Pop-Up Ads Begin To Face Serious Opposition

guttentag writes "The New York Times is running an article that looks at the ways AOL is trying to reinvent itself. Apparently, as customers began terminating their accounts and revenue dropped, AOL tried to make up the lost revenue by increasing the frequency of its popup ads. But the level of consumer satisfaction just seemed to plummet, so AOL's president formed a task force to study the problem. It found that focus group satisfaction went up "notably" when the number of popups was cut in half. As a result, AOL has scaled back (but not eliminated) the popups and it says this has been a catalyst for revolution within the company." Combine this with the recent announcement from iVillage and who knows - maybe more content providers will see the light - the light that readers don't like to be forcibly diverted from what they are doing.

Comments

a bad sign

[tps12]

It's too bad to see AOL caving to this kind of pressure, which is one step away from piracy. We're all comfortable with advertising, whether on billboards, the sides of busses, the Slashdot PT Cruiser, television or radio. Viewing advertisements is half of an implicit contract that allows you to enjoy free or inexpensive services. AOL users who complain about pop-ups or, worse, try to subvert the advertisements' technology, are ruining the Internet for everyone. They should be treated like the hackers they are and banned from the Internet before it's too late.