Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo News Posts Advertisements as News
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo is now putting ad banners as news stories. This is highly misleading and is an awesome way to sell out."
I don't really think Yahoo has been sold in in a few years, but this
is a new level of yucky. No doubt it is a sign of things to come:
the news is the ad. The ad is the news. It's one step worse then the
bizarre advertising/news merge that was amazingly evident when Disney/ABC was doing
with Monsters Inc while Time/Warner/AOL/CNN was hyping Harry Potter.
Oh, in case they change it, basically they have a list of news stories,
and one of them links simply to a page advertising (not surprisingly) X-10. The link isn't marked as an ad -- its simply one of the headlines in
the news list. It's one thing to have more ads... it's another to
simply disguise the ad as actual news. Update The ad was yanked.
For those who missed it, there were a dozen news articles, but one
was an advertisement. It was indistinguishable from the actual news.
Buy a digital camera today!
Or maybe just a mistake?
I've been to yahoo news quite a bit, and occasionally, a link goes bad, but still triggers the ad.
Taco should know this too. Slashdot goes down every once in a while (usually jsut a DB thing, but it happens). Yahoo is run by humors. To err is human...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I mean, why didn't they think of this sooner?
"..so you see, Sir, we HIDE the ads randomly IN the news. Then when they click on a news headline, it really brings them to an AD!"
"So...... basically we're going to lie?"
"YES!!"
"And what happens to the new story that is replaced by an ad?"
"WHO CARES?!"
"Good lord, Johnson, that's BRILLIANT! I knew I wouldn't regret hiring my ex-wife's cousin."
or is there something more "sinister" going on that I missed?
Yes, there is! Yahoo is requiring you to click on all of the links with your Left Hand!
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
In an insidious trend, Yahoo and Slashdot began leveraging what is commonly known as the "Slashdot Effect" to generate revenue-producing pageviews on the popular directory service. An anonymous source, who we will call Cmdr Tapas commented; "It's really very easy - we post an inflammatory article about Yahoo on our service, our readers flock over there with torches and pitchforks, and Yahoo pockets the pageviews. Then I get a fat check sent to my home a month later."
Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
Unless someone is confusing that 'technoscout' ad on the right-hand column for a real news article - I have no idea what this article is talking about.
Confusing this ad for a *real* news article is like actually thinking you *will* win something for punching the monkey.
*** I am the real stylewagon
If only Victoria's Secret did as much in your face advertising as X10. No one would mind pop up ads then.
Wow! What a great idea! Here are some more sure fire tips off the top of my head relating to advertisment revenue:
Mix up the headlines, so when you click on a legitimate headline, it takes you to some random advertisement site instead, preferably one selling an x10 camera or helping you find your old classmates.
If you want to make even more advertising revenue, try sending the user to 10 or so advertising sites, more sites = more $$$.
Have advertisments that fly around the screen in front of what they are trying to do. They will be impressed by this technical feat.
Use lots of blinking. Nevermind that someone will probably get a seizure and sue you, blinking lights make people want to buy things.
Use really big animations and lots of them so the page will take a long time to load. Many people are impressed by lengthy download times.
I'm sure there are many others.
It sounds like Yahoo is well on their way to tricking users, er, generating more advertisment revenue.
I Heart Sorting Networks
My conspiracy theory of the day is that CNN also inserts subliminal advertising in their news coverage. During some of their special coverage, they have this undulating blue band across the bottom of the screen upon which titles appear. In the midst of the seemingly-random pattern of waves, I once saw a vague silhouette of the Warner Brothers logo appear. The person I was with at the time saw it too, after I pointed it out. It floated around for a few seconds, then disappeared. Has anyone else seen anything like this?
Tell me about it . . .
Just the other day, I was sitting on my couch watching the news on TV, and suddenly up pops a series of advertisements for various products! Nowhere on the TV screen did the disclaimer "this is an advertisement" appear, in fact the only warning of any kind was the news anchor saying " . . . back after these messages."
Seriously, if we don't like it, we need to show our displeasure by not visiting the site (as if I needed another reason not to visit Yahoo.) Now if CNN starts publishing headlines like "4 out of 5 Terrorists Prefer Crest(TM)", then we are in trouble.
What worries me about the X10 ads is the implication (and don't tell me it isn't there) that they can and should be used for voyeurism.
...
You don't have anything to worry about. Their cameras are such pieces of shit that they can't be used for much of anything. Completely worthless in almost all lighting conditions. You wouldn't even be able to make out the face of the woman you were spying on, let alone any detail of her "mommy parts"
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
I can't believe you had the nerve to take a screen shot using Internet Explorer and post it to Slashdot.
I'm sure if you retook it using Mozilla/X11 it would actually be Informative.
Ah, come on, if you make ads as annoying as x10, you can't be competent enough to come up with something as complicated as that.