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The Successor To Popunder Ads?
Croaker writes: "So, apparently, boston.com is trying out these new ads called "Shoshkeles" (the marketeer who came up with that name was on crack, no doubt). The result is an incredibly annoying experience of having crap run around the page you are reading, along with sound. And you thought banner ads sucked. The company responsible for the technology, United Virtualities says these are 'browser driven, platform agnostic, sound enabled, free moving forms that marry total creative license to a whole new level of effectiveness.' Effective in annoying, I guess." The site says "the ads only appear when using an Internet Explorer browser," though. Darn.
I know that wired.com has been using this advertisement scheme for quite some time. If you are using IE, you will usually see a palm pilot going back and forth across the screen and then fade away to the Palm banner at the bottom. It's very annoying.
I just checked it. Click on the Monster.com link on their showcase page.....
It's very annoying.
The best way to kill them is to go into your IE security settings and change Download Signed ActiveX controls, Download Unsigned ActiveX controls, and Run ActiveX controls and Plugins from Enabled to Prompt in the Internet Zone.
Spiritual Remains
But seriously though. Have you ever seen an important site that requires flash? I have seen a couple, but I could do without them. Any site worth its stuff is not going to 'require' that you have flash. Just simply don't have flash installed and you will be fine.
Personally, I use a program called adsubtract pro and have Java disabled when I browse. If I need Java I just switch it on. This tends to kill like 99% off all ads that I would normally see. It does not kill the text only ads on google, but those never bothered me anyway.
It seems to me that the more annoying that the advertisments become the more people that will use some sort of ad blocking software. Yes I realize that advertisers are trying to get the user to their site to sell them their product, but come on, make your ads relatively unobtrusive and we will all be happier.
Are there any plugins to Mozilla that act like adsubtract pro? The reason I do not browse the web on my Linux box all that often is because IMHO (please dont flame me) IE is compatable with more web sites. I use my Linux box for everything other than word processing and browsing the web though.
-AC
Wow! I was floored! How'd they get SWF transparency in Nav?!?!
It turns out that the links just open up stand-alone SWFs. It's not the live site you're looking at!
Cheap. And somewhat misleading.
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
the ads on this page work in Mozilla 0.9.3 on Windows platform.
Well, on IE5 for OS X anyway...
If you control-click (or right click if you have a two-button mouse) the menu that pops up as a bunch of Flash options. Click on "Rewind" (there's no "Stop" option) and the ad goes away and doesn't come back.
I know the obvious solution would be to disable Flash, but my daughter likes playing online games that require it, so that's not an option...
and how about
"Finally, they are plug-in, browser and platform agnostic and require no action from the users in order to be viewed. "
but they use SWF...
I think that qualifies as out-right lying - but isn't that what advertising is all about?
RC
Then, if you want ads, you can just turn them on.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Contrary to the statements made in the article, they work just fine in Mozilla as well! (At least under WinNT).
Great to see Mozilla catching up to Explorer....
The *examples* used a screenshot of the actual page in a flash file (Right click anywhere on the page) - they were not html. Opacity channels in the background of flash only works in IE 5+. Try it with nav4 it'll look the same there too because the page is just a screenshot.
it's a diminutive form of Shoshana, which is the Hebrew name that Susan is derived from. So Shoshkele is approximately the same as Susie.
Well, they work on IE 5.1 (Mac OS X version of IE), AND they work in OmniWeb, a popular alternative browser for OS X.... which is interesting, since OmniWeb attempts to mimic Netscape 4.7's functionality, not IE.
-A.
What did the walrus say to the penguin? "No soap, radio."
Reason being that that on IE 4 and higher on Windows support "window-less" plugins or controls. Meaning that the plugin is not bound to a new window class, but can be instantiated like a another element, such as an image on the page. A window-less control can also support transparency and layering which is why it can float on top of the page.
This was never implemented on the Mac, and I don't think Netscape ever bothered to get it working on Linux either (hard to tell seeing how very few developers released plugins for Linux or any other UNIX OS). So, IMHO, this is kind like a huge plug for alternative OS's like OS X and Linux simply because these ads can't work. If I recall correctly, there are plans to eventually include window-less controls in Mozilla. This is a good idea for designers and such but we all know that some marketing schmoe is going to abuse it. Much like they are now.
Well, that's just because the advertising company didn't bother to spend like 5 minutes getting the implementation to work in Moz
Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that. Plugins in Mozilla are based on the Netscape 4 plugin architecture. This means that they don't support transparency or layering as they do in the Flash ActiveX control. So, the marekting company would have to also contract with Macromedia to develop a "window-less" plugin API for Mozilla for all platforms. Basically, all that they could do now in Mozilla is have a box show up on the screen. You currently cannot get the same effect as you do in IE. And because of that, you more than likely will get agencies to start pushing IE becaus eyou can do crap like this. BTW, window-less plugins are not supported on Mac OS either so it doesn't work there either.
1px square images can be effectively disabled in Mozilla by adding the following to your userContent.css file:
IMG[height="1"][width="1"], IMG[height="1px"][width="1px"]
{display: none !important;}
This file is in the chrome subdirectory of your person profile. It's a bit of stylesheet that overrides everything else and prevents mozilla from loading any 1x1 image. OK so some pages where webauthors might be using these as spacers might display a bit. Boohoo.
It not only kills this kinda crap, it also protects you from the malicious IE/activeX hole of the week.
Now, since all plugins are installed as an activeX control of sometype (including java and flash), you need to say Yes when prompted for those. You'll quickly learn when to say yes and no from practice. You can't make a mistake since you're basically always saying yes by default. If you say No and some page functionality you WANT to see is lost, reload and answer Yes.
Actually, the website states:
NOTE: Please note that the demos showcased on this page are Flash 4 based. This is done for confidentiality reasons. If you need to test the functionality of final release Shoshkeles (TM) please contact us.
So, it would seem that they are NOT flashed based, only the demos are.
Sure, some banner ads are the internet equivalent of normal TV ads, such as Thinkgeek's banners, for one, and others that just show you something humerous or witty and hope you remember their company in the future. The banner ads that are doing their best to be the most annoying shit on the planet are the internet equivalents of the short informercials trying to get you to buy their stupid compilation CD, or handy-dandy new gadget that is "Only available through this special TV offer! Buy now! Operators are standing by!" If they don't see sales jump immediately, they're going to cancel those TV commercials (or pull their banner ads from an ad network).
;)
Big companies can afford to run ads that just get you interesting in the brand name, or force you to remember their name whether you like it or not. They plan to be around for years, so they can play the waiting game... aww the waiting game sucks, let's play hungry hungry hippos instead! Smaller companies that rely on selling one little invention or gadget or service can't afford to wait weeks or months for business to start rolling in, they need clicks to their sites now, and if they don't get them, they're going to either start pulling their ads, or finding ways to make their ads more intrusive, so you have no choice but to watch them, and probably will be more likely to click on them (if for no other reason than by mistake cause they're covering up the story you want to read
Could this be because Mozilla does not support Flash? Or the JavaScript statements "setTimer" and "setInterval"?
y ing.htm
This type of ad can be implemented without Flash, using only DHTML and transparent GIF's.
I would be careful before declaring complete immunity. It looks like this particular advertiser chose to target only IE users.
For an intelligent and mostly accurate discussion (with examples)of the technology, called "DHTML Flying Ads", go to the DoubleClick site: http://richmedia.doubleclick.net/floating/dhtmlfl
I really like this sentence: "However, because they command so much attention, there is the potential for a negative user reponse -- to help prevent this, campaigns should be run in short flights or with frequency caps."
Judging by the activity level here, they sure got that right.
I have detailed knowledge of the techniques because I am the author of PopUpCop, a shareware add-in for IE 5 and above that can block this type of annoying web site behavior, if the user turns of script timers and Flash autoplay....
Apparently ever /. weenie sees this as a golden opportunity to crawl out from under their rock and scream about IE sucking. Here's a tip for you clueless wankers:
/.ers knocking IE for being Evil without acknowledging its strengths.
Tools | Internet Options
Security Tab. Click Custom Level. Select everything under "ActiveX" to "prompt" (or "disable").
Click Ok. Click Apply.
Enjoy your Shoshkele-less surfing.
Sheeeeesh.
-Kasreyn,
who is tired of
P.S. Since Boston.com were so nice about carefully commenting what their HTML does, I should have my "Kill Shoshkeles" rule for the Proxomitron written in about 20 minutes.
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
A lot of the comments have been based on not understanding this. People post "it works in $browser on $OS."
More fundamentally, this is a persistent problem with Slashdot. Neither the story submitter nor the editor takes the two minutes to dig up and answer the most obvious question or confusion that will arise from the provided links. Therefore instead of an informed discussion we get lots of people blundering around in the dark, powered by misconceptions.
While karma-whoring, it IS still interesting:
s hoshkele.zip
.js file that appears to be the majority of what it can do:
v aat_v01.js
Here are the (apparently) main files for the thing, lifted from boston.com. They place it outside of the tag, of course, because they wouldn't want to have the page validate with the W3C.
http://diamond.jvlnet.com/~jadecristal/shoshkele/
More interesting, though, is probably the
http://diamond.jvlnet.com/~jadecristal/shoshkele/
Someone with more JS coding experience than me can take a look at it...
Timothy speculates the marketeer who came up with the name "Shoshkele" was on crack, no doubt. Maybe, but here's another angle.
It's a Yiddishism, a familiar, affectionate or endearing variation of Shoshi or Shoshanah, which is Hebrew for Lily or Rose. It's a pet-name you might use for a sweetheart or, more likely, a very young daughter. Her dad may be clever and proud of his accomplishment, but I feel sorry for the little girl whose name was lent to something so obnoxious. Not exactly a very nice tribute.
__
Fred