iVillage Renounces Pop-up Advertising

ceejayoz writes "iVillage.com, a popular women's portal, announced today that it is getting rid of pop-up advertising on its site after a survey of their users found 95% considered it the most annoying part of the Internet. Lets hope they can prove there are other, less annoying advertising models that work!"

Comments

advertising models that work

[jaroslav]

Lets hope they can prove there are other, less annoying advertising models that work

Do popups work?

I guess this proves it

[RumGunner]

The administrators of women's websites really ARE smarter than the administrators of men's websites.

.

Re:I guess this proves it

[jazman_777]

that's because "men's websites" are mostly porn

where popups are necessary, I suppose.

Re:I guess this proves it

[evilviper]

Nice try, but doing what your patrons just about force you to do doesn't make you smart, just sane. Compare that wit some place like Google.com, that avoided banner ads all together, as well as popups, when those things were unequivically accepted... Now that tooks smarts.

Re:I guess this proves it

[XorNand]

Just my two cents... I do a lot of ecommerce related things for a living. Among them is managing online advertising for clients. Google AdWords typically gives me an average 4-5% click-through rate (CTR). On the more specific keywords, the rate can be around 20%. The industry average CTR for banner ads is less than 1%. Granted, banner ads aren't as targeted as search term specific phrases, but that's one heck of a discrepancy.

It's also worth noting that my AdWords programs even pull in slightly more traffic than comparable Overture campaigns (on average). Overture is the company that serves up those "sponsored links" on Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, Lycos, WebCrawler and AltaVista, among others. My experience are purely antidotal, but it seems that people respond better to targeted, relevant advertising (even if they know it's paid advertising) versus the heavy-handed or shady tactics used by most 'net marketers.

Re:I guess this proves it

[Cryptnotic]

Why is this "Flamebait"? It is presumably a truthful reflection of one man's experience with reality.

As for good looking people being better techs that's hard to evaluate. In general, good looking people have more genetic diversity and their features are an outward evidence of this. Also, being good looking is a sign that they are more likely to be able to afford and value things like nutrition and exercise and dermatologists and higher eductation. Because of their social status they are more likely to shun blue collar "tech" work. The intellectual elite of this crowd are likely to become university physics professors or founders of companies. The less elite, but still techie, will become doctors, lawyers, or other specialists. The rest will become business people, professional golfers, or those people who throw amazing parties but are incredibly boring people to talk to.

Network administrators, programmers, systems analysts, and engineering managers CAN be good looking, but the really gorgeous people would never be caught dead in one of those jobs.

Just an observation.

Better Advertising method....

[TibbonZero]

Yes there are two better ones...
1) Have such good product that people will want it regardless (Assumes you don't have competition)
Or 2) Have such a good product that word of mouth spreads and people buy it

Re:Better Advertising method....

[Usquebaugh]

Speak for yourself there's been times in my life when if it wasn't for beer I'd have starved.

Re:Better Advertising method....

[God! Awful]

Yes there are two better ones...
1) Have such good product that people will want it regardless (Assumes you don't have competition)
Or 2) Have such a good product that word of mouth spreads and people buy it

Uhh, those aren't "advertising methods". Neither of those requires any advertising at all, and they certainly don't explain how iVillage is going to make money.

-a

Re:Better Advertising method....

[bilbobuggins]

ummm...

1) Have such good product that people will want it regardless (Assumes you don't have competition)

Good product should not be confused with only product. Oh, and I dare you to find anyone who would prefer a total lack of options to a little advertising (assuming they don't work for MS PR).

Or 2) Have such a good product that word of mouth spreads and people buy it

yep, cause that's sure been working for the Alpha, Mozilla and the *nix desktop so far...
Face it, no matter how annoying some advertising is - it's impossible for any company to achieve a decent amount of success without it. Advertising is a necessary evil and a major driving force in our economy which DOES work.
Ask yourself this: as annoyed as you might be, if you suddenly had a need for a tiny hidden camera... where would you go to buy it?

Re:Better Advertising method....

[rmohr02]

Have such a good product that word of mouth spreads and people buy it

Like Google. AFAIK, they've never done advertisements.

Re:Better Advertising method....

[Com2Kid]

yep, cause that's sure been working for the Alpha, Mozilla and the *nix desktop so far...
Face it, no matter how annoying some advertising is - it's impossible for any company to achieve a decent amount of success without it.

Err;

*cough* *cough*

AMD.

Thaaaaaank you.

For many years (err, months? whatever, fiscal quarters or something like that) after the K7 line of CPUs where first introduced, OEMs refused to carry them, but AMD continued to sell them. How? Word of mouth. People got the word out, a ton. Entire labs where stocked full of AMD x86 CPUs thanks to people having read reviews of the product online and looking at the price/performance graphs of the product. And that was without a decent motherboard choice to boot. . . . heh. Now that the K7 line of x86 CPUs has a wonderful and diverse line of motherboards behind it running on a wide range and combination of chipsets, nobody can imagine an Intel only CPU world again with AMD just barely playing on the sidelines.

Never Doubt The Power of The Users.

w00t.

Re:Better Advertising method....

[ffatTony]

Ask yourself this: as annoyed as you might be, if you suddenly had a need for a tiny hidden camera... where would you go to buy it?

That's hilarious. I can't even think of another vendor of these except the master of pop ups/unders. Damn you X10.

Re:Better Advertising method....

[216pi]

it is very easy to buy ads on google. But 20$ on google brought less traffic to my site than a 10$ ad at K5.

Re:Better Advertising method....

[rmohr02]

I meant advertisements for Google, not on Google.

Re:Better Advertising method....

[pheonix]

Face it, no matter how annoying some advertising is - it's impossible for any company to achieve a decent amount of success without it.

That's a bit simplistic. My company has a $0 advertising budget, and for the third consecutive year we grown at a rate exceeding 100% (yes, we have OVER doubled growth every year since the inception of the company). I know of a number of other companies that have done the same here in Detroit. It's not only possible, it happens frequently.

Ask yourself this: as annoyed as you might be, if you suddenly had a need for a tiny hidden camera... where would you go to buy it?

Surveillance Solutions (www.surveillancesolutions.com), which I heard about from someone else who used them.

No Pop-Ups, but Pop-Under?!

[yorick]

From the article:

"Instead, the company will focus on alternative ad formats, including variably sized standard ad units and pop-under ads, as well as ad placements in newsletters and member mailings."

So instead they're sending you physical junk-mail or having pop-unders. That's a big improvement.

Re:No Pop-Ups, but Pop-Under?!

[foobar104]

I was just on my way to post something about this myself. I guess I'm just confused or something, but I classify "pop-up" and "pop-under" ads as the same thing: they open an unrequested browser window to display an ad.

I wonder how many people would object to pop-under ads if the survey in question had clearly asked about them?

So instead they're sending you physical junk-mail or having pop-unders.

I got the impression that they were talking about electronic newsletters and mailings. Bad, but not quite as bad as physical junk mail. At least they're not creating any garbage.

Re:No Pop-Ups, but Pop-Under?!

[EvanED]

Physical mail you can at least throw away. And it comes all at once. You get you mail, sort into junk/not junk, toss the junk pile into the trash, and you're good for another day. Pop-ups you have to close every time you go to a new page.

And pop-unders at least don't steal the window focus, so you can work w/o interruption until you're done with the browser. (I.e., it's closer to the do it all at once model of junk mail)

Re:No Pop-Ups, but Pop-Under?!

[Quietust]

And pop-unders at least don't steal the window focus

No, they do something worse. The window that spawned them steals the window focus.
And some pop-under ads are very poorly designed, such that when using IE (yes, I'm a poor sap that uses IE), the taskbar buttons [for the main window and the pop-under] flicker repeatedly for about 2 seconds after the window opens (trying to steal focus from each other?).

Re:No Pop-Ups, but Pop-Under?!

[EvanED]

But since 9 times out of 10 the window that spawned them is the one you're using, you're fine. (At least for me, I hardly ever switch to another window before it's loaded enough to spawn the windows.)

As for the flashing, it's just letting you know that the window may need you attention. For instance, AIM flashes its chat windows when you get a message so you know to go look. There's an Windows API function -- BOOL FlashWindow(hwnd, TRUE) -- that will do it.

Re:No Pop-Ups, but Pop-Under?!

[shri]

Give me a break. You'd rather receive junk mail physically than go through the effort of closing a browser window? Heck ... atleast pop-whatever does not involve cutting down trees.

The problem for most online advertising is the lack of targetting ... and the lack of quality advertisers (looks like about 50-80 companies account for 90% of the ads). NOT the delivery mechanism. A well targetted advertisement of relevance to you will be tolerated even if it pops out of your rear end.

For example, I'm in the market here in Hong Kong for a car. I'd love to see ads for used car dealerships (back to my lack of advertisers), financing etc. The only people who have recently surveyed me on this are my bank when I went in to deposit a check. The teller interrupted the deposit process (a real life pop-up) and asked me a few questions, which I answered... assuming some relevance to my situation.

The bank now sends me email about car-financing, insurance which is half education and half advertising AND gives me the option of opting out.

I get popups when I visit my online bank, reminding me / offering me relevant products.. I don't mind them.

What I mind are the dumb-arse X10 ads and gambling offers, Orbitz adverts when I go to wash-post. These advertisers have no clue that I'm in Hong Kong and I have no interest or ability to use their products / websites. Back to my point about targetting.

Re:No Pop-Ups, but Pop-Under?!

[Quietust]

(I hardly ever switch to another window before it's loaded enough to spawn the windows)

I do; when viewing forums on various sites, I'll shift+click on a bunch of threads to open them in new windows (so I don't have to wait for them to load; said sites are generally rather slow).

As for the flashing, it's just letting you know that the window may need you attention. There's an Windows API function -- BOOL FlashWindow(hwnd, TRUE) -- that will do it.

Ah, but that function only flashes the taskbar icon on/off about twice per second. Those pop-unders generally flash it at about 20-30 times per second, making it considerably more annoying.

Re:No Pop-Ups, but Pop-Under?!

[EvanED]

I do the shift-click think on forums too, but tghe ones I visit (no longer) have pop-ups.

As for the flashing, I haven't seen it. I just assumed it was the flashing thing I've seen other windows do, but I gyess that may not be it. (I have hide taskbar on, so I usually don't see it.)

popups are annoying

[Vicegrip]

In fact, managing windows in general is annoying. Popups are also a bad idea because users now have (at least for people using mozilla) the ability to block them easily.

I personally think the best compromise is the large box at the beginning of the story approach: you have to look at it, but since the article wraps around it, the feel is akin to reading a magazine page.

A well targetted add like that gets my attention and often a click-through.

Re:popups are annoying

[foobar104]

You're not the only one who ignores ads. A great paper was published in '98: Banner Blindness: Web Searchers Often Miss "Obvious" Links. Excerpts:

None of the participants in the study had any trouble moving from the home page to the page containing this item, but to our surprise, when they reached the training page almost every participant scrolled past this "Internet Courses" link and selected a small link labeled "courses" from a menu at the bottom of the page. Unfortunately, the information on Internet courses wasn't available there, and the participants were forced to give up on the task. When the facilitator directed them back to the earlier page and showed them banner-style link, most participants showed extreme surprise that they could have missed it.

Similarly, Spool, Scanlon, Schroeder, Snyder & DeAngelo (1997) noted that a participant in a usability test overlooked an animated banner containing the information she was looking for. It may be that people searching for specific information on the web tend to ignore large, colorful items that are clearly distinguished from other items on the page.

There's more than just anecdotal evidence, too. These guys actually performed a double-blind study in which they constructed special web pages that included both regular links and large, "banneresque" links. The data shows that the subjects found the regular links almost all the time (94%), but only found the banner-like links a just over half the time (58%).

The conclusion of the paper pretty much sums it up:

One item separated visually from everything else on a web page may be completely ignored by web searchers, even by searchers who are deliberately searching for the information provided in that item. Designers should be cautious about following guidelines stating that increasing the visual distinction between "important" items and other items is desirable; the visual distinctiveness may actually make important items seem unimportant.

Re:popups are annoying

[KuRL]

Television advertising companies have known about things like this forever -- that's why many commercials employ the same devices as the shows they interrupt and why some stations (read: MTV) make there programming look a lot like commercials (fast cuts; bright colors; constant, catchy background music; etc.).

Re:popups are annoying

[Reziac]

This may be a good general observation -- something that is relatively oversized compared to what the user expects is likely to be missed. Frex, people will often read a small sign, but don't even see the billboard right next to it.

Re:popups are annoying

[Dr. Awktagon]

I learned to mentally tune out web ads a long time ago (then I learned to tune them out with software). Same with magazines, to a certain extent. Though usually in a magazine I read it several times and catch more of the ads as I re-read it, which is impossible with rotating web ads. If the ad doesn't look like the content I'm expecting (for instance plain black and white text), or if it changes everytime I go to the same page, I don't see it.

Plus, I'd be afraid to click on them for fear of being tracked, or fear of "losing my place" in the page I'm surfing. I think if I saw an ad for something I wanted on the internet, at best I'd write down the URL and visit the main site later.

And pop-up ads are easy to ignore.. as soon a new small window appears while surfing, I close it. Sometimes I close a window that has some important information in it (like when logging into E*TRADE and they have information about a promotion or my account), but that's a small price to pay.

The best ads are the ones that are basically part of the content. Google, in other words... with Google I'm looking for something, so finding an ad about it can be helpful. And since they are all in the same textual format, they are easy to visually scan.

If I was reading /. and a small, static, textual ad appeared related to the article, I'd probably click on it. Any other ad is a complete waste of my screen.

Re:popups are annoying

[foobar104]

If I was reading /. and a small, static, textual ad appeared related to the article, I'd probably click on it.

Ah, but you run the risk of blurring the line between content and advertising. Flip through a magazine, and chances are fair that you'll come to a sequence of pages that look like magazine content, and that seem to parse like magazine content, but that aren't magazine content. Look at the top of the page: SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION. It's in small type, but it's clearly marked.

There's a little bit of sleight-of-hand there, because I'm sure those ads are laid out specifically to look as much like magazine content as possible. But the magazine goes to the trouble of putting a small disclaimer on them anyway, so it's clear upon inspection what is and what isn't magazine content.

Web ads that look like site content may be more effective, but there still needs to be a clear dividing line.

Re:popups are annoying

[foobar104]

The whole point of banner ads-- of ads in general, I suppose-- is to attract attention. The study appears to show that banner-like things don't get user's attention even when the user is actively searching for information and that information is clearly visible in the banner-like thing. It's not a perfect line of reasoning, but the indication is strong that banners and banner-like things don't grab users' attention at all.

Re:popups are annoying

[Chris Burke]

There are two reasons why this is relevant:
1) Having the banner be for the information they want eliminates desire as a factor. If the person in the study saw the banner and comprehended what it was about, they would have clicked it because it specifically promised the very thing they were looking for. In other words, if they didn't click it, it was probably because they didn't register it at all.
2) It simulates what most of us actually do on the web. We are generally looking for something at a given website. We don't go to websites just to absorb whatever they happen to put on the screen. Thus this accurately represents a real situation -- an advertiser has to attract the attention of someone who isn't looking for advertisements. Or another way to put it -- advertising might be about getting people to buy things they might otherwise have not, but very few person's purpose in web browsing is to be enticed into buying things they otherwise would have not. See what I'm saying?

Re:popups are annoying

[hawk]

>Quite a few websites now have 'legit' popup windows,

s/websites/incompetently designed websites/

hawk

iVillage.com = internet?

[Jonny Ringo]

their users found 95% considered it the most annoying part of the Internet.

Man, no wonder there doesn't seem to be any women on /. . Apperently they are all haning out at iVillage thinking its the internet. :-)

Re:iVillage.com = internet?

[Xenopax]

+1 insightful
-1 no humor

Eh, let's just call it even. I agree it was a sexist remark, but it was meant in good fun. Yes he could have joked around differently, but let's not split hairs.

Internet advertising that works?

[Quixotic137]

Lets hope they can prove there are other, less annoying advertising models that work!

Is there any evidence that any Internet advertising works? As I type this I'm looking at a banner ad for NewsForge on Slashdot. OSDN advertising on OSDN. The popups of today are like the banners of two years ago. It seems like they should work, but they really don't.

Re:Internet advertising that works?

[Arandir]

People just haven't figured out what works yet. They keep trying to use the old advertising models on a media they don't understand.

Compare television ads to radio ads to newspaper ads to magazine ads. They are all different. And none of them will work with the internet.

Just a joke!

[RumGunner]

You know, that whole "women are smarter than men" thing. Take a deep breath guys. The workday is almost over.

Cruel irony.

[halftrack]

Where does user surveys often appear? In pop-ups.

Sympathy clicks?

[10 Speed]

Does anyone ever click through on an add (regardless of type or style) as a 'thank you' when they find a site they like, or usefull information?

assuming most advertising models reward for clicks...

Re:Sympathy clicks?

[foobar104]

I think that's a legitimate question, but I personally have never done that. I'm of two minds, because it sounds like an okay idea, but on the other hand I really don't like web ads.

What really cheeses me off, though, is when I accidentally click an ad. I just hate the idea that I just gave somebody a click-through without really meaning to.

Re:Sympathy clicks?

[ceejayoz]

I've done it some, mainly with sites friends run or sites of web-games I really enjoy...

It's obvious actually

[Micah]

People need to pay at least as much attention to ads on the Net as they do to TV and newspaper ads, but good Net ads should not be annoying.

My proposal: Net ads should be good sized -- maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of the screen area, and mostly text with an image or two. The content of the page should be partly above the ad and partly under it, so you have to scroll past it. The advertiser should be able to specify CSS info for the ad to make it unique. Ads should be informative and interesting. No Flash or Java, just use Web standards.

It might be slightly annoying, but at least you don't have to use your mouse to click on a tiny area to close a window. Just scroll the wheel or press PgDn. And you don't have to have an annoying animated GIF in the corner of your eye when you're reading an article!

This kind of ad *should* be sufficient to support good content. I suggested it to the LWN folks but I'm not sure if they went for it. The problem with LWN's ads right now is they're too easy to miss, and that's probably why they're not getting much ad income.

Re:It's obvious actually

[Reziac]

Actually, I'm much more likely to ignore a large ad -- the bigger the ad and the more of the page it takes up, the quicker I scroll past it looking for the content. Also, the more intrusive the ad, the more it's likely to impress me as bogus.

Whereas two-line text ads get my attention somewhere around half the time -- at least enough to skim the ad for content. If it looks interesting, I'm much more likely to follow it, and I tend to assume that a text ad is legit -- after all it wasn't shouting in my face like a snake-oil salesman.

Haven't Seen Pop-ups for About a Year

[pryan]

I have been using mozilla as my main browser for a long time now. Back in the early 0.9.x series, mozilla allowed for specific JavaScript functionality to be turned off, things that are responsible for pop-ups and other miscellaneous annoyances. Mozilla has kept my eyes from pop-ups for about a year. I only see pop-ups when I am forced to use IE and when that happens I shudder.

Re:Haven't Seen Pop-ups for About a Year

[pryan]

No need, mozilla works great.

Re:titsup.com

[ergo98]

Pop-up ads were a really bad idea since day one, and the net effect is that many people mentally associate "browsing the web" with a very bad experience. The short term gains of pop-up (or under) ads is very likely for little gain when all your users either go elsewhere, or just give up on looking up information on the net altogether (it's already started happening: The net became the "new TV" for a lot of people, but after months of frustration with bad connections, bad software, and hostile sites, many people went back to other forms of entertainment).

It's quite astounding that standard old-fashion "brand building" advertisements are so uncommon on the net: Where are the Coca Cola, Tums, Maxipad, and food commercials that fill the television airwaves? None of these commercials expect me to click on them and buy the product now.

If I had to pick the #1 best-done Internet advertisement ever, I would say that it was during "You Don't Know Jack - The Webshow" quite a few years back (man, that was a good 4 or 5 years ago). That really was revolutionary, and it really stuck certain names in my mind (such as Sketchers. I'd never heard of them before YDKJTWS).

Mozilla!

[-tji]

This used to be the most annoying aspect of Internet browsing for me. But, since converting to Mozilla, it's a non-factor. No more popups!

To disable popups & other annoyances:

Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Scripts & Windows

de-select: Open Unrequested Windows, Move or Resize Windows, & Raise or Lower Windows

This feature, along with Tabbed browsing, are the web browser killer features.

Re:Mozilla!

[guttentag]

Mozilla's a nice browser, but don't go touting features that don't work. Case in point:

1. I have "Open Unrequested Windows" unchecked
2. I visit http://www.nytimes.com/
3. I am greeted with this
4. A quick check reveals that Mozilla's highly-touted anti-popup feature was easily defeated by this line of HTML:

   <img src="http://graphics7.nytimes.com/ads/usga/blank.g if" onLoad="window.open('http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi /N2870.ny/B961809;sz=720x300;ord=2002.07.30.11.41. 57','MyWindow','toolbar=no,directories=no,status=y es,menubar=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,width=7 20,height=300, top=0');window.focus();" BORDER=0">

Have the folks at The NYTimes found some undefeatable method of forcing popup ads onto our screens? No -- OmniWeb is blissfully immune. Mozilla should be too, but it's not.

Re:What did the 5% say?

[liquidsin]

you could try this or this for some nice huge lists.

Re:Hallelujah!

[joe52]

Seriously. My biggest complaint about Internet advertising is that some rich media ads bring my system to a standstill. Popups are annoying, but worse is when I actually have to kill my browser to regain control of my system.

One BIG Ad when you enter the website

[xSterbenx]

I have no idea about the facts and figures of how many people actually look at pop-up ads before they close them. I myself don't even _see_ them, since as soon as I hear the little *click* of a new browser openning, I go to the bottom of the screen and close it before it even comes up.

This leads me to this: assuming that very few people even bother to look at the ads, there must exist some portion that do, or else they wouldn't still be around. My idea would be for websites to have ONE (and only one) browser popup when you first enter their website (either through front page or links). This Browser can contain multiple ads, say 5-10. You are then free to peruse these at your leisure, or you can can close it down and not have to worry about any more popping up, at least while your webbrowser remains. This way, ads can still be shown, but only once, which is much less annoying.

Re:One BIG Ad when you enter the website

[Fastball]

This leads me to this: assuming that very few people even bother to look at the ads, there must exist some portion that do, or else they wouldn't still be around.

I disagree. Think about it. It's trivial to write some JS code that opens a pop-up in somebody elses browser. The bandwidth hit to deliver that little extra code is neglible. Webmasters and their minions can serve this junk without regards to who is looking at it, and the more the better. I think this is simply a dinosaur that is perpetuated by the glut of technically inept decision makers in our line of work.

I empathize for those who need to make a $ from whatever content they offer on their web sites (I work for a state government agency; We just do things to make the govt. look good, cost be damned). But "HEY LOOK OVER HERE!" advertising just isn't gonna cut it no matter how many hits you get.

I do think layout similar to that of print magazines and newspapers could be effective. Make the advertising a more soothing part of the content. It doesn't hurt to make it relevant to your audience either. Not everybody wants a X10 camera to violate someone's Fourth Amendment rights.

Mozilla+Junkbuster!

[smnolde]

Mozilla is only part of the solution. Mozilla+Junkbuster is the best combination. I don't see *any* ads.

Re:Mozilla+Junkbuster!

[foobar104]

Just have to wave the flag here for OmniWeb. I've been using it for almost a year, and I've found it to be superior in every way to Mozilla. Only for Mac OS X, of course.

Re:Mozilla+Junkbuster!

[RedWizzard]

Junkbuster is nice, but I can't be bothered with it anymore. I just use Mozilla's 'block images from this server' feature to remove banners from the pages that I use a lot.

Re:Mozilla+Junkbuster!

[foobar104]

Tried Chimera, or any other alternate Gecko frontends?

Yup. They're all embarrassingly slow, sorry to say. I don't mean any disrespect to the hard work that no doubt have gone into these various projects, but they're just not usable browsers yet.

OmniWeb, on the other hand, is fast on my relatively old hardware (400 and 500 MHz G3s), feature-rich, and rock-solid stable.

Re:Mozilla+Junkbuster!

[foobar104]

my box is a 500MHz P3 laptop, and thus far slower than your G3 systems, and I find the performance more than acceptable.

I suspect that perhaps our definitions of "acceptable" are somewhat different.

And in breaking news iVillage filed for bankruptcy

[siberian]

iVillage, long known as an innovator of portal technology and the first portal to adopt a 'no pop-up ad' filed for bankruptcy today when it was discovered that by eliminating pop-up advertising removed what little ad revenue that was remaining. While 95% of the users felt pop-up's to be the most annoying part of the internet, 100% were annoyed when they ceased operations.

Pop-unders are worse!

[FyRE666]

I hate popup ads (when I'm not using Mozilla ;-), but find pop-under's to be even more annoying. At least with a popup you can ALT+F4 or hit the destroy button as soon as it appears. With the pop-unders you normally have to minimise or move the main browser window, then close the ad-crap. Ok, so you don't HAVE to close it, but for some reason they just get to me - once I know there's an advert lurking under there, polluting my desktop I just HAVE to get rid of it... Maybe I need help...

I'm betting that the respondants to their poll actually meant both popup and popunder ads as one single annoyance, but it got lost somehow in the marketting dept...

Re:Pop-unders are worse!

[Helen O'Boyle]

Blcokquoth tikiman:

I am convinced that Shockwave Flash is a tool of the devil designed to drive ordinary people insane.

Hmmm. Flash is ACTUALLY a semi-useful delay timer for pop-up ads, for those of us living in areas without broadband.

Flash pop-up or pop-under? No problem! I can close that window before the first full screenful of ad graphics appears, because it takes so damn long for it to load, and my reaction time is good!

Think about THAT, advertisers who use Flash! I see a blank window, get annoyed, want to immediately kill that waste of bandwidth, and close it ... never even knowing which product you were intending to advertise!

The iVillage Poll

[t_allardyce]

How do you feel about Pop-ups:
*I love them
*I hate them
*I like to be surprised
*Stealing my windows focus and _then_ having the nerve to try and sell me something is a dumb idea
*I just set my computer to ignore them so fire away
*If you could sell ad-busting software, but still make it generate a click on the ad, so the advertising company got false data - then you'd be onto something
*I like it when it just pops-up - it makes me feel attractive!
*I like it when CowboyNeal pops-up - other things irritate me.

Next thing you know, companies will realise that 'paying money' is something that customers hate the most, so they will stop charging for things and use creative accounting to make money.

Re:ivillage is a bunch of fucking FBI snitches

[foobar104]

See, I have to wonder about this shit. I have information pertaining to the involvement of ivillage with the FBI.

Don't make me post it, it will fuck your world up.

You know, I've got karma to burn, so why not? I'll bite. Post it, fire-eyes. After your insightful comments, "I don't buy WD shit" and "Need some goddamn mirrors," I can't wait to hear what you have to say on this subject.

Advertising

[Restil]

I don't care much for any type of advertising, but I'm willing to tolerate and accept it if its nonintrusive. A solitary banner ad at the top of the page is more or less expected at this point. I barely notice, and every once in a while I might even glance at it. A popup ad however annoys me before it even displays its contents. I'm already closing the window. I don't care what it says. I don't care how awesome the product might be. All I know is that its in the way. You lost me before you ever had a chance to tell me who you were or what you were about. In fact, blocking popups is easy. Certainly easier than blocking banner ads of multiple sizes. All I see of it is a waste of time. The internet newbies might pay attention for a little while before they figure it out. And the population of internet newbies is dwindling.

Targeted ads ala google make much more sense, especially with their low-key approach to it. First off, it will probably be for something I'm interested in, so even if its not in line for what I'm searching for, at least it won't annoy me. And secondly, I might actually click on it. I've clicked through on google's ads on several occasions, typically when I'm looking for prices on things. The advertising actually serves a somewhat useful purpose. Imagine that. The popup advertisers need to figure this out. Before the existance of those ads is the reason people stop visiting certain sites.

-Restil

Disable Javascript

[evilviper]

I'm amazed at the resistance I get... I think it's time to start the 'campaign to disable javascript everywhere'. Javascript is EVIL. It's like a C++ compiler on your local machine, accessible to anyone who's sites you visit. The only thing they've done is remove those functions that outright allow damage to be done. But every day, another insecure javascript feature is found, just recently Internet Explorer and Opera were found vulnerable to the same javscript bug.

What does it take to convince people? If you disable javascript, you will not longer have popup ads, no more cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, no more security exploits (we've been lucky that nobody really attempts tp exploit them, we talk about windows boxes having exploits, but all machines are vulnerable to javascript), and more.

So please, disable javascript. You can still use almost all sites without it. It will make you more secure, and have a much happier browsing experience.

Re:Disable Javascript

[e_n_d_o]

I completely disagree with your statement. While JavaScript might serve only aesthetic purposes when creating Web sites, it is an absolute necessity for creating Web-based applications.

To analogize JavaScript to a C++ compiler is pure sensationalism. JavaScript in its current iteration is designed to securely execute unknown and therefore potentially malevolent code. There are no flaws in the specification of the language, only in various implementations. Your statement that brand X Web browser is broken doesn't make your analogy any more relevant, as software from that company tends to be that way. If you're after security, I suggest upgrading your browser to one developed by folks who tend to be more careful in building their product and have a better history of responding to security issues.

If you want to avoid the annoyances of JavaScript, I suggest that you just don't visit sites with annoying ads. iVillage, Inc., being a for-profit corporation, isn't getting rid of pop-up advertising to improve your Internet experience, they are doing it to gain and keep visitors.

Highly Targeting does work if done right

[peterdaly]

Lets hope they can prove there are other, less annoying advertising models that work!"

The only for of advertising I feel works is highly targeted ads, be it in print, tv, or online. That is why google makes money. (they do, right?) They can target ads to be things user actually may want to see, imagine that!

Make users see a big annoying ad. Let them remove that ad by letting them take a survey. Promise to never email them or sell their address, unless the user opts in to a specific thing. Highly target ads from then on, which are less in people's face, using the information gathered. That is my subscription for web site advertising success.

-Pete

Pop-up and pop-under ads will endure...

[ke4roh]

just as they do in the magazine industry. Blow-in cards (those pesky things that invariably litter your lap as you read) must work or advertisers wouldn't pay for them. The same goes for their online equivalents. At least many sites employ pop-under ads to spare us the immediate interruption.

Kim Brooks identifies the problem well in the article "Advertising: A Cry for Usability." Brooks points out that advertisers are trying too hard to get their message in front of the consumers, and in so doing, they turn off the consumers. She continues suggesting the best advertisements are those designed to help the consumer, enumerating targeted search results, e-mail list sponsorship, and sponsored default web bookmark lists as laudible forms of advertising. If only the advertisers would pay attention!

[BTW: You can get rid of those pesky X-10 ads for 30 days at a time by visiting their opt-out page which I found in their customer service FAQ.]

This just in...

[skidgetron]

In a shocking turn of events, it turns out that 99% of slashdotters do NOT like pop-up windows. I for one am baffled by this. Thank you to the 100 people who cared enough to let us know with their comments. Back to you Jim.

Re:Disable Javascript -- hear hear!!

[Reziac]

I'm even more of a reprobate. I use an old browser (NS3.04) by *preference*, with images AND javascript turned off.. what's amazing is that (barring Stupid Navigation Tricks) 90% of the web works BETTER this way than with a modern and fully-loaded browser!

About a year ago there was an article in Web Techniques magazine (now retitled New Architect) which opined that js should NEVER be used except for cosmetic effect. The article also noted that about 30% of users either have js off by choice, or are behind corporate firewalls that strip js.
That's a helluva lot of potential customers to blow off just because one's webmaster is in love with js. B&M stores figure they can't afford to offend more than 5%.

Re:agreed

[Tuzanor]

So what are you saying? You're saying that companies should track you as you browse the internet so that they can bombard you with targeted advertising instead of non-targeted?
Carefull what you wish for, my friend! ;-)

A way to get rid of most popups...

[Dark Lord Seth]

... has been around for some time now.

Re:A way to get rid of most popups...

[psavo]

... has been around for some time now.

.. and most of banners on the same platform..
One single best download I've done in weeks.

The other 5% say ...

[puckhead]

... ACs are the most annoying part of the Internet ;)

Re:Pop-ups gone?

[ceejayoz]

I believe they made a distinction in the article between pop-up advertising and other functions that require spawning pop-ups, like surveys and info for new users.

No physical mail

[ancarett]

So instead they're sending you physical junk-mail or having pop-unders. That's a big improvement.

Fifty percent correct. As a former iVillage consultant, I can tell you that the newsletters and member mailings to which they refer are online-only. It isn't perfect, but it's a nice step forward.

use mozilla

[ragnar]

In reality, there aren't that many javascript exploits occuring these days. There are many very useful features of JavaScript. Sure, I could live without it, but my solution is to use Mozilla. By doing this I prevent sites from opening windows and doing other nasty things.

Re:use mozilla

[evilviper]

Not only do I use Mozilla, but I use Privoxy as well (allowing me to strip any tags I like, or modify them as I like). You are correct in that Mozilla's configuration can disable popup ads. You are wrong that there aren't many javascript exploits, and that it serves some useful purpose.
Have you ever found your web browser to not accept your motions? Typically a sign that a javascript alert is hidden somewhere, and you can't access any browser windows until you close it (once you find it). This is especially a problem because anyone can create an infinite loop of alerts... Giving you no choice but to kill your browser. Hope you had bookmarked those 50 browser windows you had open.

In fact, when I first tried privoxy (ijbswa at the time) I did just as you suggested, and filtered out all those javascript functions that could possibly cause problems... Disable javascript cookies, on[un]load functions, alerts, on mouse overs (which can be used to launch a window, just from moving your mouse over the link/page). The truth is, when I was done, not only were just about all javscript functions disabled, but since javascript was enabled, I wasn't taking advantage of the 'noscript' tags, meaning my browsing was even more crippled from filtering rather than disabling. And above all, i would still have been just as vulnerable to all the javscript exploits.

Speaking of exploits, they are comming out often, and they are manjor bugs. The sole redeeming factor is that they aren't in the wild too often... Think of javascript exploits like buffer overflows, before they got popular. They're still there, they just haven't seen their hay-day yet.

How about quality advertising ...

[LoudMusic]

Lets hope they can prove there are other, less annoying advertising models that work!

I've found in most any form of advertising that a quality ad draws more attention than an obnoxious ad. Perhaps more companies should turn to real advertising agencies for their web banners, rather than letting their make-shift inhouse marketing departments hack away at some animated gifs.

~LoudMusic

The Web sucks as advertising media.

[crovira]

They'd do better to toss out all the damn ads, use a subscription model and maintain a high editorial standard and an interactive sense of community.

The Web really sucks as an advertising medium and the traditional ones suck just as badly since the inversion of the remote only the advertisers haven't noticed until now how close (NOT FAR) their advertising dollar goes.

Classify the web with XML-based generated HTML pages and some real search indexing, industry standard DTDs and maybe the web has a chance to be more that a tree falling in the forest (in the din of all the damn chain saws.)

We have to get past the days of 'Cowboy Content Creation" where any moron can put up a page and only add to the noise.

Re:titsup.com

[Chris Burke]

Heh. Honestly? I'm glad so many web-based advertisers have as little grasp of marketing as you do. Because the thing I hate the most about advertising is when I remember the brand, or when I'm at the grocery store and I find myself reaching for some brand of detergent over another because I recognize the logo on one. I hate feeling like I've been brainwashed, and effective advertising does it despite my best efforts. ClothesBeClean? WTF generic crap is that? Ah, but Tide. That's a name I trust... for some reason...

Thankfully, internet ads - popup or otherwise - leave absolutely no impression at all. Sure, I remember that there was an ad involving some damn monkey, but I can't remember what crappy company wanted me to punch it. Whatever they were selling -- I'm not buying. Their ad was totally ineffective, and that makes me happy.

Or to put it succinctly (not one of my strengths): Business is all about sales, and thus pop-up ads are bad business because they get less sales.

Advertising doesn't work anymore.

[crovira]

We're too near the saturation point. Ads have gone from mildly to extremely annoying.

The ultimate conclusion of advertiser desperation will be Spam that trips you on the sidewalk and yells at you until you reach for your wallet.

I boycott all products in ads in ads now. If I can remember the product in an ad, I assume that its overpriced to pay for the ad and likely no good and buy the competition instead.

I hate pop-ups and resent having to deal (harshly) with them. I used to zap or mute TV ads. Then I threw out the set. There's nothing worth watching.

I flip past Ads in magazines (those few left that I bother to buy since they're nothing but BS and ads now anyway.) There's no friggin content left anymore.

The solution is for the eradication of unindexed, "Cowboy Content Creation" by forcing and enforcing XML-generated pages and industry standard DTDs for indexing.

Re:Advertising doesn't work anymore.

[Micah]

ok, so I assume you'd like to pay for every little thing you go to on the Internet?

The only thing worse than pop-ups...

[bartwol]

...is being the one who has to pay for the content.

bart

Just because the bubble burst doesn't mean a lesson was learned.

Outing the "inventor" of pop-ups.

[caferace]

He's gonna kill me for this, but he has to find me first.

Hi Jonathan.

Back in the day (think Navigator 3.02 timeframe) at Netscape, the "home page" marketing team though spawning a new window would be nifty. With their PRD in hand, they turned to an engineer named Jonathan Feinstein.

Jonathan might not have been the absolute first, but he certainly created the most visible pop-up example. Back then, Netscape had well over 50% market share and the vast majority of those users still used www.netscape.com as their home page. Millions of users were baffled by this new thing. And thousands of "web-designers" copied it.

So there you go. I'll buy him a beer if I ever see him again.

(NOTE: I warned him I'd do this years ago. I just forgot. PDF file of his evil intentions ;)

Some facts

[aengblom]

Fact: I work at a MAJOR news web site

Fact: My company held off from pop-ups/flash until only recently

Fact: My company has spent and continues to lose millions

Fact: Numbers still continue to grow.

Fact: Pop ups don't drive readers away. Or the very least, drive away fewer than the pop ups are worth.

We hate them as much as the average user. NO we hate them more. (I WORK on a website which displays pop ups. Think about it.) Preview: Popup. Copy edit: Popup. Check out other departments work: Pop up. Pop up. Pop up.

It's not the web sites that need to change. It's the advertisers. Popups=revenues as long as advertisers think they do.

meanwhile. Just the other day on cbs.marketwatch I ran across a REAL VIDEO Ad. Wow.

Re:ivillage is a bunch of fucking FBI snitches

[zangdesign]

I'm with you, foobar. He/she/it more than likely full of crap, anyway.

Actually mozilla does not block requested windows

[Vicegrip]

The exact feature is: "open unrequested windows"

It works most excellently for me. I recommend you give it a try.

Re:Mozilla+Junkbuster! ?

[linuxlover]

another happy Privoxy user here. I use it with Opera on Linux (@ home) and W2k (@ work). Works flawlessly! The default 'filters' are pretty good and your own are easy to add aswell.

It is amazing how clean Yahoo looks without those moronic flashing ads. But one thing I havent' figured is how to block 'flash ads' (ads using Shockwave plugin!)

It's your own fault

[hawk]

If you're going to run around with javascript turned on, these things happen . . .

You miss *very* little without javascript (and almost none of it worthwhile).

hawk, who can't think of anything he uses with javascript save some incompetent library web pages

Danger Will Robinson--be careful re Trusted Sites!

[splorf]

If you declare a site to be trusted, depending on browser settings it may not only be able to run JS but also do stuff like run ActiveX controls and install software on your computer. Watch out! Making any sites trusted except for sites controlled by you or your company (for work computers) is a dangerous move.

but they seem to have missed the cause

[hawk]

It's not *just* the visual distinction, or the brightly colored flashing stuff.

People have *learned* that something meeting those criteria is an ad, and don't bother looking.

I don't block ads. I *do* block anything that blinks at me--the result being that I see very few ads.

hawk

still not far enough

[hawk]

I use lynx by preference, what in the world do you need netswcape for? However, the ability to turn image-loading on on a window by window basis is nice.

At the moment, I'm forced into netscape because I can't get EXTERNAL to function properly in lynx any more (to launch new pages).
EXTERNAL:http:xterm -e lynx %s &:TRUE
*used* to launch a new lynx in its own xterm, but it no longer seems to do so.

hawk

Re:still not far enough

[Reziac]

I love NS3, but I don't like Lynx :) However ... I do test my pages with Mosaic 0.99, as a check on how structures like tables degrade in pure text browsers like Lynx (or its DOS cousins Bobcat and NetTamer, which I've used occasionally). That way I know whether at least the main content is visible to all!!

Umm, that's wrong

[TibbonZero]

Actually, read 'The Tipping Point'. Its a book on behavior of people, and it ties in closely with advertising and marketing. Word of mouth AND having a good product (for the companies selling the product, not those trying to sell popups), are good and effective forms of advertisment.

You telling someone that Alienware computers are the best things have you have ever touched, and that linux rocks- does alot more for the products than banners and popups that say "BUY ALIENWARE NOW!!!" or "LINUX ROCKS YOUR BOX".

Seriously, were you drawn to Linux or slashdot because of a popup? Or was it because of talking to people and because they in all seriousness are awesome products and services?
Word of mouth is advertising, and it can be done actively. Giving employees the product for free (if it's highly visable or catchy), will get them to tell others about it and for others to see the benefits. Think Cable ISPs, when they started (and now), most of them gave their service free to their employees. Do you think that this lost them money? No, it gave them money, because all their friends saw how much it rocked their 56K modems, and got it ASAP. They didn't need popups, banner or spam to do it- an awesome product and hearing it from someone else is advertisment in itself

Now this doesn't make iVillage money, but why did they need such agressive advertising in the first place. I personally wouldn't serve though them anyway. I would probably go through someone that I would pay some sum of money a month to host, rather than having banners. In addition, if you are paying for it, they will probably support you better- ever tried to call Geocities about scripting problems on their server, or asking them if they would update to Perl 5.6?

Re:Umm, that's wrong

[God! Awful]

I think you missed the point of the article and the OP's question. The question is "how can iVillage make money without popups", not "how can you advertise Linux without popups". That's fine that you wouldn't serve through them, but since you are not their customer they have no reason to respect your opinion.

-a

I'm waiting...

[sjbe]

OK, I clicked all your links while running Mozilla 1.0.

Still waiting for the popups to appear...

Still waiting...

Tap, Tap, Tap, Tap

Ahh, screw it. I've got better things to do that wait for a popup window that will never come.

Seriously I never see popup, popunder or any other kind of windows I don't request under Mozilla. I have each of the following items unchecked:

• Open unrequested windows
• Open a link in a new window
• Move or resize existing windows
• Raise or lower windows
• Change status bar text.

The rest I leave as is because they are useful. I also have cookies and images blocked from most anyone who is likely to be ad related, including doubleclick and the like. Certain less offensive sites don't get blocked. (slashdot for one) I also block cookies from any site I do not have a direct business relationship or account with. (I can always unblock them later if I need to) End result is that I have a fast and largely annoyance free web experience.

another example

[hawk]

It just came to me:

People looking for mystery novels will only wander into a "Victoria's Secret" at most once. If they see a "Elizabeth's Secret" in the mall directory the next week, they're not likely to search there (at least not for books :)

hawk

true

[TibbonZero]

True, but even if you do online advertising like by selling ad like they do, they should do it more sanely- like Google does. It shouldn't be crazy, and when I look up 'Horses' I don't want to see popups of women with them... (like some sites do).
They could do more tasteful advertising. I personally leave sites that have popups and all that crap instantly, and find some nice open source place that doesn't resort to guerilla tactics of advertising

Re:true

[God! Awful]

Well, I don't particularly like popup ads, but I have to admit that they are effective at making me read them (except when I have popups disabled). The Slashdot ads are effective at making me read them too because they are large and animated. When I see those ads inline on online newspapers, I find them very distracting and I have a hard time reading the story, so in some senses I actually prefer popups (except for the popups that hover over top of the story).

Of course I would prefer not to read ads, but I'm not naive enough to believe that very many websites could survive without them. Many of those open source sites you mentioned will probably be out of business soon. I subscribe to a few sites, but the web would be a much different place if you couldn't read all sorts of content without an annual subscription fee. (I would like to see a widespread deployment of micropayments, though.)

-a

Re:true

[God! Awful]

The Internet survived for 20 odd years in relative obscurity before people thought they could make money off it. Back in '86 I went to an exhibit at Expo '86 where you could send an "electronic mail". I typed a message into a computer and a printed copy arrived by snail mail a few weeks later. I wasn't overly impressed. Let's face it: the Internet sucked before you could get all this commercial content online.

Yes it's the evil empire, but I like the fact that I can go on the MSN zone and play games for free. I don't know how they pay for it with just a few ads (a few of which are popups and a few of which are click-throughs), but I like it. Sadly, I have no doubt that they will go into subscription-only mode some day.

-a

Re:Mozilla+Junkbuster! ?

[smnolde]

Change Mozilla to use HTTP 1.0. It's in the preferences and it works great with that.

Re:Disable Javascript -- hear hear!!

[MadAhab]

I'd love to have that article. About 100 copies, tightly rolled, to beat people over the head with.

Re:Disable Javascript -- hear hear!!

[Reziac]

I've beaten many a js-enamoured webmaster about the head and shoulders with it. Tho usually if they require such a beating, they're so hardheaded it has no visible effect. :(

I can't find my copy anymore (lost among the boxes when I moved) but I believe it was in the July or Aug.2001 issue. BTW, if you're a webmaster or in a related profession, the magazine is free. Apply at http://www.submag.com/sub/wb?wp=newarc&pk=NAWE B2 It's gotten rather management-heavy since the changeover, but there's still usually one really worthwhile article.