Pop Goes The Advert
Let's talk about a problem we all have. Don't be embarrassed, it happens
to everyone.
I'm talking about pop-up ads.
As anyone who uses the Internet today knows, the damn things are
insidious. In the days of old, it was only the sites that no one wants to
admit to visiting that used them. But the rest of the business community
caught on quickly, and even the mainstream news media sprinkles them
throughout your Web surfing experience like an Italian chef garnishes with
herbs. (Before I go any further, I will be journalistically responsible and
disclose that very occasionally, TMC uses pop-ups on our Web site, usually
in the couple of weeks immediately preceding a trade show.)
First, let's agree that not all pop-up ads are created equal. There are
"pop-unders," the ones that quickly disappear behind the page
you're viewing. You'll look at them when you click on them in order to get
rid of them, but they don't explode in your face like a bubble of chewing
gum. If pop-up ads were a human disease, these ads would be a light sniffle.
There are the lower left- and right-hand corner pop ups. Although they
occupy only a small portion of your screen, when you venture to click them
away, the "exit" button bounces out of your reach like a toddler
who doesn't want his face wiped. These ads, on the human-disease measurement
scale, are a full-blown head cold.
Third, we have the pop-in-your-face,
you-must-click-me-three-times-before-I-
go-away, AND I'll reappear every time you come back to this page pop-up ads.
These are the type that make you start considering throwing in the towel on
your surfing session. This type of ad is a bout with bronchitis, with a
sinus infection to boot.
Finally, the bubonic plague of pop-ups are those that slowly begin to
appear in the middle of your view when you are quietly and intently reading
an article, swelling to cover half the screen before resulting in an
animated, in-your-face "multimedia advertising experience" that
has no obvious means of being disabled by the reader until it has finished
its song and dance. (I mean "song" literally, since these ads are
often accompanied by dopey music someone's brother-in-law composed on his
Casio keyboard.) Variations occur in that sometimes instead of growing in
the middle of your screen like a virus colony, these ads dance in from the
left or right. Some of the worst offenders with this type of crawling pop-up
are some of the most respected names in newsThe London Times, for
example, uses them liberally.
The worst offender, at least in my experience, is the travel site Orbitz,
which has ads everywhere I don't want them to be. As a result, I now have a
very negative association with Orbitz (which has nothing to do with the fact
that their supposedly low prices are anything but). Credit card companies
are up there amongst the most notorious offenders, but then these are the
same people who daily stuff my postal mailbox with junk mail offers and
would issue a credit card to my cat if she had a social security number.
The upside is, as with most annoyances, technology comes in to save the
daysort of. There are a number of software products available that will
"kill" pop-ups, providing you with a satisfying "thunk"
or "bang" noise, letting you know each time it saves you from
being offered affordable life insurance (you can turn the sound feature off
if it becomes as annoying as the pop-ups it was designed to combat).
The products are varied and many, and have names like Pop-up Killer,
STOPzilla, Pop-up Cop and Popup BeGone. Most of them are available for free,
as shareware, or as a pay-for-download, usually with a free 30-day trial.
It's telling to know that software to stop pop-ups is among the most
downloaded products on the Internet. One problem with some of these software
packages is that they often block the launch of legitimate pop-up windows,
such as a supplemental sidebar piece in a news article, or a photo gallery
embedded into a Web site.
Taking the backlash a step further is Internet Service Provider EarthLink,
which in addition to its attractive anti-spam feature "The Spaminator,"
offers a service that blocks pop-ups -- no downloads or software purchase
required on the part of subscribers. The move has been successful in
differentiating EarthLink in consumers' minds as the most anti-ad ISP on the
marketa move that looks to be successful in attracting customers away
from the more ad-friendly AOL and MSN. (EarthLink is, in fact, currently
running a TV ad campaign that features an annoyed Web surfer clicking
through so many pop-ups it sounds as if he is playing a video game; he
clicks the last ad away with the comment, "7.0 this!," a direct
dig against AOL.)
Other ISPs have gone on the record as scoffing at EarthLink, theorizing
that regular Internet users have become so accustomed to pop-ups, they click
them away almost unconsciously, like one hits the snooze button on the alarm
in the morning and drifts back to sleep.
What is the advertising industry's response to killing pop-ups? On one
side, many advertisers and Web sites have discontinued using them in an
effort not to offend potential customers. On the other side, the same people
who are suing digital television companies like TiVo (which allows you to
zap through commercials) are insisting that it's a free speech issue, and
that it's against the spirit of the law for you, the consumer, to prevent
advertisers from exercising their freedom of speech to you. This attitude is
bound to make the companies that take this tack about as popular to Internet
users as the RIAA is to peer-to-peer file swappers.
Is there a downside to all of this pop-up zapping? Unfortunately, there
might be. Pop-up ads, annoying as they are, are income generators for Web
site operators. If that income is taken away from them, chances are good
that many of these sites that offer meaningful information will either need
to start charging in a pay-for-content way (Salon.com's premium paid service
allows you to view content with no ads), or they'll have to cut back on the
quality and quantity of information offered altogether.
This issue for now can remain one of the many unresolved questions that
the Internet, as a commercial entity, has posed in its continued evolution.
All I can hope is that if I put up with pop-up ads at the front end of my
Web surfing experience, the corporations that sponsor the ads won't seek an
alternative to conducting profitable business on the Internet by acquiring
bits of it at the back end. Otherwise, you and I might find ourselves
surfing the McWeb in a few years.
The author, Tracey Schelmetic, may be contacted (click HERE! for
affordable dental insurance!) by e-mailing her (Why not use MSN mail? It's
super!) at tschelmetic@tmcnet.com.
All rights reserved.
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