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from the ugh dept

Fri, Jun 1st 2001 1:09am — Mike Masnick
Earlier today I complained to the latimes.com when I saw that they served up not one, but two pop up ads when I went to read some article. I wrote them and told them it made their site look like a porn site. They wrote back pretty quickly to say that they were still experimenting with these "pop under" ads and they appreciated the feedback and were very interested in what people had to say (so I encourage you to email them at feedback@latimes.com and explain to them why pop up ads are annoying and bad). However, I'd never heard the term "pop under ads" which is how they described them. It turns out that pop under is the new term for pop up ads that stay hidden behind your browser. Unfortunately, the quotes in the article make it sound as though these are catching on - and actually working. The only reason they're working is probably because they're confusing the hell out of people who wonder why this extra site is suddenly open on their screens. Tricking people into viewing your ads doesn't seem like a really smart business strategy. It seems like desperation.
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4 Comments

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  1. identicon
    mhh5, 1 Jun 2001 @ 1:36am

    desperation LIKE A FOX...

    Um, I think most people are "tricked" into viewing ads. That's not desperation. That IS the essence of most commercials. When was the last time you looked at an ad ON PURPOSE?

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Mike (profile), 1 Jun 2001 @ 1:48am

    Re: desperation LIKE A FOX...

    Commercials aren't "tricky". They don't "hide" the commercials so that you're confused when a commercial suddenly comes on TV. The fact that new windows show up and are *hidden* on your computer and people are confused as to why they're there at all is a problem. It's deception.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Brian, 1 Jun 2001 @ 3:08am

    do banner/popup ads work at all?

    I just don't get it -- the whole point of the web (imho) is that I can go find what I want to find. If I buy something online it's because I want to and went and sought it out. I don't believe I've ever intentionally clicked on a banner (or popup or whatever) ad. If you want to sell something, put some useful information up and people will find it. Thankfully junkbuster does wonders for insulating me from a lot of this crap, but until there's a filtering proxy that can remove obnoxious javascript crap I guess I'll have to suffer.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Carmen, 1 Jun 2001 @ 11:16am

    Popup Ads

    The curious thing is that most people say they detest popup or popunder or pop anything ads. They annoy the heck out of me and I click them off before they even load. I subscribe to several online marketing and advertising discussion lists. The list participants -- in great numbers -- say that they use popups because they produce results. So somebody out there is clicking on these things and actually converting. So as long as advertisers meet their advertising objectives, I guess popups are here to stay.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]


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