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This Headline Is Not for Sale

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the nickel-for-the dept.

r.jimenezz writes "Adam Penenberg's latest article on Wired News discusses the growing trend of inserting ads more directly into online content, as publishers strive to keep readers clicking and to stretch advertising dollars, most of which go to a few big companies. He mentions the example of Vibrant Media, which links 'certain words in an article' directly to ads, and has been covered before on Slashdot, as have Penenberg's previous articles."

10 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. This was bound to happen sooner or later by HMA2000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is one of the promises of the early web coming true. Hyperlinked text that will take you anywhere you want to go. Considering that it is advertisers (usually) that pay the salaries of online media folk it is not at all surprising that advertisers get what they want.

  2. Does Slashdot do this? by Ianoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's been some speculation that articles like this are paid-for (NOTE: they always seem to be posted by CmdrTaco).

  3. Toms Hardware by StevenHenderson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I find the trend of inserting ads into article text annoying and distracting. I, for one, would never buy anything off of such a link, but obviously people are, or else this practice would die down. See this is practice with any of the articles at:
    http://www.tomshardware.com/

  4. Information or commercial? by jstave · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...because readers are in control; they have the option of running their mouse over the words and clicking on the links.

    Except, now there's apparently no way to tell the difference between an informational link inserted by the author and commercial crap that will just waste your time if you click on it.

    Unless there's some way to turn this off, or filter it out, this just looks like another step in the removal of the internet's informational utility to me.

  5. adblock, flashblock, hosts file by Janek+Kozicki · · Score: 5, Informative

    remeber to use a custom hosts file. It increases browing sanity a LOT. Much more than just using adblock and flashblock (which I use too).

    Sometimes when I have to browse on someone's else computer I'm almost stunned by the number of ads that appear on sites. Yeah it's easy to get accustomed to comfort of browsing without ads.

    So... don't wait any longer! install custom hosts file NOW!

    BTW: I'm curious if it will soon be included into some of linux distros by default, it would be great - self maintaining and updating custom hosts file... (it works with windows too, but I doubt it will be a part of default windows install anytime ;)

    --
    #
    #\ @ ? Colonize Mars
    #
  6. Re:How to block them ... by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I never click on the banners, and since most revenue is now derived from click-throughs, I don't see the point in displaying them on my machine. Why should I be *forced* to see some ad when I don't have to. In any case, those greedy bastards would expand advertising into every possible medium, not because they aren't already making money (they are) but because they always want more money. On the very few sites which carry ads I am interested in I let the server display them (Penny Arcade, SlashDot).

    --
    All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
  7. A good idea for a FireFox plugin by BubbaThePirate · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Just like Adblock: parsing all hyperlinks in a webpage, and weeding out the ones you've previously marked as Ads, blocking them, and possibly even crossing them out (so that you'll know why they aren't working), or another visual notification.

    Adblock works wonderfully (especially the Collapse feature), why shouldn't this?

    Linkblock, anyone?

    --

    -- "I'm not a religious man, but if you're up there, save me Superman..."

  8. Intellitext pitched OSDN (now known as OSTG) by Roblimo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We said no. We have many editorial links in stories on all our sites, so having paid links mixed in wouldn't be right. Advertising is one thing. Mixing it with the actual news content is another. IMO it's simply wrong.

    Part of Intellitext's pitch was that plenty of "respected" news sites are doing this. My response: "Didn't your mother ever ask, 'If all the other kids were jumping off a cliff, would that mean you'd have to jump, too?'"

    Fah.

    - Robin 'Roblimo' Miller
    Editor in Chief, OSTG

  9. Don't block, hide by vadim_t · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Instead of blocking advertisements, the good strategy is to load them, but just don't display them. I was even thinking here of trying to patch some ad-removing proxy for that, and also making some kind of program that would "click" on ads at night.

    Main point of that is that you get to see the site, and if it's well done, neither the advertiser nor the site have any way of finding what are you doing on your end, so the site still gets paid.

    Of course, that'll probably accelerate the inclusion of links to ads in content, but that can be easily dealt with by the same proxy which already does pattern matching for URLs anyway. It won't take long until ad blockers start appending [ad!] after those links.

  10. Re:How to block them ... by bobintetley · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why do you do it? Do you think that servers and bandwidth pay for themselves?

    Exactly! It's my fucking bandwidth and I'm not paying to see their advert!