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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!"
The administrators of women's websites really ARE smarter than the administrators of men's websites.
.
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.
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.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
their users found 95% considered it the most annoying part of the Internet.
/. . Apperently they are all haning out at iVillage thinking its the internet. :-)
Man, no wonder there doesn't seem to be any women on
Where does user surveys often appear? In pop-ups.
Look a monkey!
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).
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.
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.
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.
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
Play with my webcams and lights here
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.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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?
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.]
I hate call waitin`~+~~~
NO CARRIER
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.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
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.
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%.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
... ACs are the most annoying part of the Internet ;)
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
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.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
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
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
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 ;)
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.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
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
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?
Tibbon
tibbon.com