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,
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 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.
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.
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.
Is it really asking too much to insist that we not be bombarded with advertising everywhere we look, everywhere we listen?
No, it's not too much to insist. The problem is that web sites cost money to provide. Until other revenue sources prove to have better ROI than ads, ads will continue. What would you prefer? Micropayments? Government grants? Subscriptions?
I do not have a signature
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!