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?"
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?
Hrmm (Score:3, Insightful)
And I swear I'll break the fingers of anyone who makes that 'In soviet Russia....' joke.
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: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:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
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: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: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.
This reminds me of an infamous troll! (Score:1, Insightful)
It was something like this
<p > onmouseover="alert('You are a loser');this.href='http://www.goatse.cx'">Large chunk of text to make sure you get kicked through!</p>
That troll was a classic!
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.
Re:Bloody annoying... as any pop under ad (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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.
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.
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.
better: just slow down the connection (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easy Fix.... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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. :-)
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!
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:2, Insightful)
Oh, enlightment is to be found in the use of libre software. Since this is Slashdot, let me tell you about the wonderfulness of software libre. A concept so wonderful, everyone needs to understand it to be a part of the Slashdot in crowd. English does not even have a word which can truly grasp its wonderfulness! A concept do daring, speaking in languages which do have a word for libre give you funny looks (or have been exposed to a Linux fanatic before, so know what you are talking about) and correct your bad Spanish.
More to the point, one piece of software libre called Mozilla [mozilla.org] allows one to set up images so they only cycle through their animated loop once. Mozilla also has options to stop JavaScript from opening up unwanted windows.
Since it is software libre, it is also software gratis, which means you do not have to pay anyone to have this program. Of course, Mozilla has a way of not working on JavaScript-heavy sites which are not correctly debugged (read: Written by people that feel that the whole world uses IE. Or should); I can not, for example, sign for classes online using Mozilla. However, for most browsing, it is just like IE. Except without popups. Or non-stop animated GIFs. Now, if only the Mozilla team made an open source flash player...
IN closing, the deep question is: What does libre mean? Well, we could tell you, but we need to make being part of the in crowd a little more difficult. Or just tell people that their user ID needs to have four digits or less to be, like, totally cool dude.
- Sam
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: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.
Re:Easy Fix.... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:better: just slow down the connection (Score:2, Insightful)
I am sure it would be trivial to write a shell script to make wget recursively websuck the offending domain using 20% of your bandwidth and delete the files after every cycle, thus providing a permanent and hardly noticable to yourself annoyance for the company concerned.
'I'o innocento' 0:)
" ... Damn it! Why are they so stupid? ... " (Score:1, Insightful)
It's not stupidity that drives marketers to do such things. It's desperate greed. In case you haven't noticed there's still a lot of competition, on the 'net, for 'net surfers' attention. Everyone knows how to draw interest to one's products: provide entertaining/interesting content to attract your target market with how to buy links cleverly placed within the content. That is, sell by entertaining your target market. The difficulty is that this is not easy. Any relatively intelligent idiot (oxymoron? Nah!) can create an annoying pop-up/under ad if he/she is greedy enough. But, it takes inspiration and hard work (read genius) to create something interesting and entertaining.
Re:Intrusive ads... (Score:1, Insightful)
I do not think a perfect tracking system would be the answer... would you really like BubbleChick to know what pages you have surfed, what interests you have and how long you spent looking at banner X (and page X)?
Web Ads are not effective because I can consume more of them than of any other type of advertising and still buy nothing they offer. They are no less annoying if they speak of things I would like to have. If I were to buy new hardware, I would not click on a banner "Buy Palladium PC for $1" but rather read a good article with detailed tests and then go shopping where I will get the stuff for reasonable prices.
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