Slashdot Mirror
Salon Goes For Annoying Jump-Through Ads
macsforever2001 writes: "It looks like Salon is going to try to ram ads down our throat in a very offensive manner according to this Yahoo article. Now they won't directly link to articles, but instead link to a Web Ad which then links to the article you want. I think Slashdot needs a new category just for Web Advertising." Not as if web ads weren't already becoming more annoying, but the companies that run Web ads are probably as interested in ads that people don't hate as you are in not seeing the awful ones. What can we tell them?
MSNBC does this to some of their sections. Not a big deal to me. If you don't want to see them subscribe to Salon.
Some way or another, content has to be paid for.
Just start using lynx as your default browser.
Steven V>
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
This bothers me less than popups. They have to do something for revenue. I can live with it.
Salon is in financial trouble. They started a premium service to get more money, but still offer a lot of content for free. I guess if more people subscribed as premium members, this would not be an issue. If they need to do this to stay afloat, then that's their business. Salon is a great site, and I'm personally willing to put up with a few ads. I just hope they keep going.
``It's less intrusive than the pop-unders. It's not creating a new window and it gives the consumer a choice. They can click it and go to the story,'' said Jupiter Media Metrix analyst Marissa Gluck.
And the other choice, presumably, is to utter a hearty "fuck you" and never go back to salon.com again?
Look... here's what web ads come down to: if it's something like a pop-up ad that keeps moving when you try to close it, that's simply not ok. But if nothing sneaky is going on -- and it's not here, because you're just detoured through an extra page on Salon's site -- we may not like it but there's no reason to say that the company is doing something wrong. Salon started a subscription service as a way to allow people to pay for the otherwise-free content they were getting before. Obviously not enough people are contributing their fair share and more drastic measures had to be taken. If you don't like it, don't use Salon's bandwidth or read the stories that they pay people to write.
Salon has been trying to find new ways to make money, the jump-through ads are much less annoying than the pop-ups, IMHO. Not much different than commercials on TV. You have the option to subscribe to Salon if you want to avoid them, just as you have the option to subscribe to HBO if you'd like commercial-free programs (though HBO does not offer a commercial channel, so you either pay up or do without the Sopranos...)
Everything can't be free. I'd rather have the click-through ads than pop-ups. Actually, I like Salon enough that I bucked up the yearly subscription fee, though it really doesn't offer so much more than the regular Salon.
Deal with the ads, stop bitching or don't be surprised when Salon goes under like so many other Webzines.
It's worth it, gets you access to additional features, and you aren't annoyed by ads. As a side benefit, you support one of the best sources of online journalism.
If you only read the occasional article, then don't bother, but don't complain about the ads. If you read all the time, then why haven't you signed up yet?
As evidenced by their 'Salon Premium' and in-page ads. It's a shame, too, because all the other good editorial sites are almost all virulently conservative.
While I hate to see it go, I think we're going to see Salon go the same way IGN did.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I follow the like to the Yahoo! page talking about bad advertising tactics, what happens? One of them damn X-10 camera adds pops-up. Geesh...
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
but if you reject cookies (as I do from Mozilla) then you get stuck in a loop at the advert. The "continue on" link just spits the ad back up. Not nice at all.
There were ads.
Then there were filters.
Then there were pop up ads, pop-under ads, and ads that pop up when you close the browser.
Then new filters were devised for these as well.
Now we have jumpthrough ads.
What we have is a continuing battle, geek against geek, for control of the eyes of the content-hungry Netizen.
Of course, all arms races are a bad thing. Eventually, this one will lead to more and more intrusive advertising and more and more destructive anti-advertising.
The solution is to de-escalate the arms race.
How do you do that?
Well, stop filtering the ads. Read them and click the ones that you are interested in as compared to the other ads.
Even if you are not interested in any of them, click the least offensive.
This will, eventually, lower the overall offensiveness level of advertising while helping to provide ad revenue to some of your computer-industry brethren out there.
Remember, advertising is a legitimate industry. Let's minimize the amount of social control it has over our lives by treating it as such.
Goat sex free since 2001
Online is a different medium than TV or radio- the same rules don't necessarily apply. Especially when most of these ads seem to be for things like dry cleaning a cat, or other nonsense. I don't see Pepsi or Coke popping up all over, but even Yahoo pops up that damn X10 camera ad. I feeling is that eventually online content will split into 2 groups once a good micropayment system is worked out, the free and spam-filled side, and the pay but no ads side. Don't get me wrong, I love free content, but I can only see advertising get worse until large groups of people are willing to fork over some cash to _not_ see more ads.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
For me, the most effective ads are those that are entertaining/interesting regardless of the product and/or about something I want more info on... this applies to billboards, televison and the web.
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
What really puzzles me is that these intrustive ads clearly do anger readers, and don't seem to work very well...yet this arms race of distracting ads continues unabated. There is at least one example of really effective web advertising, however, and that's Google's. Heck, they're even considering an IPO. Here's why it works:
- Their ads are entirely textual and unobstrusive, so I don't have to hotwire my brain to tune them out. They're easy to ignore, so I can pay attention to them when I want.
- They are right next to the content I care about (search results), but don't interfere with it by creating a visual distraction or a longer download time for the page. So I don't mind them being there at all.
- Above all, the ads are sometimes for things I actually care about. Google matches ads with searches, and so I actually have some incentive to pay attention to them.
The lesson, I think, is that ads have to be inobstrusive and useful. Why aren't more companies picking up on this?this is what porn sites do all the time - it's nothing new - it's just interesting to see a mainstream site do it. (but wil a mojority of web-traffic being porn i guess porn is the majority, isn't it? ).
either way - if you read salon that much you probably ought to caough in a few dollars as it is.
-shpoffo
As a web site owner, I love this. You get it for free so accept the ad.
But will their readership tolerate it? Probably not, as most people are already feeling harassed by popups. I predict this will only hasten their demise.
Harassing customers != good business practice
Dumdeedum... downloaded Mozilla 0.9.4....
Added "user_pref("dom.disable_open_during_load", true);" to prefs.js.... restart...
Ooo. The web without any onload pop-ups or pop-under adverts. X-10? Who? Surfing actually seems pleasant again.
But my solution for click-thru advertising is simply to get my content elsewhere, and wait for this upsurge in irritating adverts to die down. And it will. Advertising drives money to content providers, but if the adverts drive the readership down, the money stops coming into the advert companies from their clients. There's a point of equilibrium that most print magazines have found, and it's just a matter of time before that balance settles down in the online-content world.
I think not...(*poof*)
(Copied shamelessly from here in the hopes that some of you might read it before forming an opinion. Emphasis, where used, is mine.)
About our new ads
A note to readers
Sept. 24, 2001 | Today Salon introduces a new kind of advertisement -- a full-screen message that will show up in your browser when you click on a link, and will play briefly before moving you on to the page you requested. (The ad should only show up once per day per user, unless you have turned "cookies" off in your browser.)
As most of you know, this has been a difficult year for advertising-supported publications, online and off. Like many other companies we've responded by trying to innovate for our advertisers -- so we can remain financially healthy and continue to serve you. As with any innovation, we expect to learn from our experience over time, to keep what works and drop what doesn't.
We know that some Web users find this sort of ad intrusive. But before you send in that irate e-mail, we ask you to consider that the content you come to Salon for -- independent-minded, thought-provoking, unavailable elsewhere -- does not come free.
Today we have two ways to support our writers, editors and the rest of the staff that keeps Salon coming to you every day -- through advertising and through subscriptions. If sitting through one five-second ad before you can read an article is simply too much of a delay for you, we offer a Salon Premium subscription as a different way to support Salon -- you get access to exclusive content and the option to turn off most ads on the site. (For more information, click here.)
Our intention, as always, is to bring you the most intelligent, provocative, fearless coverage of news and culture available anywhere.
Scott Rosenberg
Managing editor
The whole premise of these intrusive ads is wrong.
Intrusive ads in TV is acceptable because we are just sitting there like bumps on a log and it give us a break to go do something. We know the commercials are going to last a couple minutes and we expect it. Digging deeper we all understand that those commericals paid for the content.
Web surfing is entirely different. We are interacting with the computer to find information. Basically we are in control and are most likely actively searching, or discussing and not just trying to be passively entertained. We want to find our information, or post our comment and be done with it.
Advertisers are having a tough time on coming up with a creative way to advertise on the net since their previous method (banners) had limited success, they are falling back on what they know. But what they know is a method designed for a passive medium and not an interactive one.
The one thing they have going for them, is that like TV, web advertising for the most part is targetted at groups and not so much individuals. Slashdot is going to run tech related ads. TechTV (the TV channel) is going to run tech related commericals. Generally, the specific group you are looking for will see your ad. They need to expand on that without taking it to the extreme.
One option: large ads that are not intrusive. I wouldn't mind if an ad takes the top portion of my screen. I do mind if though some fancy javascript, it follows me as I scroll, or randomly appears or is in a fixed frame. Just give me the ability to decide whether or not your products are right for me and let me continue on with the content. If you're watching TV and you don't want to see the commercial, you see what else is on or you go to the fridge or bathroom. Basically you can decide what's relevant. Advertisers are trying to take the position that they know what's relevant and you just need to spend as much time as possible looking at their ad and eventually you will buy.
With the economy the way it is, consumers are being smarter, and web-users are getting smarter about the products they purchase. I guess I'd say that the advertising isn't failing, it's the products being offered.
I'd rather deal with them then some other popular types of advertising. Several people already mentioned the flash animations that are becoming popular. I find those horrid, for it's like trying to read a book and having the words obscured. I want to know where the ads are and choose whether to look at them or not, not have them crammed down my throat. Any ad that obscures text automatically gets my negative attention.
Rant mode off for a second, I think jumpthroughs are actually good in that it gives a solid measurement of who's looking at an ad. You can use jumpthrough instead of click-thru metrics to set ad rates, much like in TV or radio or print. I would rather see online advertising go that route rather than getting more annoying in the hopes of a clickthru that won't happen (like those darn flash anims).
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
Even for less well targeted readerships, look at newspaper ads for ideas of things that work. Announce a sale for your online store, mention a new product, or give people some other reason to follow the link! Make pretty, flashy ads, and people will tune them out. Make informative, intriguing ads, and people will follow.
Also, one more suggestion: make an advertiser index, like magazines do. Sometimes an ad will look appealing, but you don't have time to follow up on it just then. Later on, you can't find the ad again, so the site doesn't get the hit it deserves.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Stop reading salon.com.
Paying them to become a premium member to make the annoyances go away is rewarding them for bad behavior.
Don't get me wrong, I liked salon.com's reporting, it was quite good. But when they shifted to being essentially a pay service, that's when I stopped reading them.
There's a distinctive difference between "it's no longer free, but we'll let you sample some of the articles" and "we're going to irritate the heck out of you until you pay up and make us stop." Unlike most sites, they didn't distinguish between which articles required premium access and which didn't (although I just looked and sometime recently they started doing that). They had many irritating editorials basically accusing their readers of being deadbeats. And all along the attitude was increasing belligerent, "start subscribing or we'll make the ads more annoying."
There are other good news web sites, with better advertising/funding models, like economist.com. They'll get my money if they ask nicely. Salon.com started trying to extort it, so I left.
No, I don't want Salon to go away--*something* has to remeain to make slashdot look like serious journalism.
Then again, maybe I shouldn't be so harsh--I've never heard any other editor admit that they used a single source, knowing of a prior perjury conviction and an axe to grind against the target of the story, and explain it away on the basis "it's ok because republicans are evil." . . .
[yes, I really did see this in an interview on one of the cable news channels after they ran one of their lap-dog pieces trying to refocus attention during the impeachment.]
So they make you read advertising on the way--the content of an ad is less biased and more truthful, anyway . . .
hawk
What's most important about this is only obvious if you're a regular Salon reader - it's overall the best news site on the Web. Especially for politics and consumer/corporate issues, Salon is simply indispensable. I paid for a "subscription" the day it was offered, and I'd pay again, and pay more, for the kind of kickass independent journalism only a site like Salon can provide.
Ads? I don't see them with the "premium" service, but who cares? I don't understand why
There's other places to get news - but they don't make money! There is no Internet-only news site that makes money - period. Salon is a very high-profile experiment that will, one way or the other, guide many decisions made by corporate managers about whether online is a viable market.
News organizations pay a LOT of attention to Salon and how it's doing, because they know it's a bellwether. Take it from a media professional - if Salon goes down you will feel the repercussions. Even the most insular geek sitting in the dark will feel the absence of useful journalism on the Web. And it will be because you, the Slashdot reader, didn't care enough to make it happen.
Pay! It's only thirty bucks, you know you can spare it. You'll be doing yourself more of a favor than you know. And if you can't be bothered to shell it out or deal with ONE ad a day for a few seconds, fuck you - no free lunch for you, asshole. Thanks for ruining it for everyone else.
You can always pay up, mooch. Or you can just read the 95% drivel other places in the hopes that you will find the gem amongst the gravel.
I don't know about you, but I value my time enough to see that it is worth paying for some things.
I agree. Moreover, I am troubled by what appears to be the majority, if not near consensus (but certainly not unanimous) attitude of Slashdot users: "We want all digital content for free." "We want to read it for free, copy it for free, and distribute it to anyone and everyone we want for free." Call it a generalization, a first order approximation, a rebuttable presumption -- hell, call it a "profile" -- about the average user of, and consensus on, Slashdot.
And if you ask us to read an advertisement, any advertisement, in any form, to help pay for the content, we will of course bitch, whine, moan, and use our considerable expertise to disable, block and/or render useless you advertisement. Disable pop-ups, block banner ads, and then gloat about it.
The New York Times puts its content up on the web. It asks, if you are a not one of their business partners, only that you register, for free, to read their content. Heaven forbid. What a travesty. That would interfere with your natural law, "Constitutional" (snort) right to access all digital content for free. So somebody, in order to GAIN karma, inevitably posts the "partner" or "archive" link to access the newspaper without registration. What a hero for free speech.
If you ask us to pay for digital content, we will bitch, whine, moan, and explain to each clueless retard content provider that, besides wanting to be anthropomorphized, "information wants to be free." That we can easily and economically copy and distribute digital information, that you can't stop us, so fsck you. Then gloat about it.
And when content providers come up with technology, legislation, and/or a combination thereof to try to protect and/or receive compensation for their digital content we... you guessed it... bitch, whine and moan. We also despair over the fact that perhaps we will no longer be able to gloat, that we will no longer be able to be the bullies we claimed to despise (but instead envied and dreamed to digitally emulate) in high school.
In other words, we efficiently demonstrate via the web for all to see, world-wide, that we are selfish, juvenile, immature, pigs.
The loathsome, immature, disgusting selfishness, is demonstrated not only by our desire, and indeed feeling of entitlement, to all digital content for free, but also by many of our responses to the crises of 911. Yesterday, there was a story about a call for hackers to come to the aid of their country, and to help fight terrorism. The majority, and perhaps consensus response? Again, you guessed it, to bitch, whine and moan. "Oh, they demonize us." "They call us names." As others bury their dead (or wish there was enough left of their loved ones that they could be buried), Slashdot users engage in paranoid libertarian fantasies about a "trap." (Just a hint, we aren't worth the effort.) They bitch about the fact that maybe, just maybe, they cannot break into other people's systems with impunity. That maybe, if they do, others will think less of them or, heaven forbid, actually put them in jail for breaking the law. Pathetic.
Are all Slashdot readers like this? Of course not. Some willingly pay for content, register, or put up with ads. Some, in other words, accept the content pursuant to the terms under which it was offered. Other go farther, and actually give and contribute to society. Many, many helped during the crises, and continue to help.
Are the content providers saints who never overreach, never attempt, and indeed succeed, in limiting the right to fair use? Again, of course not. They, too, can be loathsome.
But to bitch about advertisements on Salon which provides good, quality content for free is simply pathetic.
And, on the broader issue, to think you are able to protect yourself and your family from a terror attack on the scale of 911 because you are a libertarian Ayn Rand worshiping owner of a nine millimeter is not only morally pathetic, but also pathetically stupid.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Yesterday most of their stories were subscriber only, "premium" content.
However, many of these stories are available for free at the author's main sites (which usually are not salon.com).
For example, there was an article by Arianna Huffinton which was marked "premium" , but it's freely available at her site.
http://www.ariannaonline.com/
Same goes for Horowitz articles.
http://www.frontpagemag.com
I think if salon is going to charge for premium content, they should at least bother to pay for some type of exclusivity. It doesn't make any sense to pay for something that is legally free elsewhere.
- sigs are for wimps.
People want information to be free because, in most cases, they're providing it for free. If that information costs money, they will usually stray from it. As for advertising, specifically... I go to the web for a combination of information and entertainment, usually together on the same sites. I will not visit a content site that is scaling back its content due to money issues and making my visit incredibly annoying (the opposite entertaining) at the same time.
I think a lot of people aren't so much bitching about advertising, as they're bitching about the fact that that advertising will cause them to never return to a site that they liked, namely Salon.