New Ultra-Intrusive Pop-up Ads Introduced

CrashRide writes "According to this story at AdAge.com, Unicast is attempting to introduce a new on-line ad format that takes over the entire screen of the PC for about 15 seconds and must be closed by the viewer. "The ultra-intrusive new format opens when a user is on one page of a Web site and clicks a link to go to another page on the same site. Instead of seeing that new page, the user sees an ad that fills the entire screen.""

Sounds Like

[Apparition-X]

An absolutely fabulous way to absolutely positively guarantee that I will never visit that website again. Good luck with that one, guys...

"Ultra-Intrusive" my ass

[AssFace]

no seriously - like the subject says - until they develop a digital technology that invades my ass without my permission - then they best lay off prepending "Ultra" to that shit.
otherwise you leave yourself no room once they do develop ass prodding software in ads.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

thats the last straw!

[Durandel1020]

where's my copy of Lynx!

I can just see it...

[Shant3030]

While surfing around at work during some downtime and all the sudden you land on a questionable site and BAM a big vagina pops on your screen for 15 seconds...

You begin freaking out but that doesn't compare to the reaction your boss is going to have when he walks by...

4 Easy Steps...

[rasafras]

1. Think of a bigger and better ad.
2. Piss off everyone that sees the ad.
3. ???
4. Profit!!!

Don't the game sites already do this?

[thatguywhoiam]

I think it was IGN or one of the giant networks... not a pop-up, but an interstitial page that appears between pages.

Don't see the point of a pop-up. However I have set my Mac to emit a large belch every time it smacks down a popup for me. I like that.

Great, now I'll Need a TiVO to Browse the Web...

[27B-6]

..for me when I'm not sitting at the computer, so I can replay "my" browsing session without ads later on. Just delightful. I just can't wait until the whole world is super-broadband so these delightful adverts can feature full video and sound. Sigh.

It's too late for that...

[Jack_Frost]

RealMedia has cornered the market on "ass penetrating" software for the past several years.

Flickering, too?

[Shadow Wrought]

That's certainly one way to discourage traffic at your site. Maybe they should make sure it flickers through a whole bunch of colors really, really fast just to make sure that no one will come back. Oh yeah, and don't forget really loud obnoxious sound either. The advertising trifecta of annoyance!

Old News

[HughJampton]

These have been in common use in porn sites for years.

Of course, this is not through personal experence.

Of course.

Re:"Ultra-Intrusive" my ass

[Orblivion]

Nah, you have:

Ultra-Intrusive
Ultra-Wide-Intrusive
Ultra-Fas t-Wide-Intrustive
Ultra-Fast-Wide-Intrustive160
and coming soon:
Ultra-Fast-Wide-Intrustive320

I knew this day was coming.

[notque]

I've felt all along that at some point the internet would let me know that I wasn't needed anymore.

I will admit that it was subtle. I thought the pop-up ads were a plea for attention, but the concept of full screen ads is a direct hint that I am no longer needed.

It's time to curl up to an ex called sunlight.

Re:Unicast should be Unicastrated

[Anonymous Coward]

If I ever get one of these awful ads shoved in my face, I assure you I will not be coming back for seconds.

Hehe, yeah, I would wait at LEAST 2 to 3 seconds before coming back. ;)

Full screen advertizing

[SeanTobin]

I'm sure this is just a natural progression of advertizing and

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it will go away eventually as it is deemed ineffective. Unfortunately all the IE users are going to be stuck in the meantime. Another plus for mozilla.

Nothing new

[Lowen Na]

This is nothing new. Porn sites have had these full screen pop-ups for years. The worst ones are the ones with sound. Nothing worse than trying to masterbate quitely at night when one of these pop-ups take over your screan and plays at a volume load enough to wake up your roomate "Ooooohhhh! Hi, my name is Candy and I have a secret web site." That's intrusive.

Re:I can just see it...

[oddjob]

Porn sites already do this sort of thing.... I mean, I've never even heard of this sort of pop-up before...

Re:"Ultra-Intrusive" my ass

[Bob Hellbringer]

I've learned to be very quick with the alt-F4 keys, like a ninja.

It's your computer...

[moorg]

Pick your poison:

Phoenix/Firebird - blocked [texturizer.net]
Opera - blocked [opera.com]
Mozilla - blocked [mozilla.org]
Netscape - blocked [netscape.com]
IE - oh thats a feature.

Eep!

[cK-Gunslinger]

Let's hope no one combines this pop-up technology with.. THE LINK. (you know which one I'm talking about.)

Having that image full screen for a mandatory 15 seconds.. *shudder*

Indeed.

[American AC in Paris]

From the article:

"We believe that just like in television, the creative you build is what gets shown, the technology should not get in the way," said Allie Savarino, senior vice president for global marketing, Unicast.

Heh. I agree wholeheartedly on the point of technology not getting in the way--if what they do annoys me, I'll work around it, regardless of whatever technology they employ to keep me from doing so. The marketroids may not yet realize it, but computer geeks know how to use technology, too!

I'd say that this is like biting the hand that feeds you, but it's really more like biting the ass that flaps at you from a passing car's window. It's a really, really bad idea, the execution is almost guaranteed to be ugly, and in the end, the marketer's face is gonna be in a whole lot worse shape than the geek's ass...

One more time?

[Aldurn]

"...the creative you build is what gets shown,..."

Run that by me again?

Microsoft already has such an advert....

[gilesjuk]

It's a screen with a blue background with some text on it, can't find a way out of it though :)

Surely these adverts can be killed on Windows by pressing ALT F4 or CTRL ALT DEL then kill the window.

Re:Requested popup?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just hope lynx will allow them. it will suck
to have pop-up ads and not be able to view them
(Yes, I use lynx for almost everything).

Re:Nice one with no thought.

[unicron]

I completely agree. What advertising exec believes that annoying people is good for business? Somewhere someone had to think this up and decide it was a good business move. I'm flabbergasted why they think this way. As a consumer, I know what I want, and I know how to find it. I mean I'm grinding my teeth here completely devoid of any reasoning as to who would think this practice would yield positive results.

Here's a great story. The other day, I realized it was high time I ran ad-aware and cleaned up. It found about 30 spyware apps that had found their way on to my box and proceeded to clean them up. I rebooted. Nothing. It would load 2k all the way, but nothing would start. Rebooted safe mode, ran my boy Norton through there, no errors found. Reboot normal mode. Nothing. To date, I've NEVER had a 2k problem this bad. Visual C++ programming, 3d studio, a ton of other high profile, system-hogging programs, and nothing this bad, ever. I'm 100% sure it had something to do with the spyware removal. Something deliberate and malicious. The basic, underhanded message seems to be "wipe our spyware, we'll make your machine unusable"..

So..reinstalled 2k, updated, patched, drivers installed..about 2 minutes into use..messenger service message comes in..oh fuck, forgot to block that..the message is an ad..telling me I can, for $29.99, buy a program that will BLOCK MESSENGER SERVICE ADS. At this point I'm so full of rage that I'm punching the cat. I don't know what to be more furious over..the delivery method they employed..or the fact that they're charging $29.99 to bust out at most 10 clicks of a mouse..I send them a STRONGLY worded letter..and offered them my "change your background image" software for $49.99 and that I'd throw in my "boot up sound changer" for free..still no reply.

This was ours..all of this..before they took it and raped it and bastardized it. This was our geekly little hobby and now I'm ashamed of it. I question if it's even worth fighting for.

Imagine "The Link" Being Displayed Like This

[Nintendork]

Link [catholicninjas.org]

Wouldn't that be a nightmare?

-Lucas

Re:"Ultra-Intrusive" my ass

[NanoGator]

"Nah, you have:
Ultra-Intrusive
Ultra-Wide-Intrusive
Ultr a-Fast-Wide-Intrustive
Ultra-Fast-Wide-Intrustive 160
and coming soon:
Ultra-Fast-Wide-Intrustive320"

Anybody else expecting the phrase 'with wings' to appear in that one?

Re:I can just see it...

[doorbot.com]

While surfing around at work during some downtime and all the sudden you land on a questionable site and BAM a big vagina pops on your screen for 15 seconds...

You begin freaking out but that doesn't compare to the reaction your boss is going to have when he walks by...

If you work for a porn site, do you get reprimanded for downloading porn at work?

Maybe in a situation like you described, you'd actually get a raise!

<rimshot>

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(pun intended)

Re:I can just see it...

[rzbx]

"I've never even heard of this sort of pop-up before"

You should try viagra.

Re:pop up killlers

[malraid]

Too bad, my browser has no popup killer. But I don't think I need it, since I use "$telnet slashdot.org 80"

Re:I can just see it...

[PhilipMatarese]

While surfing around at work during some downtime and all the sudden you land on a questionable site and BAM a big vagina pops on your screen for 15 seconds...

Almost happened, I just looked at the demo gallery for unicast.com, and a Volvo popped up on the screen.

Re:So?

[broter]

Do they hire some guy to force you to stare at ads in between articles?

Yeah, they used to tie up Vinny and throw him on my porch every Sunday. He was a really nice guy with a real talent for breaking arms and hammering toes when I skimmed passed the Classified section or glanced pass one of those ad boxes on the bottom right.

Unfortunately, he suffered from splinters and abrasions after the rainy seasons when my wooden porch fell into disrepair; and, when the new paper boy started throwing him in the cactus planter, he put in his two weeks.

For a while it was kinda lonely and pointless reading the sunday paper. I kept reading from article from article until I completely forgot to focus on the "New Paint for Your Clunker" and "Vaginal Rejuvination" ads.

I hear they've hired a guy named Guido to take his place, so looks like I can finally get back to the consumer indocrination I agreed to by purchasing a paper.

Re:This is wonderful

[skillet-thief]

Why do people seem to assume that IE is incapable of blocking popups?

My personal kneejerk reaction is that MS has some vested interest in allowing popups. While this seems plausible, I haven't figured out all the intermediate steps, between "1. Allow popups" and "8. Profit!".

Re:Unicast Superstitial - Slashdot em here!!

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Ironic that the MSN butterfly guy, supposedly the protector of MSN Internet users, is the content of the first advertisement demo on the site. Not that this surprises me, of course.

Will it never end?

[flacco]

What are they going to do next - send a dancing circus clown to your house to punch you in the fucking face?

What will it take to rid the planet of these advertising scum?

Re:Nice one with no thought.

[EvilNTUser]

"This was ours..all of this..before they took it and raped it and bastardized it. This was our geekly little hobby and now I'm ashamed of it. I question if it's even worth fighting for."

This is exactly what I've been feeling lately. Good submission.

I realize "I agree"-posts like this one are of little value, but still... good submission.

Intrusive Ad Business Model

[serutan]

1. Do something really obnoxious to people who surf your site
2. ??
3. Profit

Makes sense to me.

Re:Nice one with no thought.

[Valdrax]

At this point I'm so full of rage that I'm punching the cat.

Wow. I'm not really sure whether I hope that's a euphamism or that its not a euphemism!

Re:Advertizing == teh SATAN!

[fubar1971]

Is it really asking too much to insist that we not be bombarded with advertising everywhere we look, everywhere we listen?

Well You could become a hermit and live in a log cabin in the woods. Unfortunately without the technology around to bombard you with loud annoying commercials or intrusive pop-ups, how would you know where to get the best supplies for making pipe bombs, or the best type writer to use to type up your Manifesto. Not to mention the best place to get a cool hooded sweat shirt and sun glasses for you Police sketch artist portrait.

Re:pop up killlers

[fubar1971]

I've seen this sort of tactic in pop-ads for at least a year now if not a lot longer.

I've seen it around a lot longer than that, but I've been surfing pr0n a lot longer than a year :)

Re:I can just see it...

[Arc04]

If a big vagina popped up on my screen for 15 seconds, I don't think it would be the only thing popping up in the vicinity :D

Funny, nothing happened.

[doublem]

Oh yeah, I switched to Opera to block shiat like that. :)

Spyware?

Crap that crashed Mozilla and IE?

HA!

I fart in your general direction.

Re:Unicast should be Unicastrated

[moc.tfosorcimgllib]

My first child has just been renamed to Dion.

Re:pop up killlers

[Sven The Space Monke]

Not everyone frequents porn sites...especially free porn sites.

True. The rest of us use Kazaa :-)

Re:commit yourself to being ad-free

[bigbadwlf]

# avoid points programs does every store have to have a points card now? don't play! the "savings" and bonuses you reap do not represent a decrease in the retailer's profit but, rather, an increase in the median price of services and products offered. the primary purpose of the campaigns is to gather data on you for future marketing and advertising campaigns. don't participate.

I hate those. When they ask me if I have one of their stupid points cards, I want to respond with something like, "Is it too much to ask to just pay for my stuff and get out of here?"
I think their idea is to fill our wallets with their crap cards so there's no room for cash... they'll gladly take it off our hands.

Re:"Ultra-Intrusive" my ass M$

[rock_climbing_guy]

No, it's

Intrusive 286
Intrusive 386
Intrusive 3.0
Intrusive 3.1
Intrusive 95
Intrusive 95 OEMSR1
Intrusive 98
Intrusive 98SE
Intrusive ME
Intrusive 2000
Intrusive XP

XP stands for eXtra Penetrating.

Re:Opera rulez!

[revmoo]

Thank you!

I just downloaded and installed this browser, it's great, it has all of mozilla's great features, but doesn't load slowly, and it uses IE's rendering engine, so pages look right :)

Re:Ultra160-Intrusive

[Anonymous Coward]

what's a vibrating terminator used for?

Re:commit yourself to being ad-free

[fireklar]

This reminds of me this: http://maddox.xmission.com/junk_the_junk.html