Falsely Accusing Your Customers Of Software Piracy Is Not A Victimless Crime

So What Annoying Ad Technique Will Replace Pop-Ups?

from the adblocked dept

Thu, Oct 5th 2006 9:20am — Carlo Longino

Pop-ups and other "interruptive" formats now represent just 0.7% of all online ad spending (BugMeNot required), which the head of an internet ad trade group says reflects their relative uselessness since people ignore them, or simply don't see them thanks to blocking software. It's hard to tell if the number of popups has decreased that significantly -- and we're not willing to turn off our blockers to find some anecdotal evidence -- or if they've simply become so worthless that prices have fallen through the floor, making them represent such a minute share of overall ad spending. But the bigger lesson for legitimate online advertisers is that these sorts of interruptive ads don't work, while well-targeted, useful and compelling online advertising is proving to be very effective. There is plenty of inventory for online ads, but the challenge now facing the ad industry is figuring out how to effectively target users, and how to offer them advertising they want to see, rather than ads they're simply forced to tolerate.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

25 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Ron, 5 Oct 2006 @ 9:33am

The new annoying ad will be the ad that pops up in a layer over the content. Notably on the wired.com website this is a big feature. Sometimes one can't even close them and has to wait for those things to close. Time to start blocking flash etc.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- I know what you mean...., 5 Oct 2006 @ 9:50am
  
  Re:
  Just yesterday I was trying to read an article on Wired, but this stupid ad kept overlapping the words, and it would NOT go away. No Close Window button, nothing....If this keeps up, I will be forced to stop reading Wired.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2006 @ 2:47pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Hi,
    
    Can you please point me to a specific page with these ads, I too read wired and I've never seen them. Maybe it's firefox + noscript and adblock doing their job but I'd like to be sure.
    
    Thanks
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yet another Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2006 @ 9:50am

Suggested Firefox feature
Mode button - to easily switch security setups. If you want to see the flash and do games or view neat creations, use mode A. If you are expecting to read news, use mode B. Use mode Z (just the basic HTML, please) for dangerous sites, such as hacker code sources which is the main source for raw socket programming info.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2006 @ 12:09pm
  
  Re: Suggested Firefox feature
  this exists to some degree ... there is an extension called "NoScript" which disables Javascript on a per-site basis. You might be surprised where some sites are running Javascript from.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
jward, 5 Oct 2006 @ 10:06am

Answer: Intellitext
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Lay Person, 5 Oct 2006 @ 10:17am

Yeah, mode button: Firefox web browser only!
Firefox users, please read #3 above...I hate typing repeated info...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
chris (profile), 5 Oct 2006 @ 10:27am

pop thrus
in the future, ads will pop thru your blocking software, punch holes in all of your open windows, blast thru the monitor itself, and slice thru your closed eyelids.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2006 @ 10:42am

Flash Overlay
Yep, it's the persistant flash overlay. God I hate that. The only way I've found to get rid of the one that constantly hassles me, the one with the talking woman saying something about something that I've never listened to (I can't remember which site it's on, probably Wired), is to actually click on it and then close the tab that opens in its place.

It's more annoying that a flashing popover.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Chris, 5 Oct 2006 @ 10:54am

Someone needs to create a domain stricly for advertising. Let any company who wants to post an add do so for whatever service they provide. People looking for good deals could then read customer reviews etc about any company that posts through this service. Comapnies can advertise to people actualy looking for relative content and would create more competition for their industry. However this would be far too practical, so dont expect to see it anytime soon. And if you do please notify me ASAP so I can sue someone for stealing my idea.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2006 @ 7:57pm
  
  Re:
  Someone needs to create a domain stricly for advertising.
  
  Congratulations, you have just outlined the basic purpose of the .COMmercial domain.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
leroy, 5 Oct 2006 @ 11:08am

blocking ads
try "guidescope" to block any content you want, it works great for me. I do have one question about firefox, can I tell it to block everything from a particular domain, like nextag.com I would like to block everything from that domain, all the time. Can this be done with firefox? I tried to do so with:
TOOLS, OPTIONS, CONTENT, EXCEPTIONS, BLOCK but they still come thru. Perhaps I misunderstand the function of this setting. If we could block domains we could block a good portion of ads easily.

L
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2006 @ 11:42am
  
  Re: blocking ads
  Edit your HOST File
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Lay Person, 5 Oct 2006 @ 11:55am
  
  Re: blocking ads
  This doesn't block entire domains just specific addresses.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- pudro, 5 Oct 2006 @ 12:17pm
  
  Re: blocking ads
  Use extensions like Adblock Plus, Flashblock, and NoScript. I hardly see any ads (usually only from sites I choose to allow), and my computer is safer for it (mainly because of NoScript).
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Panaqqa, 5 Oct 2006 @ 11:43am

Annoying ads...
My bet is on unwanted background sound advertising. Just imagine: you're surfing some site, and suddenly an audio track advertising the latest 50 cent album comes through your speakers. Briadband is now ubiquitous enough that sneaking a 500KB mp3 into a page won't radically affect loading time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2006 @ 11:49am

How about websites that force themselves in place of the location you are going to? Example: IGN.com - however, instead of being done through the website, have it be done through ISPs.

Ie: Comcast/AT&T get together w/ companies - and every time you go through their network you are rerouted to receive a page w/ the add and a link at the very top to continue the path to the site you were going too.

Everythings' possible, anyway.

/got nuttin'
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2006 @ 2:51pm
  
  Re:
  Not sure if this is the same thing but I have been to some websites that seem to do just that. You click on a link and it takes you to an advert page before taking you to the link you requested, with something like a 10-15 sec delay.
  
  I've yet to find a way round this even with noscript, adblock, flashblock etc.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
bunny, 5 Oct 2006 @ 12:22pm

most people do not want edit a HOSTS file, who does?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2006 @ 12:54pm

In Minority Report Tom Cruise walked into a dept. store, and automatically got bombarded with personal ads. I think that is the next level. Tailoring ads to specific indivuduals. With the talk of a national ID card, RFID chips in driver licenses and even embedded in the skin, I don't think it's that far off.

Imagine you walk into... say Banana Republic. You buy a pair of jeans and a sweater. A few weeks later you sit down at your laptop or pc... you get a pop up... tailored specifically to you... about not just the brand of jeans and sweater you bought but the size and color too. Some evil mastermind somewhere has to be working on it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
some dude, 5 Oct 2006 @ 1:04pm

hidden embedded audio ads...
Shudder to think.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Steve E, 5 Oct 2006 @ 1:22pm

Has anyone encountered push ads via bluetooth yet?? I heard there are some if you leave bluetooth open on your phone/portable.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Solo, 5 Oct 2006 @ 3:10pm

Good luck getting back the users that were so annoyed that they sought and installed good (and improved every day) solution to rid themselves of ALL ads, good and bad, targeted or not.

Just as advertizers have killed real-time tv watching for me (record show, play it later and skip the ads) they killed all chance that I ever see another ad. Flashing moving animation that compete for my visual attention is really unbearable when the content is text (and 98% of the content is text on the Net, figure excludes porn)

Adblock. Filterset.g. No Animated Gif.

The inventory maybe there, but it won't touch me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2006 @ 3:27am

re: pudro
"Use extensions like Adblock Plus, Flashblock, and NoScript. I hardly see any ads (usually only from sites I choose to allow), and my computer is safer for it (mainly because of NoScript)."

Have a similar Firefox set up to pudro. I have no problems with wired.com or any other sites I use currently.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Slet Varthash, 21 Mar 2007 @ 11:14am

Annoyances
What I find particularly annoying are the adverts that are "busy" with activity; particularly those stupid mortgage ads. You go to a purported news website; and you find the article is really quite small and is bounded on left and right with adverts with repetitive motion activity going on. Such a pain in the arse !!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]