Slashdot Mirror
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.""
Anyone else worried about the quality of the net degrading? How long until peopel are so fed up that they just stop using it?
Ok So I'm not going to stop using the net, I will continue to do what I always have done. When a website resorts to these Ad tactics, I either a) give them money to stop as is the case with slashdot. ONLY if the content on the site is worth the price they are asking though b) use the handy features of phoenix to make the site usable, block ads from this server, nuke this image, dont allow pop ups or javascripts. or c) stop using the site all together.
I imagine these ads will piss off users and confuse the hell out of net illiterate types, to the point where they just stop visiting that site. What good is running a website and selling advertising space if NOBODY is watching anymore? Seems to me if sites are so desperate for advertising dollars, there is a better, less intrusive way to do it. Or maybe they should call it quits.
I like my slashdot subscription, but im curious if they makes more money from me removing the ads or from me viewing the ads?
This article said the ads would be 300k. Imagine some poor sap on dialup who has to download that crap when he is quickly clicking through links and subjected to 4 or 5 of these stupid things.
If I ever get one of these awful ads shoved in my face, I assure you I will not be coming back for seconds.
Garbage like this just makes b0rken browsers like IE less and less tolerable to Joe User. Making Joe unhappy with IE is good because the sites the rest of us need to use will be less and less able to count on IE as some "universal standard."
As the French Revolutionaries put it, "The worse, the better."
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I think it is a good thing, it will speed deployment of mozilla, and other browsers with pop-up blocking features.
The most dissapointing thing is I think adult sites have been doing this for a while now. So it really isnt new.
Anyways this technology doesnt really affect me as I dont have the features enabled to take advantage of their new ads.
They're free to do what they want with their sites but we're also free not to view their sites.
I think that with AOL reducing pop-up ads that you wont see too many of this format.
My coworker was fuming after a full-screen ad took over his screen after while he was going to msn.com.
If he's any indication of whether or not these things work, well, I think this won't go over well with people at all. It may turn some people off of the advertised products. In any case, use mozilla or netscape with pop-up blockers...and don't set msn.com to be your homepage *sigh*.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
How is this different -- or worse -- than sites that stick an interstitial between pages. Even Yahoo makes you view an ad after reading more than a few Groups postings, then you click "Continue on to the next message" or the like.
At least if this is a genuine pop-up, you can use a pop-up blocking utility to kill it. With the interstitial ads there's no way around it because they're actually integrated into the page.
filmcritic.com - Movie reviews on Internet time
to get rid of many pop ups... just resolve pesky ad hosts to 127.0.0.1. Works like a charm
127.0.0.1 ads.x10.com
127.0.0.1 ads.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 popup.msn.com
127.0.0.1 media.fastclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.iwin.com
-Afreet
Talk about killing the goose and all that. Piss your readers off. Maybe Wired should go with the Salon model (view an ad, get a few pages).
Didn't read the article because it's apparently /.ed but if from when the blurb says is correct, then these ads effectively take control of the user system without their permission and prevent the user from doing anything for 15 seconds. Could this not be construed as hacking the user's system?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Advertising makers, please don't read this or use any of the ideas in here!
The insideous part of this is that it doesn't require any scripting on the client side. In todays database served web pages, all that has to happen is that each link is really a link to an ad, and passes to the ad a reference to the actual content that should be displayed afterward. That reference may be an actual URL, or just a symbol that only the server can decipher.
This will all be taken care of on the server side. Ex: Slashdot main page is displayed. Instead of a link taking you to an article, it links directyl to a full page ad, but as part of a hidden form the real destination page is passed. So you click the link to see the full article, you first see a full page ad, then the ad sends you to the article page.
All the client ever sees is standard HTML, and a header with a "refresh content" directive with a 15 second delay.
The best you could hope for here is that a browser, upon recieving an HTML header with a reload directive would immediately jump to the new URL and not display the ad's URL. Of course, the web server could have an extension that would literally lock you out of the content until the 15 seconds were up. To be more malicious, the server may be set to lock you out of the entire site for progressively longer periods if it detects you are bypassing the ads. You might find that you are barred from a site for 24 hours because you refuse to generate a revenue stream for them.
The short of it all: This may very well be the Internet killer that everyone has feared.
We can block pop-ups. we can filter images, we can block most spam, but we can't get around this ad scheme, at least no completely.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
They have done a good job at stopping the normal pop-ups from annoying the **** out of me, so I hope they find a way to stop these as well. I want to write a plug in for mozilla that will not only stop the pop up ad, but also start a multi-user attack to bring down the server that forces this shit on me. Since its not illegal for them to force unwanted traffic onto us, i don't see why it is illegal to for unwanted DoS attacks on them. i think that would be a really good feature for mozilla. Any mozilla coders out there want to help on this?
These galleries didn't work for me. Apparently they use Flash for the ads, which I have disabled.
I have a batch file that renames the Flash plugin. I've noticed almost zero decrease in the quality of my net experience -- it seems to me most uses of Flash are obnoxious, irritating adverts. The web is a quieter, friendlier place without Flash.
If you're using IE under Windows, the plugin can be found at:
c:\windows\system32\macromed\flash\Flash.ocx
Globe199
They also think annoying people will get them to buy their advertizers' products.
This is more effective than you might think - look at x10. They were the first company to carpet-bomb the web with popups, everybody hates them, yet they are pretty successful at selling their product. Also consider loud, annoying TV commercials. They are universally despised and hated, yet everybody remembers that Crazy Eddie has the best prices on electronics.
In the UK the online version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire used to have full screen adverts. If you used IE a new window in kiosk mode would open and a flash animation would play out. Whats bad enough is the huge obnoxious advert, whats worse is that the task bar is hidden. For me that wasn't a problem, I just hit Alt-F4, but for less computer literate users they must have been annoyed/panicked when this happened.
I might be wrong, but surely covering the taskbar and denying the user the means to control their computer must break some sort of law? Even if it is only for a few seconds?
These ads didn't seem to be used for too long, so that must say something about how effective they were. Thank goodness for Mozilla!
Innovative enough to get patent protection, according to their home page! Good ol' US patent office. ;)
"The only format that loads completely before it is allowed to play, the Full Screen Superstitial is guaranteed to play perfectly for every consumer, every time. "
Unless you're using Opera with pop-ups disabled. And their examples don't download completely before playing anyway.
They must be so proud of themselves.
Is it really asking too much to insist that we not be bombarded with advertising everywhere we look, everywhere we listen? I guess that makes me a curmudgeon.
One sure way to get rid of this is to get rid of the idiots -- both those who run such ads and those who are susceptible to them. But then, I'd have to get a real job.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
What I do not understand is who is doing the programming for these intrusive ads. Judging by the numberous posts on this subject already, very few if anyone enjoys pop-up ads, let alone the new "take over my screen" ads. No offense to the many marketing men and women out there, but in general your technological skills are "weak." This means you have to employ a geek to do the work for you. What we are left with then is, a bunch of geeks who hate intrusive ads, and a subset of these geeks who are selling their souls to the marketing devils. Does anyone else see the dilemma here. There are traitors amongst us. I say we all take a pledge to never ever write these horrible intrusive ads. Who is with me!
http://www.unicast.com/pressroom/whitepapers/full_ screen.asp
According to their "research" 78% of people find pop-ups annoying, but only 30% of people found the full-screen interstitials annoying. 59% found them "entertaining"...
The sad thing is that with our culture, I am starting to believe those numbers...
-sker
nonsig. unsig. desig.
"We believe that just like in television, the creative you build is what gets shown, the technology should not get in the way..."
- In television, we pay $26 + change per month for basic cable, so that we can have clear reception on the two channels we ever watch. We pay $64.95 per month for "Enhanced DSL" so that all our computers have their own IP addresses.
- In television, I usually have a pretty solid 10-15 minutes of show viewing between commercial breaks. Interstitial ads will be entirely subject to reading and interpretation speed... faster is worse.
- In television, I am almost always watching for entertainment. I use the web to get news, learn, shop, and a variety of other things I find a bit more important than Buffy the Vampire Slayer (as important as Buffy can be).
- In television, content is scheduled and periodic, and the commercials are built into that. On the web, I have no idea how long it's going to take me to read this story or catch up on the day's events, so adding in 15 seconds hits harder.
- In television, commercial breaks are usually around 2-5 minutes. That's enough time to go to the restroom, grab a snack, tell an amusing anecdote. 15 seconds is not enough time to do something else, and too much time to stare at the screen.
- I sit farther away from my television than my computer screen.
So it's not just like television. Any chance they'll figure that out someday?
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
On my latest visit to my favorite PCB house, I noted I could no longer see their site. They upgraded. New Microsoft technology. Lots of Java stuff. Well, I don't run Java for these reasons which I noted in an email I fired back off to them to complain. But then I realize the position the company executives are in... they have their customers on one side that are connecting and doing business, and they have a corporate rep right in their office, shaking their hand and buying them lunch. The rep wants to leverage his corporate force by using his software on their system to help force the public into using a certain browser. The decision has to be made... use a technology the people already have to run their site, or use the new "upgraded, improved" stuff a lot of people don't have. They view the Corporate rep who just took them to lunch and have to tell him they won't "be a technology partner" and fall in line with his plan? They have to look at whats important in the big picture. What's really important? How expendable is a customer base? Do you really need customers anyway? I mean your customers did not take the time to come to your office and shake your hand and buy you lunch. The sales rep cared enough though.
And now I see this. 15 seconds tie-up time. 300K Downloads. On a "56K modem" through and ISP that often slows down the actual send rate to like 2.4 kilobytes per second. Thats the entire 15 seconds assuming I get a steady send.
This crap I have to put up with to connect to some business sites is absurd. I took a class in a community college on HTML, PERL, CGI. At the end of these simple little classes, I feel I could write pages far better than that I see on websites run by multibillion dollar corporations. Pages that loaded fast in any browser. Pages that did not require plug-ins. Pages that did not require my visitors to put their machines at risk. Just plain interactive pages - that followed HTML4.0 standards. Pages that work. Didn't even need any fancy editors, any plain ascii text editor worked fine. Why is it that when corporations put up pages, many can't make them work?
I know this is a bit of a rant, but I am really getting miffed off at technology being used to make a pain in the ass out of itself, and even businesses I trade with using the dollars I send them to work in collusion with those to force this on me.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
This will degrade the internet explorer experience and will be more and more of a reason for people to switch to better alternatives. Especially if explorer allows it 100% the same way it accepts pop ups. I say bring on more intrusive content. Mozilla can handle it.
check out the best blog ever:
http://oehlberg.com
I browse a lot of sites in korean,
/. publicity. Maybe the bandwith requirements of having a 640x480 ad is why this is hitting stateside but this is something that is already happening in parts of the world.
http://www.daum.com
http://www.dreamx.net
http://www.yahoo.co.kr
and lots of portals tested this kind of advertising on their homesite 18 months ago. even major players like Yahoo Korea had the F12 feature of taking over your whole screen for a 15-30 second flash animation/advertisment. The unpopularity of these ads made the hosts pull the ADs but unscrupulous (read PORN) advertisers still use this technique. I hardlly think that this technique is new, the code has existed to enable this for quite some time, this is just
I think the best way to really avoid this kind of blitz AD is not to use IE.
Alas.
As I read about all the pop-up blocking that Mozilla does, I can't help but mention that Safari does the same thing. I also seem to notice that a lot of the super-intusive ads only really do their thing on Windows + IE. Finally, an UPSIDE to being in the software minority!
[flash disabled] [click here to enable flash on this site]
It's one of the best utilities I've ever used. And yes, it runs on Linux with Wine.
I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
why should the bombardment stop? don't demand advertising silence from the advertisers - they're making too much money to give it up - demand it from yourself.
for the last five years, i have been persuing a policy of personal advertising exposure reduction. my formula for it is simple:
- kill your television. if you haven't figgured out that programming is just the coating to get you to swallow the ads... well, you're not paying attention then! donate yr tv to the women's shelter or something. if you must get the content (say, 6 pm buffy) nab it from bittorrent.
- commit to ad-free radio there are ad-free and ad-reduced radio stations out there such as your state provider (cbc, bbc &c). your local university probably has a good radio station (the one in my town is awesome!)
- don't be a billboard, eschew visible branding you pay $20 more for the shirt with the nike swoosh on it. why pay them to be their billboard? de-logo-ize your stuff and avoid purchasing items with large, visible logos. (you may argue about band tee shirts now, if you wish
:>)
- avoid points programs does every store have to have a points card now? don't play! the "savings" and bonuses you reap do not represent a decrease in the retailer's profit but, rather, an increase in the median price of services and products offered. the primary purpose of the campaigns is to gather data on you for future marketing and advertising campaigns. don't participate.
obviously those aren't hard "rules" (who the hell am i to tell you what to do?), but if you want to live with less advertising, it's a good way to start. the most important suggestion i can make is to spend a fair amount of time deciding how you classify different kinds of advertising and what you want to achieve. what do you think of classified ads? band tee shirts? the chrome logo on your car? think this stuff through early on!2 1337 4 u!
" I predict that, if this kind of thing becomes popular, future browser releases will include disabling of JS window resizing and JS foreground/background control"
.NET runtime etc.
You know I am not convinced of this. You seem to presume that the purpose of the browser is to deliver a pleasant user experience. Companies like M$ have a different prespective on what the purpose of a browser is. For MS the purpose of a browser is to redirect you to MSN, get you to use hotmail, deliver advertising to you, get you to sign up for passport, get you to use Xbox live, get you do download and install the
Why would MS add any functionality into IE that would help you block their ads?
War is necrophilia.
No kidding. A couple of weeks ago at work I was in the lab with a coworker. I wanted to show him something so I typed in www.google.com, but unfortunately mispelled it. Up pops this german porn site with no need to be a member to see the goods. Yikes, let's close this before the boss comes by. But up pops three more windows. Now the boss is entering the lab. Close, close, close. Two more windows pop up, one of which is full screen with a close up of a euroboxmunchathon. Click, click, click. Oh please oh please don't walk over here mr boss man. The big windows finally close but several tiny popups appear with rows of explicit and animated banner ads. Coworker is crapping his pants. Damn, the boss is heading this way. Power switch... Whew...
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Ah, so that explains why I didn't see it.
Great. It might be nice to have an
open-source Flash implementation with
plenty of user controls, to selectively
allow the use of flash when desired.
But, I don't seem to miss much without it.