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Commercials Come To The Net (After This Word)
ctwxman writes "Say it isn't so. Full-motion commercials, when you go to click off a page, are coming to a website near you! The New York Times (standing in a bathtub with an electric iron required) reports: "Beginning tomorrow, more than a dozen Web sites, including MSN, ESPN, Lycos and iVillage, will run full-motion video commercials from Pepsi, AT&T, Honda, Vonage and Warner Brothers, in a six-week test that some analysts and online executives say could herald the start of a new era of Internet advertising." Unicast, the company responsible, says the ads will play regardless of pop-up blocking. "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."
I work in TV where commercials pay the freight. Is this so wrong on the net? It's not what we're used to, but maybe we're asking for more than is reasonable. I just don't know." I think I hear the whip swinging back, but harder ...
Some people, particluarly in smaller countries, pay for Internet by the MB. How much are these ads going to cost?!
How will this help people on modems? They'll sit at a blank page for 5 minutes before seeing a commercial then having the page load.
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
Good thing Konquerer lacks compatibility with everything odd! I don't even get half the ads that are on web pages just through the browser's compatibilty problems, though important content almost always makes its way through.
could herald the start of a new era of Internet advertising.
Yeah, it could make millions of people get around to learning how to block ads..
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The ads sure don't display for me on Mozilla 1.4 with this handy click-to-play Flash hack I saw on another Slashdot posting. <sarcasm>Oh, darn.</sarcasm>
10 minutes to discover how it works.
1 hour to code the block.
1 day to submit to mozilla.
1 week till al bugs are out, and a patch is out and woring for windoze, linux, BSD, MAC, and maybey even DOS.
Nothing to worry about.
md5sum
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
Full Screen Superstitial is guaranteed to play perfectly for every consumer, every time.
Like those godawful, browser-filling Flash interstitials they already use? Those do a perfect job of grinding my poor little laptop (600mhz, but only 300 or so on batteries) to a halt as they load up. Not to mention, the volume levels are usually jacked up so if I'm using headphones, I'll get my eardrums popped.
Dear web advertisers - I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.
--riney
p.s. I hate you.
From Unicast's site:
"This format breaks-through the shackles imposed by pixel-constrained and technology-led units, giving creatives a full and blank canvas to work from and with"
Finally. Smooth CRT graphics. These people should get a Nobel or something.
I think I need a new sig here.
Unicast, the company responsible, says the ads will play regardless of pop-up blocking.
The good news is that this requires Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, so I don't even need to modify my ad filter to keep them from showing up!
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
"...the Full Screen Superstitial is guaranteed to play perfectly for every consumer, every time."
Oh, I doubt that. I doubt that very much. I have CSS2 on my side, after all. That, and I never go to MSN, ESPN, Lycos, or the rest anyway, and certainly won't now.
And what's the guarantee? Free week's worth of ads every time someone hits your page with lynx? This guarantee business is baloney from so many points of view.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
As was mentioned earlier today . . .
My hosts file is already open and waiting to be editted. Lets see how "guaranteed" your advertising is then.
Sounds like the 80's when it was, "Remember, since you're paying monthly for cable TV the cable only stations won't need to play commercials."
Beginning tomorrow, more than a dozen Web sites, including MSN, ESPN, Lycos and iVillage, will not be visited by people who read Slashdot.
The rest of Internet users will call their ISPs and complain.
Why is it that so many media companies have to start "wars" with consumers? Is biting the hand that feeds you a perfectly acceptable practice now? Instead of investing all this money into fighting the consumer thieves, they should work on new business models that don't "port" the old ones onto new technology.
You won't need a plugin to hide it. It requires Windows Media Player, so you'd need a plugin to see it in the first place.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
The mozilla "click-to-play flash" add-on will probably prevent this from running. If this doesn't use flash, then it would have to install some other player which the user could just cancel (no no such opportunity was presented, then that would be legally questionable). Of course such a player wouldn't even be available on unix, so we wouldn't even see it.
Either way, ad blocking is here to stay and I highly doubt that these ads will remain unblocked for long. In fact I'm looking forward to them. It lets me practice my regular expression skills in privoxy!
Sites that don't let me in without forcing me to see an ad I just don't need to go to. Why don't these people learn from google's plaintext advertising experience. You don't need large, obnoxious ads to get people to buy your stuff.
Well, you and your "Mozilla based Linux distro of choice" who really beg to differ will really see a "please upgrade your browser to see this page" notice...
Since you/we are not the main audience, I think you/we will be left off by those sites...
Jeez, next thing you know, these corporations will try to convince consumers to purchase a new DVR with a 'content-skipping' feature so we can enjoy all of their commercials without interruption. The future's so bright...
"The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live." - M.J. A
Perhaps someone out there will come up with a neat powertoy to better allow us control on what flash content is loading.Perhaps by blocking flash content on selected sites or something.
It will be great to see such a tool, unless of course there is one already, which I'm simply not aware of.
HAHA Injured Hippies
I will refuse to visit any of these sites.
If ESPN does it, I'll get my sports info from CBS Sportsline. If CNN does it, my default news page will be Fox, etc.
If MSN does it, my default internet portal will be... oh wait I guess there's no problem there.
-You may license this sig for only $6.99.
I'm in .au, where its perfectly normal for business grade connections to be provided with a 19c/meg bandwidth charge, sometimes as low as 9c/meg. Excess charges on home ADSL connections vary from 1c/meg to 20c/meg. Many home connections are shaped after x gigabyte, for some major providers to as slow as 28kbit (yes, thats slower than a 56k modem on a bad line).
.au pricewars at the moment) to download such an ad would take 41 minutes (assuming constant rate of 2,000 bytes/second).
To put that in perspective, for some people:
1 full motion advertisement, weighing in at 5 megabytes would cost up to $1 AUD to download (.75USD == 1AUD at the moment).
2 Advertisements would cost as much as an iTunes track.
For, say, an optus cable user who's already used their allowance for the month (was 3 gig, now 6 gig, is going up to 12 gig thanks to some stiff
Yuck.
A little overkill never hurt anybody.
Unfortunately for us, companies need revenue to provide content. That means at least one of 1) subscriptions, 2) advertising, 3) pay-as-you-go.
Take the NY Times for instance. The same content that one needs to pay $6 a week for a subscription is available free on the web. Some of that cost is newsprint and delivery, but -over the long term- they need a way to make revenue from their product.
Personally, I wouldn't mind a system where I would be charged $0.05 to read a particular article. I usually only read a few items each day.
The other option that we, the community, have to maintain are user experience is to attempt to actively patronize advertisers who choose less intrusive means, and boycott those who choose intrusive advertising. If the least instrusive advertising is most effective, the more intrusive methods will be abandoned.
Or if the ads still work, just use Lynx.
"It's TV, without the television," said John Vail, director for digital media and marketing for Pepsi-Cola North America, a unit of PepsiCo.
What the hell does Mr. Vail think TV is short for?"
--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor?
American Weblog in London
I am happy to see targeted banners and text ads - I regularly click slashdot banners or Google AdWords because they relate to the site I am browsing and are actually interesting and sometimes beneficial to me.
I tolerate useless banners that tell me I have won a prize or there is an urgent message waiting because they are just the work of a misguided webmaster trying to pay the bills. I never click these, I don't want their crap and I don't support their cause.
I block popups altogether - anyone who wants to hijack what I'm trying to read rather than become part of the page does not deserve listening to. If they want my help then they should be polite - I don't expect my newspaper to flash an ad for 20 seconds before I can read the story.
It's a six week test - presumably the companies want to get some feedback. If the ads annoy you, just e-mail their customer service department or wherever with a polite request that they stop using the ads. See where that gets us.
According to the article, it will be possible to skip the ads by clicking on a button, and also they'll be designed to work with Windows Media Player. It would be interesting to see whether the pages in question function correctly in something lacking WMP (e.g. Konqueror) - if they don't because of sloppy JavaScript or whatever then that would be another trigger for a polite e-mail.
I think it was Henry Ford who observed 'Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don't know which half.' Our job must be to suggest that it's the half spent on ads which actively impede our enjoyment of the web.
Reading the unicast site and viewing their ad demos, it uses Flash.
:)
Looks like this will push Flash blocking through quickly.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
I work in advertising/marketing. And yes, it IS so wrong on the net. Repeat after me, "THE NET IS NOT TV". We're not asking for anything unreasonable. The net was fine the way it was before, and now its broken, horribly, because of companies who want to clutter it with push content, and because of "ad agencies" (i use the term loosely) who create this kind of software that evades popup blockers.
To all companies out there considering using this advertising method. Don't. If I block popups, it means I don't want to see your message. I don't care how much you think I want to see your bandwidth sucking ad, I don't.
The reason advertisers want to turn the net into tv is so that you have no choice about what you see. With banner ads, most people just kind of tune that area of the website out. Popup blockers are the next step. So with every method you have of controlling your choice, that is one less venue for a company to deliver "an urgent, important message" to you.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
"the Full Screen Superstitial is guaranteed to play perfectly for every consumer, every time."
A couple of things bother me about this concept:
1. yet another attempt to hijack my cpu whether I like it or not. What I like about the web is that it is an interactive medium where I choose what I want to view. Anyone remember push technology? People still haven't figured out that you can't turn the web into another TV without destroying its value.
2. Commercial content appears to have decreasing value on the web. I've found more and more over the years that I spend less time at some of the "big" sites and find more value in the content from smaller organizations.
3. Um, somehow I doubt they've found a universal, cross-platform, vendor-neutral, browser agnostic, method of delivery. Unless it is plain old w3c html 3.2 I doubt it. We'll see how some of the more obscure browsers deal with it (Elinks, lynx, dillo, etc).
4. I find it offensive to refer to the general public as "consumers". Maybe it's just me, but it reeks of a corporate world view where the only thing that is relevant is the exchange of goods and services and lets not forget where your place is in this relationship.
5. Generally speaking, the first time I run into a "commercial" of this nature at a web site will be the last time I visit that site. My 56k home connection is strained enough as it is.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
And my userContent.css will suppress even that: I don't have the plug-in installed and this suppresses even the alert.
However, they can easily code sites such that you can't find out the real link destination until the flash movie completes and redirects the main browser there. To bypass this with Mozilla, it would need to be able to decode the Flash movie (or whatever they use) and find the redirection. Assuming they haven't obfuscated it amongst many false leads or made the ad too interactive.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
"Looks like this will push Flash blocking through quickly. :)"
Flash Click to View:
Why are banners and ads able to be "forced" (term used loosely) to your PC while telemarketers and text messages from businesses aren't able to call you or send messages since it costs me money. My internet bandwidth is not unlimited so shouldn't it be right to say that ads are costing me money. I would agree that it is somewhat debatable since your visiting that site and so you are almost agreeing that you'll accept the ads. As an arguement to that, how do I know a site will pop up advertisements (ie to the extreme, porn)? Should a site notify you before it loads stating that "to view the site, you accept that advertisements will be displayed on your computer"? Where does customer/visitor accepted advertising start/end?
Just some thoughts. Anyone have any thoughts on that rambling?
You make it sound like because you pay for your Internet access, all Web sites should be free. You made the one big mistake of forgetting that you did not send payment to the Web site you are visiting, you paid the person who let you get there.
It's like using a toll road to get to a restaurant. You paid money to use the roads, but you still have to pay for the restaurant.
I work for an ISP, I can see getting *tons* of calls for this. "How do I stop these commercials?" ... "You can't if you run widows. You'll have to install Linux."
Who said this wasn't the year of desktop Linux?
FLR
I'm at work, so I had a Windows box handy to check this out. I went to the Unicast site and loaded an example ad. Sure enough, it took up the whole screen.
That, while being the selling factor for advertisers, will also be the downfall of the medium from a user's perspective. Full screen ads work fine on TV, because there is no concept of a window or multitasking.
Users quite often have multiple windows open while surfing the web, either multiple browsers or multiple applications. I will quite often type in an address, hit enter, and then switch to a different window while the page loads. Or I will simply queue up a site knowing I'm going to need it in a minute as a reference when writing a document.
I wouldn't mind these ads so much if they were full-window ads. Who is the advertiser to say that they have the right to become full screen, and become the focused application when I may be typing into a word processor or code editor?
People typically watch TV and aren't concerned about getting things done. However, using a computer they usually have are trying to accomplish a task. Any form of advertising that gets in the way will not be tolerated.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
The analogy between television and the 'net is spurious. Here in NZ at least, and most other countries of the world, TV is broadcast free to air. The Government supports it a little, but it's bread-and-butter is paid commercial advertising. Fair enough, I say, it's how they make enough money to stay in existance.
The net, on the other hand, is a totally different kettle of fish. We _already_ pay to use the net. We pay a monthly access fee (in NZ, broadband pays by the Mb, too). We pay for our hosting space, and our domain registration. We pay excess bandwidth use if we have a popular site, or if we want extra mailboxes or services.
Someone explain to me _WHY_ we now have to watch commercials as well??!
Boss: Bad news gang. It turns out people and blocking and closing our popup ads. They're disabling Flash and Active-X because of our overlay ads. What are we going to do? Drone 1: Stop annoying them with those ads and go back to unobtrusive banners? Boss: You're Fired! Who's got a GOOD idea Drone 2: How about we hijak their entire monitor, makign sure they can't even begin to think about closing our ads? Bross: That's brilliant. Drone 2: Then we can kick them in the balls. Bross: Brilliant! Anything else Drone 2: Well, I have been kicking around this idea involving armies of parachuting advertising monkies... Bross: Great, leave a memo on my desk. I've got a tee time with Gates and Eisner at 2:30.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
Why should the websites that these people are seeing the ads on be forced to develop and support a website free of charge?
They AREN'T forced to do anything. They can turn their servers off and not have a web page at all.
Gone are the times when you would be replied "we don't support linux" - they guaranteed it.
Why should the websites that these people are seeing the ads on be forced to develop and support a website free of charge? Those sites have to pay the bills somehow, and for many, ads are the way to go. That sucks if your internet connection makes it such that larger ads cost you more. If that's the case, get your news/entertainment/what-have-you from a site that doesn't use such large ads.
It is you sir who have the wrong perspective.
Who is forcing the web site to provide the content free of charge? I'm not. They should start a pay-subscription service if they don't want to give the content away.
They should NOT trick users into downloading large advertising content while hiding behind the premise that they have bills to pay.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
i've opted out of operating systems that tell me what i can and can't do with my computer.
i've opted out of television unless i can get it without advertising (canceled my cable but the bastards just won't come and shut it off).
i will certainly opt out of any site that requires me to be face-fucked by advertisers before accessing their content.
the truth is, advertising-supported media will always cater to those kinds of people who are susceptible and receptive to advertising: in a word, imbeciles.
i say: kill all the advertisers. content will then come from two sources: individuals and communities who are truly passionate about their subject matter, and those with content that is actually worth paying for. i favor this for web, tv, radio - all of it. i want to just pay for my fucking content and get it free of all the time-wasting, soul-destroying, mind-manipulating, insulting, humiliating shit that drips from the lobotomy scars in advertisers' foreheads.
have i mentioned that i don't like advertising?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
And why do we need "YOUR COMPUTER IS BROADCASTING ITS IP ADDRESS" or "YOU HAVE ALREADY WON" or other similar forms of deceptive advertisers to pay for internet content anyhow?
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Why should the websites that these people are seeing the ads on be forced to develop and support a website free of charge?
Forced? Sorry, do we live in different countries, where your government holds a gun to peoples' heads and tells them "update your website or we kill you and your family"?
No one "forces" websites to do anything. They don't "need" to work for nothing - They simply don't need to work at all.
Those sites with an actual product, which at the moment appears limited to storefronts, some news outlets, and porn sites, deserve to stay solvent because they actually provide a service people will pay for. Every other site can go pound sand, or stay up because its owners love doing it (ie, most personal sites, blogs, and certain hobby-oriented informational sites).
Naturally, the obvious followup question involves Slashdot's status under this idea. Personally, I think it falls into a "hobby site that trades bandwidth and hosting costs for massive amounts of good karma for OSDN. That might not have a direct dollar value, but in terms of effective advertising, it means more than all the half-time SuperBowl commercials put together.
To address the parent article, I for one will not EVER visit a site that shows any advertising that I can't either ignore or circumvent. I said that long ago about popups, and well before popup blocking became incorporated into the major browsers, I wrote a crude local proxy server for myself and a few friends to do nothing but filter them out. I'll attempt to do similarly for these new ads, but if the hype holds true and they really do prevent me from visiting the site without watching it, I can guarantee them the permanent loss of one visitor. And I doubt I'll act alone in that regard. People avoid ad-heavy sites already - Having to watch a full 30-second spot will turn off even the most computer illiterate grannies out there.
I've been updating this list for a few years now and it works fairly well with very little to no blocking of legitimate content. Enjoy.
Before I get flamed for "blocking ads," first off its my PC and I'll do as I please. Don't like it? Switch to a subscriber model. When Salon.com went pay I sure as heck forked over the money. I can't imagine doing that for msn.com or the other sites mentioned. If their content isn't worth it chances are they're going to subsidize their lack of worth with gimmicks like these.
Secondly, text ads are far superior, convey real information, and the google method puts them in the context of the website itself, so you don't get car ads on a site about bicycles.
If you check out the specs sheet of the "Superstitial" full screen ad format here: http://www.unicast.com/formats/htmlspecs_fs.asp?do cument=FullScreenSpecs%5F05277521%2Epdf. At least the specs are reasonable.
- All ads are essentially Flash movies with set limitations
- max file size 600K
- limit to 15 seconds max
- *MUST include sound off button
- *MUST include a skip commerical link
- if no buttons are visible at any point during the commerical, clicking on the commerical itself will allow the user to "bail" from watching it.
- embedded videos can be no larger than 320x240
And all interactivity and motion/animation is done in flash, most using actionscript. It almost seems like a crime to pass this off as new technology, when it fact it just appears to be flash movies forced to run full screen.
And no I don't agree with what they're doing, and I don't believe that I should have to pay with my own bandwidth to watch someone elses ads, but at least they're giving up the option in these ads to skip them... Which isn't much a silver lining but..???
The most important thing is that when we see these commercials, we should not click on anything but the "skip" button. If we make sure the skip them all, I think our message will be heard loud and clear by advertisers.
... is that anyone can set up an Internet site, whereas very few people have the ability to set up their own TV station. So let these guys make their sites as annoying as they want, it will only encourage alternative sites to spring up. One day, ESPN will wonder where all their viewers have gone, only to find they have migrated to opensports.net or somesuch.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Blocking http://*.unicast.com/* and http://*.enliven.com/* seems to take care of this new annoyance quite handily.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Ooh, this uses WMV? Sweet.
Full-motion ad block? Mozilla Firebird.
I don't need that mime association. It's better
to just save my videos to disk for later viewing.
What? This isn't about pr0n?
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
People misanalyze the "failure" the past ad formats gave.
If we held TV commercials like popup ads were to be rated, Pepsi would be wasting $2 mil on a Superbowl spot if people didn't get up-- before the end of the game-- and buy Pepsi.
If you expect that, then ANY advertisement technique short of "click here to remove the window" will fail. The ads are incidental to the desired info in the eyes of the consumer.
The only exception is ads that tie in well to the content. I have bought from such ads. When I look at a review site, there's a reasonable chance I want the item reviewed, so show me a shop.
The good news: In all likelihood, the first few sites to try it will face a DDoS from users who click "refresh" every few seconds in the attempt to get the page to show... "Why is the next page downloading xxxxkb? Must be broken."
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!
No, you're both wrong... of course no one forces them to provide content free of charge and no one is forcing you to visit a site that "tricks" you into downloading an interstitial.
It's capitalism--if you don't like the ads, stop visiting the sites, if you don't mind them, keep going there. If enough people don't like them, the company will change its ways or go out of business. It's that simple. The choice is yours 100%. Personally, I don't visit sites with pop-ups or interstitials, one offense is enough for me to know not to go back to that site, and even if I were paying for bandwidth, after it happened once, I've learned my lesson and can add that site to my hosts file as one to block.
"Is this so wrong on the net?"
Yes. It is as wrong as if a TV commercial could prevent me from changing the channel, turning on the radio, or going to the bathroom while it was playing.
A full-screen advertisement as herein described consumes my bandwidth without asking (potentially forcing me to pay more to my ISP), hijacks my entire computer interface (which usually does much more than just web browsing).
I have little problem with net advertising in general, as long as it respects my control of my property. A website that requires you to click-through a page of advertising may be annoying if you are in a hurry, but is completely reasonable and up front. A website that silently loads a high-res movie in the background, then takes over your entire screen when you try to leave, is an abomination.
The real shame is that it's not going to be any more effective than the other attempts at web advertizing. All the people that ignore other web ads will ignore these newfangled full-motion ads too. Some people who put up with pop-ups and such will be pushed over the edge and just stop going to the site(s).
And in the end they are left with the same target group as they had before, only they are spending way more money to attract them. While ignoring the root cause of the problem: believing that click-throughs were indicative of ad effectiveness.
Oh well, not my money being wasted...
______-___--_-__-_---_-----__-_-___-_-_---_-----_
Just don't use crappy IE and you won't be exploited by this crap.
Some good catch-alls for Adblock
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Its interesting how many people have pointed out that cable TV used to be commercial free. So why are we now paying to receive ads on cable? This should give you some insight. Basically everyone in the United States who subscribes to cable or satellite is paying a Disney Tax, mainly due to fees for ESPN. That's right, when you watch ESPN, you are bombarded with commercials, you see onscreen advertising, and on top of it your cable companies are charged out the ass for the rights to carry ESPN. But should they decide to drop ESPN or move it to a premium package, Disney will threaten to pull ALL of their channels from that cable company. This means no Disney, ESPN, ABC, and whatever other channels they own. The cable provider would lose lots of subscribers over this, so they must play along. But why does Disney feel that consumers should be forced to pay to watch ads? Because they clearly are willing to do so. Sports fans who pay almost $100 per game ticket and then $12 for a beer and slice of pizza, and then watch ads all through the game are more than willing to pay whatever they are charged for ESPN. What is unfair is the fact that every cable subscriber must pay whether they watch sports or not. The summary of this post is: Fuck ESPN. Fuck them in the ass with a concrete dildo.
The problem with this method is that your bandwidth is being consumed "behind your back" and you won't know it until the damage is done. Like the cel phone analogy, you don't know if it's a junk call until you answer and, bang, you just paid for a call you don't want, but you're still going to pay for it. If there's a disclaimer stating what's going to happen when(or before) you go to the site, then no problem. I'll stay away.
What?
... in what my machine will be sending back to them as part of this process. After all, it does have to send something to tell them my browser is open and waiting for their wonderful content. There's got to be some kind of ACK packet or piece of cookie or something, right?
Oh my golly, I certainly hope that these little ACK packets don't get all munged up and get some big ole MP3 or something accidently cat'ed to them. Why, that'd shove a whole bunch of useless junk up their widget while it's waiting patiently to feed me my commercials.
The difference between TV and the net is, we always wanted to tell the TV off, but couldn't. We've been waiting for years for this, and now we can.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
What about lynx? I seriously doubt the ablity for this full motion advertisement scheme to work for `play perfectly for every consumer, every time'. Then again if i use *nix am i a consumer?
I have had ENOUGH of visiting sites with Gator pop-ups, etc and now this. While these sites do have the right to generate revenue to sustain themselves, grown and make a profit it is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE that these sites automatically push this type of content to you with your explicit permission. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is an infringement to the security of your PC. One could call this tampering with your PC...especially the adware crap that's out there now (Gator, etc). It is a CRIME or should be! I think what really needs to be done is a filtering intitiative needs to be started just like we have for SPAM. Sites should be filtered based on the content they push to viewers. Then viewers can use these filters with a custom plug-in to their browsers and be warned in advance to opening the page as to what it is pushing to viewers. "WARNING: this site will attempt to push Gator software to your PC" "Do you want to proceed?" "This features full motion commercials" "Do you want to proceed?" Something like mailwasher except for websites instead of email. I have one machine that I use specifically for web browsing (and use Mozilla Firebird) and gaming and one for my business related matters that I do not browse the web with at all. I don't need the headaches from potential problems like this.
Good point! This is exactly like cable was. When cable tv first rolled out they told us that we only had to pay to watch tv because there would be no commercial advertising except on the rebroadcast local channels from outside our area. Well it didn't take long before all the cable-only channels started playing commercials, but they still charge us outrageous prices to pipe video over lines they strung 20 years ago. And it didn't cost them anything to run the cables in the first place since they charged us 10 cents per telephone pole to have it run from the next town over! Now the cable companies make money from both ends. They charge us consumers to watch the commercials that they charge the advertisers to play for them.
"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."
I've never heard of this format, but it must simply be awesome if it's universally supported by every browser on every operating system. Heck, I've even had MP3 audio files that wouldn't play, so it must simply be amazing if it's perfect.
I'm using FreeBSD with Konqueror. And no plugins. Will this work for me? Or will I have to do all of the horribly complicated things to get the Flash plugin to work under Linux emulation mode? Maybe it uses Java. Does it use Java? If so, how can it play perfectly if I have Java disabled?
Of course, I know the real answer. They're phrase "every consumer" means only those consumers running Windows, and possibly Mac. So what happens for the rest of us? Will these render these sites unusable, because there's no way to get past the requirement to view the advertisement? I'm thinking of all those sites that are completely and utterly inaccessible without flash.
p.s. No, I'm not going to switch to Windows, Mac or Linux just to see some ads. No site is worth that much. Ditto for switching to anything else.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
They will make it compulsory to have aalib installed... :-)
Burma?
Proxomitron is a local proxy that lets you write powerful scripts the alter your incoming and out-going browser data-stream 'in real time'. Yes, you can intercept Shockwave/flash as easily as any other sort of file, as well as Javascript and .CSS files. You can not only block ads and pop-ups and cookies, you can customize your entire browsing experience! You can also SEND things like spoofed cookies and other codes that let you control your browsing experience. The add-blocker CSS for Mozilla/Firebird is good but but this is an order of magnitude better.
Proxomitron. Get it, learn it, keep up with the cookie snoopers and pop-up pushers.
http://www.proxomitron.info/
Still wrong. If you pay for you Internet connection based upon the amount of bytes transmitted/received, and you won't know the web site is forcing an advertisement down your throat until you have already "consumed" the bandwidth to download it, then I say it is still wrong. *And* it wasn't up to the end user as to whether to dl the advertisement or not.
Now, that said, the end user can remember the site and choose not to go there again, but how much bandwidth ( money ) is it going to cost him before he has built up a decent "blacklist". Even then when he/she first visits a new site, there will be the chance they will get burned.
Sorry, there is no justification for forcing things ( ads and what not ) down end users throats. When you set up a web site or other service on the Internet, you do so with the understanding that it is going to cost you, and if anyone chooses to support the site ( financially or otherwise ), it is 100% their choice, not yours.
I can't afford a sig!
Actually, you know... I'm _not_ anti-capitalistic. In fact, I'm probably as pro-capitalistic as it gets.
However, my idea of capitalism, dunno, has more to do with what it used to mean, a long time ago in a galaxy far away. The idea that you try to build a better product. That you try to give people something they need, and they'll give you money for it.
At some point it used to be, at least theoretically, that a transaction produced value for _both_ parties involved.
E.g., if I'm a baker and you're hungry, for you a loaf of my bread is worth more than the price I ask for it. And for me, having more loaves than I can possibly eat myself, that money is worth more than the loaf. Thus the transaction is a profit for both sides involved.
Now in this high tech market all this got turned upside down. The whole idea is to rape the consumer as hard as you can. As long as you got their money today, fsck 'em.
Just in the software industry alone, billions of USD worth of _worthless_ software is sold each year by marketting, bribery and lies. The kind of snake-oil transaction which actually produces a huge _loss_ to the buyer (e.g., the wasted time of 20 contractors over 2 years trying to work around the bugs) for a tiny profit to the seller. In fact, the kind that rapes you harder than if they just stole that money out of your account.
Plus it's sad to see everything thrown back in time some 500 years.
A _very_ long time ago, long before computers or even electricity, merchants had discovered that being honest and respectful pays. It paid big time. A satisfied customer was a customer which came back tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and next year. And often brings other customers.
Those people were planning to be in business for a long time. For generations, if possible. _Not_ to pull a quick scam.
Nowadays, again, that all got turned around. People are not planning to be in business for generations. At best they plan to show a bigger figure at the next board meeting. Plans now span a year, or in the worst cases barely weeks.
Hence, now it's perfectly acceptable to sell snake oil, and doubly so to screw the customer hard. He may not buy from you again next year, but, hey, who cares about next year? Rape 'em with a red hot poker, if that's what it takes to get their money NOW.
Dunno, somehow I think this is _not_ what capitalism was supposed to mean. Most of those business models are IMHO closer to the good old medieval highway robery, or to flying the Jolly Roger and plundering the Spanish Main, than to anything capitalism was supposed to mean.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.