: "We want to annoy you...but only a little bit."
God save us from clever programmers and clueless marketers.
--K.
http://www.doubleclick.net/pentagram.html (Score:5, Funny)
User: "What's this? My computer is too sl- AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!"
Doubleclick.net server: "Muhuhahaha..."
Suprised it's not worse (Score:3, Interesting)
Most effective online ads I've seen.... (Score:3, Interesting)
A small text-only non-obtrusive add that -- most importantly -- links to a comment section where potential clients can comment on the advertiser and, glory be, some rep from that company is there to answer questions and address criticisms.
For example, this ad and comment page for Johncompanies [kuro5hin.org] helped convince me to get a virtual dedicated host with them.
It also has the added benefit that the advertiser gets a real-life feel for how effective the ad is, and doesn't have to rely on some easily falsifiable clickthrough or impression report from the advertising company.
Now, if you're peddling shit, I'm sure this kind of instant-feedback type ad is not going to be your cup-of-tea. Another reason why I like these ads.
"Exceeds authorized access" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Surf over to tvguide.com....... (Score:2)
Re:This is new? (Score:2)
The mouseOver part is not to open the add, but to follow the link on the add. E.G. The pop-up opens, and as soon as you hover your mouse over the add (probably reaching for the close button), it whisks you away to it's destination (probably hi-jacking the artical you're reading), just as if you had click on the add.
Re:This is new? (Score:2)
Not much of a bother... I am already used to closing pop-unders by right-clicking on their task bar icon, and picking Close from the menu.
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:excellent promotion for alternate browsers (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm... Moz can't just block these kind of ads or all those javascript menus and other leditimate onMouseOver scripts that's quite common might stop working.
However, Moz could add a feature similar to "block images from this server", but "block scripts from this server". However, the scripts can still be on the actual web server which won't help much since it would again block *all* scripts from the server which we don't want.
A solution might be to tell Mozilla to "block scripts associated with images of this size".
That's the best I can think of now, since ads almost never change size and it's fairly unusual to have legitimate images in the same standardized size as advertisments.
Re:excellent promotion for alternate browsers (Score:5, Informative)
Whenever a window wants to pop up although you didn't click any link (so, most likely it was an ad), Phoenix will inform you that this has happened with a small exclamation mark in the left corner of the status bar.
Clicking on this exclamation mark will bring you to a window with more detailed information about the popup window, and the possibility to add this site to your list of sites that are allowed to open popups.
Sure, that goes with your warning that you might then also allow ad popups, while allowing the good, needed popups, but I think it does the job quite well. Had no problems with it.
Re:excellent promotion for alternate browsers (Score:2)
Then you wouldn't have to sit back and say "or how about matching originating host *and* image size?" you could just write the javascript for it yourself. (or someone else could, but the point is they wouldn't need browser-source-godliness)
Additionally, since there wouldn't necessarily be thousands of people using exactly the same method, it would be harder to write anti-anti-annoyance stuff.
Re:It Harasses People with Visually Disabilities (Score:2)
I really think this comprises harassment to PWD's.
Good point! I suspect, though, that the sites that are taking on this new breed of super-intrusive ad probably weren't too concerned with gaining the custom of visually-disabled user in the first place.
But we can use this as a lever to persuade other, more civil-minded sites not to succumb...
Re:It Harasses People with Visually Disabilities (Score:2)
Perhaps google could offer a new service that only indexes sites that are bobby & w3 safe? that would help us all enforce good behavior on the WWW.
In all seriousness, these mouse-over events are a major pain in the ass for consumers that have accessibility problems. I'll be glad to route their advertisement servers to null. Anyone got a robust set of names?
-- Multics
Re:It Harasses People with Visually Disabilities (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I was thinking of something like this recently. There are a few really common bits of recycled code on the web. If google would look at the JS on the sites they index and determine if it is one of the common scripts which intends to spawn a popup onload (and even worse if that popup has onmouseover JS) they could put a little frowny face or exclamation mark icon next to the listing in their search results. If you saw that flag then you could just open the Google cached page and not have to worry about the evil popups.
I user Mozilla and Phoenix so I'm unbothered by all of this but I think it would be a great service for google to offer. If it was controversial then maybe Google could launch it among several similarl new "flags" for search results. They already have page size. They could add to that "image intensive", "not screen-reader accessible", "plugins used", and any number of other useful bits of information that I'm sure they could develop the technology to harvest when they index sites.
--Asa
Re:Can they make it any worse? (Score:5, Funny)
Using a technique called the "kick through," advertisers can direct a person to another store if they simply kick their butt through the store entrance -- no walking is necessary.
"We're experiencing enormous success," said the company's VP of Consumer Compliance. "Excited customers just keep flying through the door."
The company's division of Consumer Compliance consists of only one employee, Lars Ulrich, former drummer of metal band Metallica and notorious anti-Napster advocate.
"BLOCKERS BAAAAAD! KICK THROUGH GOOOOOD!" exclaimed Ulrich as he pounded a confiscated MP3 player to pieces with his fists.
I'm surprised no one's thought of this... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The Next Frontier? (Score:3, Interesting)
No, that would be just too intrusive. Instead, I'm guessing that we'll see more of
Just like ads in magazines, or commercials on TV.