Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the growING-groWING-GROWING dept.
cardhead writes "The Washington Post is reporting that "studies found the larger, more intrusive ad formats were, on average, 40 percent more effective than the banner ad." It went on to say that ads that pop up between you and the page you're trying to read are the most effective."
usually true, but not always
by
bobalu
·
· Score: 3
That's usually what *I* say to people who complain about porn spam, but I was on SpeedVision.com from work the other day (NEVER visited ANYTHING remotely porn-like, just CNN and the NYTimes) and got a full-size pop-up (so to speak) from www.twistedhumor.com for PIE ("Practically Illegal Entertainment") which was flush with "erotic" fare. I sent SpeedVision an email saying "Hey guys, thanks for endangering my job".
Now I do what someone here suggested - I put the offenders in my host file and the pop-up goes nowhere.
I'm really not ready to bitch about any kind of web advertising at this point. I'm willing to accept annoying popups if it means that sites won't go out of business. I'd rather be hassled with an annoying flash popup than go without The Register or slashdot.
That said, if it gets to the point that it is more trouble to get rid of the ad (IE, autorespawning popups or something), I will not hessitate to complain. Just not yet.
Re:Annoying Banner Ads that get you busted.
by
gmhowell
·
· Score: 3
You are calmly surfing around, and suddenly a breathy female voice announces that she has a porn site so hot, that she can't tell anyone about it.
Anyone buy my wife in the next room, apparently.
One of the benefits of a deaf wife:)
-- Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:Annoying Banner Ads that get you busted.
by
Tackhead
·
· Score: 4
> The latest thing on the seamy side are banner ads with.WAV files attached.
Favorite quote:
"If I want your website to make sound, I'll lick my finger and rub it against my screen. Now fuck off while I delete the damn MIDI.DLL from my Nutscrape install."
Re:boycott popup companies
by
Tackhead
·
· Score: 5
> You can kinda-sorta opt out of X10 ads by going here. Although I believe the net effect is that it loads the ad, reads your optout
preference from a cookie, then immediately closes the ad window. Plus, you have to re-opt after 30 days. Better than nothing, I guess.
No, firewalling them, HOSTS-blocking them, or using Junkbuster to filter them out is "better than nothing".
Opting-out is not a solution, because it relies on the good behavior of your adversary.
But you can't trust your adversary -- because the reason you want to opt out is because they've demonstrated themselves incapable of abiding by the rules of polite society.
Which makes more sense:
1) Get down on your knees and beg "please, known-privacy-invader or annoying-ad-maker, track my movements for 30 days but promise that if you can continue to track me, you won't show me the ad until a month from now, when I'll have to jump through the opt-out hoop again?"
or
2) Blackhole them, so that (because you can't send packets to them, and they can't send packets to you) you're immune, no matter what the marketroids decide to do next, you remain unaffected.
By way of analogy: You leave your door unlocked, and someone walks in, shits on your living room rug, and leaves, with a note saying "Cool shit, huh? I'll leave some more samples next week!"
Do you lock your door? Or do you leave it unlocked, but tack up a note on the door saying "Thank you for not shitting on my rug today. Please continue to not shit on the rug for 30 days, because I just had it cleaned."
if they were really smart/crooked they would make the "close window" button actually a link to their site - "oops, i guess we made a mistake in programming"
And due to a security flaw in Internet Explorer, you actually can make a window without a real title bar. The exploit is to open a "full screen" window (which a web page shouldn't be able to do in the first place) and then resize it using additional javascript. I haven't seen any advertisers use this hole, but I have seen them make full-screen windows, so I won't be surprised if I see them create a "chromeless window" and make me read the ad to find the real "close" button.
A boycott only works if you tell them you are boycotting because of the ads or practice. Otherwise, they will only think that you have enough gadgets, stuff, or they just plain lost a customer.
Ads are only successful when they are annoying/intrusive. Its the like basic rule of marketing. When everyone does the same thing, it isn't annoying anymore and the marketeers have to switch.
For people browsing the web, its now simple to just ignore the top inch of a webpage, because its an ad. Pop-up's are the new annoyances. Give it a year, and people will be adept at ignorning them, and they'll have to find something more intrusive (maybe putting the add right in the middle of the sentence you are reading?). The point is, marketing evolves with humans. They'll always be annoying. Might as well get used to being annoyed (whatever happened to my right of happiness??).
Ads are only successful when they are annoying/intrusive. Its the *This comment brought to you by Zig Zag corporation* like basic rule of marketing. When everyone does the same thing, it isn't annoying anymore and the marketeers have to switch.
For people browsing the web, its now simple to *Got Milk?* just ignore the top inch of a webpage, because its an ad. Pop-up's are the new *New and improved! Try our messageboards. Slashdot loves you.* annoyances. Give it a year, and people will be adept at ignorning them, and they'll have to find something more intrusive (maybe putting the add right in the middle of the sentence you are reading?). The point is, *Copy kills music. Support the artists. Sincerely, RIAA* marketing evolves with humans. They'll always be annoying. Might as well get used to being annoyed *W*(*A*w*T*h*C*a*H*t* *e*O*v*U*e*T*r*:* * *h*S*a*U*p*B*p*L*e*I*n*M*e*I*d*N* *N*t*A*o*L* *S*m*!*y right of happiness??).
Re:possible bias in studies
by
nick_davison
·
· Score: 3
To be fair, who else would conduct the research?
I know it has become the norm to jump on the evil bias of large corporations but perhaps it's worth stopping for a moment to think about it.
If you're totally unrelated to the field, why would you bother to pay to conduct the research? Certainly, the Irish Llama Farming Federation may be completely unbiased but they also have absolutely no reason to pay for it.
Universities generally get flagged as being biased because they get paid by the large companies to conduct the research. Unfortunately, that's the business model of universities - perform research for cash or perform research to gain reputation so the next load of research will get cash. Much as it is nice to believe universities simply do research because it's for the good of mankind, the vast majority of it has to be paid for.
So, that leaves companies involved in the industry either doing the research themselves or paying others to as they're the only ones with enough of an interest to pay for it. What it all comes down to is there's no source that finds the research worth paying for that doesn't have some kind of a vested interest.
But does that really imply a bias? Why did DoubleClick and MSN conduct the research? The alleged bias is that they want to sell annoying adverts. Unfortunately, that's missing the point.
They want to sell [stuff] with advertising. If the most efficient means turns out to be paying Cowboy Neal to come and rub your back while whispering soothing messages - they want to know that so they can do it. This research was done to find out what pays them best - annoying ads - then they released that information because it gets people talking about them (more advertising).
There is plenty of bias in the world, certainly. A large part of it sits right here, moderating OhMyGodItsBias claims up to fives (must remember that for Karma Whoring). It's worth stopping and thinking though - in many cases big companies just do stuff because they want to find out an answer and make money from it, not because they want their existing answers confirmed and somehow justified.
If anyone thought about the fact that this 40% increase is due to accidentally clicking the popup when attempting to click the site the user visited instead. Advertising people can be such A**holes sometimes.
Re:possible bias in studies
by
Sarcasmooo!
·
· Score: 4
This seems like a good thread to ask if anyone else has noticed the Doubleclick ads on Slashdot. I've asked before and even tried an "ask slashdot" submission to no avail. It just find it very annoying that I have to block ads from a doubleclick server on my way to read stories like these. Out of all the sites that have banner ads, I would think that Slashdot would be one of the first to refuse to support Doubleclick's idea of ethical business practices.
Look who conducted the "studies" (4th paragraph)--the Interactive Advertising Bureau (a Web advertising industry trade group), DoubleClick, and MSN. These organizations have a vested interest in selling this type of advertising to advertisers. Shame on the Washington Post for not reporting this "research" more skeptically.
Look at what the Washington Post says about the studies: "...the research by three admittedly self-interested Internet publishing groups..." (3rd paragraph.) Shame on you for not reading the article more thoroughly.
A study shows that the bigger something is, the harder it is to miss it!
They proved this by hiding a needle in a haystack and comparing the chances you would find it and comparing the numbers with the numbers from trying to find cowboyneal in a similar haystack.
Slashdot Mirror
That's usually what *I* say to people who complain about porn spam, but I was on SpeedVision.com from work the other day (NEVER visited ANYTHING remotely porn-like, just CNN and the NYTimes) and got a full-size pop-up (so to speak) from www.twistedhumor.com for PIE ("Practically Illegal Entertainment") which was flush with "erotic" fare. I sent SpeedVision an email saying "Hey guys, thanks for endangering my job".
Now I do what someone here suggested - I put the offenders in my host file and the pop-up goes nowhere.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I'm really not ready to bitch about any kind of web advertising at this point. I'm willing to accept annoying popups if it means that sites won't go out of business. I'd rather be hassled with an annoying flash popup than go without The Register or slashdot.
That said, if it gets to the point that it is more trouble to get rid of the ad (IE, autorespawning popups or something), I will not hessitate to complain. Just not yet.
One of the benefits of a deaf wife:)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Favorite quote:
"If I want your website to make sound, I'll lick my finger and rub it against my screen. Now fuck off while I delete the damn MIDI .DLL from my Nutscrape install."
No, firewalling them, HOSTS-blocking them, or using Junkbuster to filter them out is "better than nothing".
Opting-out is not a solution, because it relies on the good behavior of your adversary.
But you can't trust your adversary -- because the reason you want to opt out is because they've demonstrated themselves incapable of abiding by the rules of polite society.
Which makes more sense:
1) Get down on your knees and beg "please, known-privacy-invader or annoying-ad-maker, track my movements for 30 days but promise that if you can continue to track me, you won't show me the ad until a month from now, when I'll have to jump through the opt-out hoop again?"
or
2) Blackhole them, so that (because you can't send packets to them, and they can't send packets to you) you're immune, no matter what the marketroids decide to do next, you remain unaffected.
By way of analogy: You leave your door unlocked, and someone walks in, shits on your living room rug, and leaves, with a note saying "Cool shit, huh? I'll leave some more samples next week!"
Do you lock your door? Or do you leave it unlocked, but tack up a note on the door saying "Thank you for not shitting on my rug today. Please continue to not shit on the rug for 30 days, because I just had it cleaned."
if they were really smart/crooked they would make the "close window" button actually a link to their site - "oops, i guess we made a mistake in programming"
And due to a security flaw in Internet Explorer, you actually can make a window without a real title bar. The exploit is to open a "full screen" window (which a web page shouldn't be able to do in the first place) and then resize it using additional javascript. I haven't seen any advertisers use this hole, but I have seen them make full-screen windows, so I won't be surprised if I see them create a "chromeless window" and make me read the ad to find the real "close" button.
The shareholder is always right.
Does that count the people who frantically aim for the X button and miss, inadvertantly rewarding these bastards for being so annoying?
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
You are calmly surfing around, and suddenly a breathy female voice announces that she has a porn site so hot, that she can't tell anyone about it.
Anyone buy my wife in the next room, apparently.
Donut
Fight Spammers!
Ads are only successful when they are annoying/intrusive. Its the like basic rule of marketing. When everyone does the same thing, it isn't annoying anymore and the marketeers have to switch.
For people browsing the web, its now simple to just ignore the top inch of a webpage, because its an ad. Pop-up's are the new annoyances. Give it a year, and people will be adept at ignorning them, and they'll have to find something more intrusive (maybe putting the add right in the middle of the sentence you are reading?). The point is, marketing evolves with humans. They'll always be annoying. Might as well get used to being annoyed (whatever happened to my right of happiness??).
--
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
If you're totally unrelated to the field, why would you bother to pay to conduct the research? Certainly, the Irish Llama Farming Federation may be completely unbiased but they also have absolutely no reason to pay for it.
Universities generally get flagged as being biased because they get paid by the large companies to conduct the research. Unfortunately, that's the business model of universities - perform research for cash or perform research to gain reputation so the next load of research will get cash. Much as it is nice to believe universities simply do research because it's for the good of mankind, the vast majority of it has to be paid for.
So, that leaves companies involved in the industry either doing the research themselves or paying others to as they're the only ones with enough of an interest to pay for it. What it all comes down to is there's no source that finds the research worth paying for that doesn't have some kind of a vested interest.
But does that really imply a bias? Why did DoubleClick and MSN conduct the research? The alleged bias is that they want to sell annoying adverts. Unfortunately, that's missing the point. They want to sell [stuff] with advertising. If the most efficient means turns out to be paying Cowboy Neal to come and rub your back while whispering soothing messages - they want to know that so they can do it. This research was done to find out what pays them best - annoying ads - then they released that information because it gets people talking about them (more advertising).
There is plenty of bias in the world, certainly. A large part of it sits right here, moderating OhMyGodItsBias claims up to fives (must remember that for Karma Whoring). It's worth stopping and thinking though - in many cases big companies just do stuff because they want to find out an answer and make money from it, not because they want their existing answers confirmed and somehow justified.
If anyone thought about the fact that this 40% increase is due to accidentally clicking the popup when attempting to click the site the user visited instead. Advertising people can be such A**holes sometimes.
This seems like a good thread to ask if anyone else has noticed the Doubleclick ads on Slashdot. I've asked before and even tried an "ask slashdot" submission to no avail. It just find it very annoying that I have to block ads from a doubleclick server on my way to read stories like these. Out of all the sites that have banner ads, I would think that Slashdot would be one of the first to refuse to support Doubleclick's idea of ethical business practices.
Look who conducted the "studies" (4th paragraph)--the Interactive Advertising Bureau (a Web advertising industry trade group), DoubleClick, and MSN. These organizations have a vested interest in selling this type of advertising to advertisers. Shame on the Washington Post for not reporting this "research" more skeptically.
A study shows that the bigger something is, the harder it is to miss it!
They proved this by hiding a needle in a haystack and comparing the chances you would find it and comparing the numbers with the numbers from trying to find cowboyneal in a similar haystack.
-PYves