Ultra Intrusive Pop Up Ads

from the lovely dept

Just when you thought that maybe, just maybe, advertisers were learning that pissing off people wasn't the best way to get the message across, a company has come up with a new, ultra-intrusive pop up ad, guaranteed to anger anyone who gets it. The ad "fills the entire screen" of the user - and weighs in at 300k (fun for you dialup users out there). If I ever receive one of these ads, you can be assured that I won't ever support the company using it or the site that is running the ad. At what point do advertisers learn that intrusive, annoying advertising pisses people off rather than makes them want to buy their product?
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  1. identicon
    Advertising Mgr, 30 Apr 2003 @ 1:07pm

    News flash: 1999 is over!

    Look, people need to realize that the free ride is over on the Internet, and folks are going to have to start either paying for content or accepting the fact of more dynamic advertising. That's just the way it is, folks. No such thing as a free lunch!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Joe Schmoe, 30 Apr 2003 @ 1:25pm

    No Subject Given

    Oh, don't give me that biased crap. The internet has been around long enough to have collapsed in on itself [for this reason] several times over by now.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Mike (profile), 30 Apr 2003 @ 1:43pm

    Re: News flash: 1999 is over!

    Look, people need to realize that the free ride is over on the Internet, and folks are going to have to start either paying for content or accepting the fact of more dynamic advertising. That's just the way it is, folks. No such thing as a free lunch!

    Why is this so? You can't think of more creative business models? If a business model involves pissing people off, then it open up an opportunity for someone else to come in and offer a non-pissing-people-off business model.

    Look at Techdirt, for instance. We don't offer advertising. Yet, we're self-sufficient, because we came up with a business model that works.

    Why is it that people can't get their head around the idea that "free" content acts as promotional material for other things?

    Why also can't people get their head around the idea that intrusive advertising isn't good for anyone. It's annoying for the user, and unlikely to sell them on a product. I have nothing against non-intrusive, well-targeted advertising, like those found on Google.

    I'm not asking for a "free lunch". I'm just saying companies should be (and can be) more creative in their business models.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    dr_stein, 30 Apr 2003 @ 2:25pm

    blah

    What's annoying is the fact that advertising execs have noticed that *people are fed up with ads* but they're unable to think beyond "Bigger is better." Larger ads are not going to sell more product. What is going to happen is that people will attempt to read an article only to be interrupted by a full screen flashing, noisy advertisement that they didn't expect. Is that a good thing? Does that give a good impression of the product? No, because the comsumer will think "Oh yeah, that's the stupid ad that came up while I was trying to read."

    I know it's not 1999, but there really are better ways to generate revenue rather than blasting ads between page views. Especially when you *know* that it's going to be abused. They said that it'd be between pages on multi page articles. Haven't you seen web
    sites that do
    stuff like this.
    You know,
    cramming the
    article text on
    the side so they
    can fill up the
    ..rest of the page with ads?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Jim, 30 Apr 2003 @ 2:49pm

    Re: News flash: 1999 is over!

    what is your business model Mike?

    jim

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Apr 2003 @ 2:59pm

    Re: News flash: 1999 is over!

    For some small sites, coming up with alternative business models is just not possible. I'm not saying that for every case, but sometimes sites with niche content just have no alternative than to show ads to cover their costs. If we're willing to accept this fact, webmasters have to run ads that are paying. Unforuntately right now a lot those ads are of the "annoying" type. I've started to see a shift in advertising though away from annoying pop/interstitial style ads to more integrated and non-intrusive branding style ads lately, so hopefully that trend will continue for both users and webmasters sakes.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Patrick, 30 Apr 2003 @ 3:05pm

    Re: News flash: 1999 is over!

    1999? How about 1994? Does any one else have fond memories of the idyllic pre-.com(mercial) cyber-scenery? The days when you could actually obtain valuable info through usenet, before those generously providing their time became fed up with spamming, flaming, and lazy, no-FAQ-reading newbies? Before open SMTP relays became a problem? I'm sick of these new attitudes on the internet today, where every one's just out to make a buck. TGOS--Thank God for Open Source, the last remnant of the original internet ideals.

    BTW, back on the subject, I think the advertisers may be operating on the assumption that even annoying ads provide name and product recognition, and are therefore effective. Personally, I try to remember the perpetrators of annoying pop up ads and I refuse to patronize these businesses, even on the rare occasion the product or service advertised actually interests me.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Chris, 30 Apr 2003 @ 4:32pm

    Re: News flash: 1999 is over!

    94? How about 96! It's not a coincidence that spam and clueless newbies became a big problem exactly whem AOL opened their door to the Internet.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    Mike (profile), 30 Apr 2003 @ 5:10pm

    Re: News flash: 1999 is over!

    what is your business model Mike?

    Perhaps I need to make this clearer on the site...

    Techdirt.com is a way of showing off our enterprise blogging work. We work with tech companies to make sure that, every day, they have all the news and analysis they need to better achieve their goals. We work with the companies to find out what they're most interested in, and then provide that information to them - nothing more, nothing less - in a great format (the blog) that makes it possible for them to archive the information, search and sort the information, and discuss and annotate the info.

    We've been in that business for a few years now, and Techdirt.com is just a way of demonstrating our skills.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    oldguy, 1 May 2003 @ 4:54am

    Re: News flash: 1999 is over!

    94? Usenet was useless by 94, it was pretty well unusable by 1990. The web was getting pretty sticky by the end of 1994 as well.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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