Commercials Come To The Net (After This Word)

ctwxman writes "Say it isn't so. Full-motion commercials, when you go to click off a page, are coming to a website near you! The New York Times (standing in a bathtub with an electric iron required) reports: "Beginning tomorrow, more than a dozen Web sites, including MSN, ESPN, Lycos and iVillage, will run full-motion video commercials from Pepsi, AT&T, Honda, Vonage and Warner Brothers, in a six-week test that some analysts and online executives say could herald the start of a new era of Internet advertising." Unicast, the company responsible, says the ads will play regardless of pop-up blocking. "The only format that loads completely before it is allowed to play, the Full Screen Superstitial is guaranteed to play perfectly for every consumer, every time." I work in TV where commercials pay the freight. Is this so wrong on the net? It's not what we're used to, but maybe we're asking for more than is reasonable. I just don't know." I think I hear the whip swinging back, but harder ...

Konquerer for me, please

[77Punker]

Good thing Konquerer lacks compatibility with everything odd! I don't even get half the ads that are on web pages just through the browser's compatibilty problems, though important content almost always makes its way through.

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[account_deleted]

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My HOSTS file is gonna get reallllly big.

[stephenisu]

now I just need a utility to send a nastygram to the admin of whatever domains do this. I am already getting yelled at for bandwidth issues with my ISP (distro torrents)

Still can't past the registration

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in the tub and holding the iron, but I'm still getting the damn registration screen. Perhaps I should eat some cookies. Might that help?

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[account_deleted]

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Hosts file, yet again

[jgaynor]

As was mentioned earlier today . . .

My hosts file is already open and waiting to be editted. Lets see how "guaranteed" your advertising is then.

Re:Konquerer for me, please

[tgrigsby]

That's not a bug. That's a feature.

Next: television-free televison

[beatbox32]

Jeez, next thing you know, these corporations will try to convince consumers to purchase a new DVR with a 'content-skipping' feature so we can enjoy all of their commercials without interruption. The future's so bright...

Boycott is the best method

[coolmacdude]

I will refuse to visit any of these sites.

If ESPN does it, I'll get my sports info from CBS Sportsline. If CNN does it, my default news page will be Fox, etc.

If MSN does it, my default internet portal will be... oh wait I guess there's no problem there.

So...?

[CGP314]

"It's TV, without the television," said John Vail, director for digital media and marketing for Pepsi-Cola North America, a unit of PepsiCo.

What the hell does Mr. Vail think TV is short for?"


--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor? [colingregorypalmer.net]

American Weblog in London [colingregorypalmer.net]

Re:Off-beat browsers

[Anonymous Coward]

so people that don't choose to use Windows aren't consumers??

Fucking Microsoft zombie idiot fuckheads.

Re:Expensive

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Like here in New Zealand? Broadband is still a fairly rare beast, and when it is available, it's 20c per MB thank you very much.

That's right, would you believe this, I have to go stick coins in a machine down the hall regularly to get broadband, otherwise I get disc

Re:Guaranteed?

[Thuktun]

And what's the guarantee? Free week's worth of ads every time someone hits your page with lynx? This guarantee business is baloney from so many points of view.

This type of guarantee is clearly more of a threat than a promise.

Re:Boycott is the best method

[prockcore]

If CNN does it, my default news page will be Fox, etc.

Oh the humanity!

userContent.css

[ewg]

applet, embed, iframe, object { display: none !important };

Wonderful!

[Cytlid]

I work for an ISP, I can see getting *tons* of calls for this. "How do I stop these commercials?" ... "You can't if you run widows. You'll have to install Linux."

Who said this wasn't the year of desktop Linux?

Re:Expensive

[Hes Nikke]

No one is standing there with a gun forcing you to go to web sites that have ads.

please tell that to the person with a gun standing behind me! /me clicks over to MSN [msn.com]

Somewhere, an ad exec is clubbing a baby seal

[KU_Fletch]

Boss: Bad news gang. It turns out people and blocking and closing our popup ads. They're disabling Flash and Active-X because of our overlay ads. What are we going to do? Drone 1: Stop annoying them with those ads and go back to unobtrusive banners? Boss: You're Fired! Who's got a GOOD idea Drone 2: How about we hijak their entire monitor, makign sure they can't even begin to think about closing our ads? Bross: That's brilliant. Drone 2: Then we can kick them in the balls. Bross: Brilliant! Anything else Drone 2: Well, I have been kicking around this idea involving armies of parachuting advertising monkies... Bross: Great, leave a memo on my desk. I've got a tee time with Gates and Eisner at 2:30.

Re:Before you complain...

[rampant mac]

"Sounds like the 80's when it was, [...]"

Don't you mean: "Knowing is half the battle!/Snorks!/Munchichi, Munchichi, oh so soft and cuddly!/Fah laaa, lah la la lah lah!/Where's the Beef?/Keep the hot side hot, the cold side cold!/Encyclopedia Btritannica (I think I made that abundantly clear...)/Zoinks! Foiled Again!/And I'll form... THE HEAD!/Alllviiiiinnnn!/By the power of Greyskull!/Cut that jibba-jabba!/Go Go Gadget Go!/Transform and Roll Out!/Wonder Twins Powers... Activate!/Hey Yo, Mall-o-ry!"

Free Tech Support.

[Fruny]

You don't understand. They are really volunteering to come personally and tweak your linux installation until it works perfectly.

Gone are the times when you would be replied "we don't support linux" - they guaranteed it.

Re:Deja Vu?

[Mr. Slippery]

Oh man, the guy who invents way to block these is going to make a fortune!

Uninstall Windows Media Player. Or better yet, uninstall Windows.

Can I have my fortune now? Preferably in unmarked twenties and hundreds. Thanks.

Unicast?

[iammaxus]

Are they going to change their name to multicast when IPv6 comes along? Seems to me that unicast is kinda bad name for such a bandwidth hogging application.

Re:"the start of a new era"

[cK-Gunslinger]

I like this quote from the guy from Pepsi

"Yes, it's intrusive," he said. "But I think customers will like it, because it will be so far superior to anything they've seen online."

To me, isn't that kinda like saying:

"We are going to shove red-hot pokers up our customers' asses, but I think they will like it, because it will be far hotter than anything they've ever had up their asses."

Re:Expensive

[phaggood]

> apparently you've never heard of cable television. Or been to a Google-plex movie theatre recently, or purchased a Disney DVD with ff-disabled ads eating up, oh, the first 1/2 hour of the damned things (which is 1/2 the reason that, if i do buy a Disney movie, it's on cassette). Recently I was at the end of a AAA call when I locked my keys in the car and after she told me my service code the operator recited a commercial! I was standing in freezing cold weather trying to make out all of her words in the howling winds and I wasn't sure if she was finished, and after she repeated it I was floored that she was doing some advertising at the end of my cellphone call! What next? As you come to, the paramedic leans in close to you and says, "This defibrullation has been brought to you by...."

Re:Wrong perspective

[iminplaya]

"If I start getting commercials on the internet I will spit."

Like farting and peeing, just don't do it into the wind...

Re:Expensive

[brianosaurus]

Dude. The ad needs a captive audience. The defibrulator should show the ads before, and perhaps between, shocks.

Re:Hmmm... *Any* User?

[zcat_NZ]

To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail]

I was hoping to be able to view your new advertising, however it appears to use Flash and I get the following error from Macromedia.com:

> We are unable to locate a single Web player that best matches your platform and operating system.

If you could please tell me where I can get the flash plugin for Mozilla 1.5 under FreeBSD, I would be most appreciative. Thank You.

Bruce Kingsbury.

Re:Expensive

[kinzillah]

At that price, Its almost cheaper to buy windows than to download linux.

Re:Wrong perspective

[trippinonbsd]

What about lynx? I seriously doubt the ablity for this full motion advertisement scheme to work for `play perfectly for every consumer, every time'. Then again if i use *nix am i a consumer?

Re:Wrong perspective

[rat7307]

They will make it compulsory to have aalib installed... :-)