Commercials Come To The Net (After This Word) 1046
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 ...
Expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
Very true. Advertising on unlimited broadband is merely a nuisance. Full video, multi-MB sized advertising on a metered low-speed connection should be a crime. Why should people have to *pay* to receive corporate advertising?
That's like the high-school kids who pay Nike to be a walking billboard for the company. If I'm going to wear clothing that has large corporate logos, names, or slogans printed on it - they damn well better be paying *me* to do it.
Re:Expensive (Score:5, Informative)
15 seconds
300k file size
Full screen
Plays between pages during consumer transition
300KB/7KBps == 42+ seconds of *extra* download time, presuming the user is downloading at a full 56kbps. Just think, if every page has this ad technology, this is going to make for some very long browsing sessions for modem users. I don't know about the rest of you, but I never was able to reach a full 56kbps when I used to be on modem. It always dropped back down to 26kbps or a similar speed.
Imho, it is advertising suicide. Then again, not every user knows there are alternatives to MSN, ESPN, etc...
Re:Expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
apparently you've never heard of cable television.
Re:Expensive (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Expensive (Score:5, Informative)
That's just it - they *DO* trick you. The article clearly states that *while* the user is browsing a given web site, the full motion video ad is being downloaded in the background. It is only when you leave the site that the video starts playing.
You don't have the option to check the "No thanks, I pay by the MB for my downloads" button. You don't even know about the large download until after it's done!! That's the offensive part.
One can only hope that the sites which feature these ads have a warning.
Re:Expensive (Score:3, Funny)
please tell that to the person with a gun standing behind me!
Re:Wrong perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
They AREN'T forced to do anything. They can turn their servers off and not have a web page at all.
Re:Wrong perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
It is you sir who have the wrong perspective.
Who is forcing the web site to provide the content free of charge?
Re:Wrong perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Wrong perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Wrong perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
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...
Even more wrong perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Even more wrong perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude it runs on windows(R) so just get LINUX(R); until redmond ports Windows Media Player software, which an estimated 8 of 10 Internet users have on their computers to LINUX(R) we're safe! The magic 8 ball says LINUX(R) on the desktop just got a big leap forward.
Re:Fsck this world (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Wrong perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Wrong perspective (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wrong perspective (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wrong perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
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."
Re:Wrong perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wrong perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Expensive (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Expensive (Score:5, Funny)
That's right, would you believe this, I have to go stick coins in a machine down the hall regularly to get broadband, otherwise I get disc
Re:Expensive (Score:5, Informative)
Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a lot of people would do that.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh great... (Score:3, Informative)
The css file blocks content from being displayed. In other words, the unwanted content still gets downloaded. Thus, these ads remains a problem for modem users and pay-by-megabyte users.
umm yeah.. no (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:umm yeah.. no (Score:3, Insightful)
Since you/we are not the main audience, I think you/we will be left off by those sites...
Re:umm yeah.. no (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:umm yeah.. no (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:umm yeah.. no (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Konquerer for me, please (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Konquerer for me, please (Score:3, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"the start of a new era" (Score:5, Funny)
I like this quote from the guy from Pepsi
"Yes, it's intrusive," he said. "But I think customers will like it, because it will be so far superior to anything they've seen online."
To me, isn't that kinda like saying:
"We are going to shove red-hot pokers up our customers' asses, but I think they will like it, because it will be far hotter than anything they've ever had up their asses."
free hosts file ad blocker (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Hmmm... *Any* User? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hmmm... *Any* User? (Score:3, Insightful)
I silently installed internet junkbuster at work and redirected all the machine to that proxy about 2 years ago.
corperate recently after a takeover made changes to our network and changed the proxy settings on everyone's machines without my knowlege (I'm the local IT guy) and then called me asking why out network useage spiked up by almost 24%. my response was to the new It operations manager on how the regional IT made changes to my machines without my know
Re:Hmmm... *Any* User? (Score:5, Informative)
My favorite quote [unicast.com] (from near the bottom of the paragraph):
I'd sure like to see the terms of that guarantee... <grin>
My HOSTS file is gonna get reallllly big. (Score:3, Funny)
10 minutes... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:10 minutes... (Score:5, Informative)
10 seconds to find the advertisement tag
2 seconds to add the host to the squid banlist ACL
2 seconds to restart squid
Sure. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Off-beat browsers (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Guaranteed? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Guaranteed? (Score:3, Funny)
This type of guarantee is clearly more of a threat than a promise.
Free Tech Support. (Score:4, Funny)
Gone are the times when you would be replied "we don't support linux" - they guaranteed it.
Hosts file, yet again (Score:4, Funny)
My hosts file is already open and waiting to be editted. Lets see how "guaranteed" your advertising is then.
and now... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Block flash (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
What the hell. (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a revolt [slashdot.org] over popups. Who thinks this is a good time for full-motion commercials? What kind of reaction are they expecting from the public on this one?
--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor? [colingregorypalmer.net]
American Weblog in London [colingregorypalmer.net]
Next: television-free televison (Score:5, Funny)
Flash Controls? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
There is one... (Score:3, Informative)
Check The Firebird Plugins (Score:3, Informative)
Boycott is the best method (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Boycott is the best method (Score:3, Funny)
Oh the humanity!
Oh my god, think of the bandwidth (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
No Free Lunch (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
So...? (Score:5, Funny)
What the hell does Mr. Vail think TV is short for?"
--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor? [colingregorypalmer.net]
American Weblog in London [colingregorypalmer.net]
Why not e-mail the companies and complain? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why not e-mail the companies and complain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well just make sure you don't use your spam-free email address when you complain because chances are that anyone who's arrogant enough to use up your bandwidth without permission also won't think twice about spamming you or adding your address to the spam lists (sorry -targeted email marketing lists) they sell their clients.
Re:Why not e-mail the companies and complain? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
On their opt-in mailing list I would imagine. Here's an idea, post the links to the ads in a +5 insightful and get every /.er to download the files five or six times each. When their server self destructs under the load and their bandwidth bill arrives, they'll probably can the idea entirely. ;-)
Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
"Sponsored by" (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Right!!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Google Link & my humble opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
Bullshit. I have yet to see a decent video that can be downloaded by a 56k modem in the time it takes to read a page and be played fullscreen. I picked up a freebie program back in my 56k days and i still use it. No-Flash [geocities.jp] lets you disable java, flash, pictures, animations, videos and so on. This little program made such a huge difference (especially by killing animations) in my browsing experience. At the bottom of their page, they admit the google toolbar does pretty much the same stuff. Hopefully that means it'll stop those videos from downloading, not just from playing.
why isn't internet bandwidth like cell phone time (Score:3, Informative)
Just some thoughts. Anyone have any thoughts on that rambling?
Wonderful! (Score:4, Funny)
Who said this wasn't the year of desktop Linux?
TV and Internet are different. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:TV and Internet are different. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called arrogance and it is very common in the advertising world.
What the fucking HELL!? (Score:3, Insightful)
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??!
Somewhere, an ad exec is clubbing a baby seal (Score:5, Funny)
i will simply opt out. (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Vote With Your Browser (Score:3, Interesting)
It's coercive to run an ad deliberately intended to evade consumer ad-blocking software.
Show your displeasure - do not go to these sites, send email to these sites telling them so, and send email to the ADVERTISERS telling them so.
Enough people revolt, the companies paying for this crap will stop paying for it - simple business decision.
These people need to be told that the Net is NOT one-way broadcasting.
One Browser for Them All (Score:3, Interesting)
I am thinking that this BS is not going to go away. Advertising is in trouble (dont know about you, but I rarely see commercials since I got tivo). Television commercials, radio commercials, and print ads are becoming less effective every day - as people move to the internet for their entertaiment/information.
They are losing their captive audience and are going to try as hard as they can to "surround" it again. Anyone think they will really discontinue such ads if people complain?
It seems to me that the only way to prevent circumvention of these ads (without requiring user feedback "enter this code") would be to control which browser they use. IE only sites? Where is your Trusted Computing Certificate? Don't have one? Sorry, you are not "trusted", you can only surf the "unsecure" web.
Release OS X for x86 - Linux Desktop Developers get your heads out of your ass and create something as functional and easy to use as Windows - time is of the essence!
It's reasonably gay, but not really gay. (Score:5, Informative)
- 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.
The difference between TV and the Internet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Adblock for Moziila doesn't have a problem with it (Score:4, Informative)
Some constructive MSIE user suggestions (Score:3, Informative)
Not the same at all... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
This is sooo easy to block (Score:5, Informative)
Just don't use crappy IE and you won't be exploited by this crap.
Some good catch-alls for Adblock
TAANSTAFL (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty hypocritical, considering it wouldn't exist without a lot of donated tax-money research and net-hacker time.
Standing in a bathtub? (Score:3, Interesting)
What does that mean, we all know that there is registration required for NYT, and even if you don't you'll find out pretty fast. This whole ripping on the new york times because you have to register is really lame and childish- almost as bad as the FIRST POST thing-- maybe I stand alone on this one, but it makes me not want to read the story after that lame ass joke.
I'm more interested... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Perfectly every time? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Before you complain... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Before you complain... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: Before you complain... (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, my understanding is that most of their revenue is from the advertising, and not from the cover price.
The real problem is that advertizing only exists because it works...
Re:Before you complain... (Score:3, Funny)
Don't you mean: "Knowing is half the battle!/Snorks!/Munchichi, Munchichi, oh so soft and cuddly!/Fah laaa, lah la la lah lah!/Where's the Beef?/Keep the hot side hot, the cold side cold!/Encyclopedia Btritannica (I think I made that abundantly clear...)/Zoinks! Foiled Again!/And I'll form... THE HEAD!/Alllviiiiinnnn!/By the power of Greyskull!/Cut that jibba-jabba!/Go Go Gadget Go!/Transform and Roll Out!/Wonder Twins Powers... Activate!/Hey Yo, Mall-o-ry!"
Re:Before you complain... (Score:3, Interesting)
They won't have any visitors.
I don't even go to ESPN anymore. Ever since they started all that full motion video crap, the site has gotten worse and worse. I've avoided gamespot and gamespy for the same reasons; too much annoying crap to dig through.
I predict that not far in the future, you'll 'pay' to see only the half-annoying ads that already circulate every content page on earth, just like cable once offered free content for pay and now has ad
Re:I wonder how long (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I wonder how long (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like this will push Flash blocking through quickly.
Re:I wonder how long (Score:3, Informative)
"Looks like this will push Flash blocking through quickly. :)"
Flash Click to View: [texturizer.net]
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Compatibility (Score:3, Insightful)
Clearly you're not versed in marketing lingo. If you can't see the ad, you're not going to be a consumer, hence the guarantee stands. Remember that next time you hear somebody claiming high user satisfaction!
Re:What country are you from? (Score:4, Informative)