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New Ultra-Intrusive Pop-up Ads Introduced
CrashRide writes "According to this story at AdAge.com, Unicast is attempting to introduce a new on-line ad format that takes over the entire screen of the PC for about 15 seconds and must be closed by the viewer. "The ultra-intrusive new format opens when a user is on one page of a Web site and clicks a link to go to another page on the same site. Instead of seeing that new page, the user sees an ad that fills the entire screen.""
I used to see a lot of popup ads before Mozilla could block them. Are the advertisers still using them?
See what I've been reading.
Mozilla is a good choice.
Seriously, this is nothing new...suddenly changing the size of the popup ad makes it innovative?
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. -George Carlin
This one will work quickly to do two things.
1. make sure a user of a website is forced to see at least one ad for 15 seconds.
2. make sure the user goes "wtf is this shit?" and go find a better site without that kind of crap.
even if it becomes pervasive, and 90% of sites use this kind of 'feature' in its ads, it'll force people over to the sites who don't... which will in turn increase their traffic and own ad revenue.
tards!
Power users won't have a problem with this. Either this will be easy to block with Mozilla or only work with IE or people will get so fed up that it'll peter out quickly. I've been using Mozilla so long it's always a harsh shock when I use IE and pop-ups start cluttering everything. But I'm sure there'll be plenty of people who get used to sitting through this crap and it'll catch on.
Why not just call them "Stop all future traffic for your site" ads.
I know the _instant_ I ever see anything like this, that will be the very last time I go near that site.
This is just like interstitial ads which have been around for ages and pretty much force you to view the ad until you can continue to the next page where the content really is.
Hopefully popup killers will be able to nuke this new type though.
Yet another plus to using Mozilla, or Firebird, or Opera, or... Well, another plus to using anything *other* than IE, actually.
A pop-up ad is one thing. It's small code and content-wise. It probably takes 3-4 seconds to download, but the article states that these new ads are 300K!!! That's almost a full minute to download at 56K modem speeds.
If their going to force people to spend 1 minute to download an ad (plus a forced 15 seconds to view the ad), they had better come up with a way to reimburse people, either financially, or with MUCH better content.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
The real victim here is going to be the ability to use scripts on web pages. It's almost to the point where I'll turn off scripting entirely just to get away from these terrible things. It's like the ability to put macro things in emails. It could provide valuable new capabilities, but it's ruined by abuse.
1. Find out who does these ads. 2. Do not buy products or services from these places.
Wonderful. So, in essence, Unicast is attempting to bring the lovely porn site advertising model to the entire internet.
;)
Except that there is just one tiny problem... porn sites have a carrot that can entice their prospective patrons into looking past such distractions: PORN. Most web sites don't offer anything that has such a powerful and nearly universal appeal.
I predict that this new advertising paradigm will have a half life measurable in weeks...
I quit visiting CBSMarketwatch (mentioned in the article) and MotleyFool simply because of those types of ads. When Weather.com got pop-ups, I nearly quit going there as well, but I guess I can live with pop-ups. What I can't live with is something that zips accross my screen and makes all kinds of sounds WHILE I'M AT WORK! But I'm sure no one visits CBSMarketwatch at work. Yeah, right.
You use, you lose. Would Google be search engine king if it had pop-ups, flash animation, things zipping across the screen, or 15 second full screen ads? I refuse to sink to the level to even answer such a simple common-sense question.
Those ads probably cost more and therefore generate more initial revenue for anyone visiting the sites that use them. But if you make enough surfers annoyed (as this will), eventually they won't come to your site anymore.
--
Slashdolt
ITYM, "when she walks by ..."
Actually, doesn't have to be your boss; it's almost worse if it's the summer intern. Either way, with "workplace environment" law you're pretty well done for.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
That's how these people "think".
They also think annoying people will get them to buy their advertizers' products.
For the good of society, I should be allowed shoot whoever I see fit.
I first saw porn sites that popped up an ad page, hid all the window decorations and then maximized the window about 5 years ago. Of course I haven't seen popups at ALL since I learned how to turn off javascript about 3 days later.
/etc/hosts now ...
I guess I'll just have to alias the entire unicast.com domain to the good old 127.0.0.1 IP address in
utter rubbish
Remember that these aren't just popups -- they're pop-up inters...intestin....er, pop-up intermediate pages between where you clicked and where you were going.
A simple pop-up blocker that blocks ALL pop-ups won't help, cause you'll click on the link and nothing will happen. A pop-up blocker that blocks unrequested pop-ups but allows those you "asked for" with a click won't stop them, they'll show up ('cause they appeared as a result of a click).
Finally, something that recognizes, even for "requested" pop-ups, that it's a fiendish full-screen hijacker pop-up, won't help too much if it simply resizes the window, shoves it into your current tab, etc. It'll still have to dig into the pop-up data to figure out what link to go to next (which might not be obvious, could be randomly obfuscated, etc.) Plus, they could put a bunch of links into the pop-up, for more information, to get on a mailing list, etc., and only one of them (which one??) would continue you through to the original link.
Basically, you can turn 'em off, but you can't get to the content w/out living with it. And there are LOTS of ways they can prevent you from getting there, automatically, without seeing their ad.
(at least, this is what I'd expect, as I haven't seen any of these yet. but I haven't yet seen anyone come up with a way to skip the interstitials (there's that word again!) on, say, salon.com.)
It doesn't work like that in a newspaper at all... Do they hire some guy to force you to stare at ads in between articles?
Now *that* would be ultra intrusive...
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
I really just wish that Mozilla would implement a "block flash crap from this server" option along with the "block images from this server".
The impression I got was that the ads are 300k and must be pre-buffered before they'll start playing. If someone (i.e., me) is still on dial-up, they're going to be sitting on their thumb for about 1 to 2 minutes while they're waiting for that thing to preload. That, I think, would be even more irritating than the 15 second ad itself.
Honestly, why do marketers think that if they beligerently prod us with their advertisements, we will want to buy their product. For me, the more annoying the ad, the higher the degree of vengence I swear upon that company.
:-p
And as soon as I find my trusty steed and finish off these windmills, I will unleash my wrath upon them all....muahahahah!
TV ads work, even in an age of remotes and Tivos, because TV is a passive medium. To flip to another channel or hit the "Skip 30" button takes effort from an non-interactive individual (even as small of an effort as using the remote is.) I've been known to watch commercial breaks on taped programs just because I'm too zoned out to notice, which says as much about the program as it does me. Inertia works against active ad avoidance on the TV.
The Internet, however, is a very interactive medium. Since the death of push, the only time I'm not interacting with the browser is when I'm streaming audio or video. Since I'm so interactive, it take very little effort for me to alt-tab to a new browser window or alt-f4 to kill the pop-up (if it even makes it that far with Mozilla.) Since I'm already interacting, inertia actually works for active ad avoidance.
Ultimately, this ad format will fail, not because it's too intrusive, but because it's too annoying. It's annoying enough that people will find a way to block the ads. Internet advertisers need to find a way to make their ads intrusive without being annoying, and full-screen pop-ups that steal focus are not the answer.
A while back, I compared the ratio of ad space to editorial content on Slashdot as compared to other media. For example, magazine ads are relative benign, you don't see people rising up demanding ways to get around magazine ads. But where /. has less than 1% of it's space devoted to ads, a magazine might have 33-50%. Those ads are intrusive, in that they're always there in front of the reader, but they're not too annoying. It helps that they're also highly targeted, you don't see ads for bridal dresses in a video game magazine.
"we are looking at a variety of ad formats -- including Unicast -- that advance advertiser interests without in any way negatively affecting the member experience..."
Like that's ever going to happen.
Then again, we are talking AOL customers, here...
All I want is a kind word, a warm bed and unlimited power.
I get a large window with the "click here to get the plug in" link :)
Pays to browse with just about everything turned off/not installed.
I think the best defense against this sort of thing is to email the company in the pop-up add telling them you saw the add and because of it you are instigating a 6 month boycott of their product. Company gets enough of those, and they might rethink their adverting methods.
It's great that the vast majority suffers for the good of a small minority?
Crazy Eddie went out of business many years ago as well- coincidence?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
...to piss off potential customers? I cannot imagine this doing anything positive for an advertiser. Then again, 90+% put up with IE, so maybe I just have too high regard for the masses.
I doubt IE will ever (well, maybe not ever) change this sort of "corporate friendly" behaviour and functionality (or rather, lack of functionality) as MS doesn't want to make enemies of the big boys that control the advertising world that MS doesn't already.
Surely these adverts can be killed on Windows by pressing ALT F4 or CTRL ALT DEL then kill the window.
Except that, since these ads take over the main window, you'll kill whatever you were trying to look at too.
Not that this is a bad idea, mind you...
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Seriously, why is it not illegal for them to send us advertisements in the first place? They are wasting bandwidth that we pay for. I could see a business case where you got internet access for free, so long as you agreed to receive advertisments, but when I pay for my access I do not want to receive advertising. The internet is not cable television and should not be treated as such.
I think it will be only a matter of time before you begin to see websites that won't let you enter unless you agree to view advertisements. Quickly following, the MPAA will start to encroach further upon the freedoms of the net surfers by lobbying (successfully) to make it illegal to not view advertisements. Similar to the situation we have with DVD players not allowing you to skip previews, PVR devices not allowing you to not record commercials, and commericals in addition to movie previews in theaters. The culmination will be the MPAA and RIAA working with the Madison Ave. folks to force commercial breaks in schools for your children (you know....to generate brand loyalty early)
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
Heh, Opera didn't show it either. Had to go over to a windows box and load it up in IE to get the full effect.
Funny how the MSN "butterfly guy" is the first one up, screaming "UNWANTED EMAILS INVADING YOUR INBOX?"
Yeah, and your showing me a full-screen, unwanted ad is somehow going to convince me that switching to your service is going to free me from annoying internet content?
"It's better with the butterfly"
How? Is that because he at least gives you a reach-around?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
So there, I can bitch about all ads, all the time if I want to! I can't do as much about the magazine ads, though...
Really, though, let's not pretend that ads in our real life aren't without their cost.
That is like saying that my TV cannot play DVDs. Of course it can play DVDs, I just need to add this DVD player...
How many of you are aware that you can pay Slashdot to stop serving you ads? I do this - I consider it an enlightened balance between the need to pay the bills and my desire to not see the annoying ads.
Over the past couple of days I've had an exchange with a guy who runs a web site for owners of a particular marque of cars (which includes me). The site is full of banner ads, both at the top of the screen and down the sides. I run Norton Internet Security at home which blocks all of these.
The site is sponsored by a number of companies, and I went to the page listing the sponsors as I wanted to visit some of them. But all I saw were text descriptions of some of the sponsors, no links. Hmm. So I send the site owner mail, asking that these be made text links, and when he realizes I'm using an ad blocker, he flies off the handle accusing me of stealing his service and violating his terms of use (which are not published anywhere you can find them.) He threatened to block me from the site if I used an ad blocker (he has scripts that test for this and log IP addresses.)
I explain to him that I do support the site, in fact I had just bought a $25 classified ad there, and wanted to patronize his sponsors. I also mentioned how other sites handled this, through ordinary donations or selling a "no ad" service, such as Slashdot. I even volunteered to make a donation in lieu of viewing ads and did so. (One site I visit a lot asked for donations towards a new server and raised some $5000 that way!)
Nevertheless, he persisted in saying that I was trying to "pay selectively" for his service, and he didn't accept my view that he had offered a service freely and then got annoyed when people skipped the ads. I asked if he read every ad in his newspaper or ever fast-forwarded through ads on TV shows. (FWIW, I'm an avid TiVo user!)
In the end, he "thanked" me for my "brilliant" insights and said that the site would survive despite me. Sigh. I was trying to be constructive...
I understand the need for ads to pay the bills, but making them annoying and intrusive is counterproductive - I'll either find a way to block them or I'll go elsewhere. There are sites I've stopped visiting because the ads are so annoying. I am willing to pay for content or service I find valuable, if I'm offered a chance to do so.
As do many other sites, including yahoo groups, when you click on reading the next group, they first take you to an add and you have to click again to go to the real site.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
People already hate advertising, they'll do what they can to block it or otherwise mentally ignore it. The advertisers know this, they've made it their quest to make the ads even more intrusive annoying and otherwise harder to ignore, as if being forced to watch the ad is going to make us buy the product. If anything it's going to make me boycott the product and probably the sites supporting this new ad format.
The problem with current adverising is really that they're either in your face annoying or suspicously attached to a glowing review of their product. Targetted advertising is good in the fact that it's actually related to something you already use, but you trade off personal privacy.
There used to be websites where upon registering you'd get a whole checklist of marketing categories you were interested in, which were then reflected in the advertising. It's still targeted advertising but better in the fact that you have control over what the adverisers know about you. Unfortunately you don't see this much anymore.
Of course, the way I look at it this whole article is just an advertisment for UNICAST's ad format...
- MbM
"Hey, I need to see this on the 'net. It says I need to install this thing called RealPlayer to see it... how do I do that?"
I am not the IT guy so I cannot tell them what to do, so I simply discourage them strongly. I tell them that, "RealPlayer is broken. It doesn't work anymore. The company died in the dotbomb. It is dangerous. It is created by terrorists. It destroys computers. You should never install it, and tell your friend that they should not use it. We can't play RealPlayer on our system. It was used on the old C-3PO operating system. Our computer doesn't support it. It is full of viruses. IT WILL KILL YOUR COMPUTER."
I hate lying to people. Hate it. However the urge to play anything, and I mean anything, no matter how inane, by their corporate buddy in another cubicle is SOOO STRONG (I mean moth to bug zapper strong) that they simply cannot exsist witout RealPlayer. After all, you are telling them not to do something, and they want to see that guy light his own flatulence. You see why you lose in that situation.
However, if you don't tell people a thousand reasons IN THE MOST EXTREME TERMS why they should not use RealPlayer, then the little moron will dodge your advice and install the danged thing. Then they will come to you with a computer that is half the speed that it was before and screws with you at all times. Then THEY START THE REAL LYING.
"I didn't install RealPlayer! No I didn't! You told me I shouldn't so I didn't!"
-TWO MINUTES LATER-
"Okay... Well, I just HAAAAD to see that baby dancing video! I saw it on an Ally McBeal rerun and it was soooo cute!"
It amazes me how many people have come to me for casual advice and then utterly bypass it to their own detriment. It is one thing to not know and accidentally install RealPlayer. It is another thing to ask, and then after hearing "EVIL! EVIL! EVIL!" from a person who knows, and still install it.
Err maybe Opera but certainly not IE.
Phoenix(Firebird) is so far ahead of IE I can't believe people still bother with it. I can understand if you need it for a site or two, but only MS diehards would even dare to try and say IE still competes with Phoenix technically and feature wise. Move to Phoenix and enjoy browing the way YOU want it.
If it turns out that Camino doesn't block them, it looks like its time to go back to Lynx.
As for the TV tossing in a previous post, if you must get TV then use some method of getting rid of the ads. TiVo, recording and fast-forwarding, something. But don't let the bastards get you.
This isn't a problem, folks. If you see it, you have Javascript turned on. If you have Javascript turned on, you've made a tacit request for this sort of behavior.
It's like going to a boxing gym, changing into shorts and gloves, climbing into the ring, saying "show me what you got", and then whining when someone hits you.
DUH!
Suck it up and enjoy it. After all, you've asked for it.
People who think like that deserve to be hurt. People who work for telemarketers do deserve to be verbally (and physically) abused
Yeah, she should let her children starve, so you won't be bothered before 9AM.
Asshole.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.