Okay, what the fuck. I just went to Daily Radar and three, count 'em, THREE, popup windows opened.

Are these guys really that desperate for income, or what? I can't think of any other explanation for going so far beyond the pale with friggin' popups.

And who thinks that opening a popup "behind" the browser is a clever technique? Hmm. Yeah, that's a good way to endear yourself to advertisers-- place their ad in a place the average user will never see. Sheesh. And people wonder why web advertising doesn't work?

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Yep, it's annoying as all be-Jesus. And what about the full page pop up when you leave? It worse than a porn site...

uh, not that I visit porn sites, you understand...

Basically, business people completely ignore consumers/readers when they come up with these ideas, so people need to stop visiting websites with annoying ads. Unless traffic dips, you can be assured the ads will get more annoying and more obtrusive.

To be honest, if its a choice between that, and having a favorite web site close down, I'll chose the popups.

"Are these guys really that desperate for income, or what? I can't think of any other explanation for going so far beyond the pale with friggin' popups."

I'd guess yes. They're probably operating the site at a loss right now and Imagine's stock has taken a beating. It's not just websites -- print media's feeling the pinch too. Advertising is down.

In some ways DR would be in better shape to drive away some readers while creating additional revenue from popups. It's a weird situation, but too many pageviews is almost a liability now. You still have to pay for the bandwidth, but your ad pricing gets out of reach for many potential advertisers.

>>In some ways DR would be in better shape to drive away some readers while creating additional revenue from popups. It's a weird situation, but too many pageviews is almost a liability now. You still have to pay for the bandwidth, but your ad pricing gets out of reach for many potential advertisers.

Then you lower your rates, not drive away traffic. I understand what you're saying, but editorially speaking, and from the perspective of advertisers (I presume), seeing a downward trend in readership is an incredibly bad sign.

>>To be honest, if its a choice between that, and having a favorite web site close down, I'll chose the popups.

Well, this is somewhat depressing. If you're willing to just sit and take it without even thinking about NOT READING (your only ammo against more and more advertising), you'll get what you deserve. More ads on a page, more animation, more sound, more redirects, more trying to fake you into clicking on an ad, more ties with commerce... from my perspective, if a website basically needs to be openly hostile to readers in order to survive, why keep it alive? It ceases to be for the readers, it's merely an ad server with some editorial content. That's the perspective of business people.

"Well, this is somewhat depressing. If you're willing to just sit and take it without even thinking about NOT READING (your only ammo against more and more advertising), you'll get what you deserve."

Yeah, but the ratio of ads to content on the web is still really low compared to print, if you look at the size of the ads. A banner ad just takes up a tiny portion of the page, whereas most magazines are about 50% advertising. You get the popups, which are annoying, but you only get them when you initially hit the site, unlike a magazine where you turn the page and get a new ad thrown at you time and time again.

I think that one that pop ups behind the browser is actually done on purpose and the advertiser knows about it. The idea is that you'll see it when you close your browser.

>>Yeah, but the ratio of ads to content on the web is still really low compared to print, if you look at the size of the ads.

Aw c'mon, it's not about literal ratios; the only thing that keeps ads from being as big as an article online is the delivery method (i.e. bandwidth). And print ads doon't compete visually on the same page when you're reading (and if it does, you can fold over the page). Sure, it can be a third page, but you don't normally have animated ads in mid-page, or pages that automatically turn to face the ad. About the only magazine equivalence for annoyance are the ads intentionally done on cardboard stock so that the magazine always opens to it.

But really, who really finds print ads obtrusive? You may be annoyed by their quantity (though you normally wouldn't find 3 or more on a page) but you typically have very defined editorial pages with little in the way of visual disruption.

And that's my problem with pop-ups and Flash and animation. They screw up my concentration when I'm trying to read an article, which is the only reason I'm at the site in the first place. That kind of hostility toward readers is something I'd like to see go down, not be increased.

And now that Daily Radar is doing pop-ups, assuming their traffic doesn't go down you can be assured others will follow suit.

Well, I often find print ads as annoying as popups. You ever try to find the TOC in some magazines? It's frustating as hell and often takes quite a bit longer than it takes to close a couple of popups.

And I find the inserts in magazines annoying.

And I find those extra hard pages on thick stock annoying because the magazine won't lay open right.

And I find foldout ads annoying.

So yes, there's plenty about advertising in magazines that is just as annoying and which I find hostile to my reading experience. The difference is that we're used to it.

The popups are really only momentarily annoying. Like I said, they appear when you initiate your site visit and you can close them, so for the rest of your visit they're gone. It's a 5-second annoyance. I'm not saying I like them -- I think they're dumb because sooner or later advertisers are going to realize they don't get value from them, yet they'll drive readers away.

As to other sites getting them, I dunno. We'd trade not running popups for increased traffic, I think. There have to be other sites that think like that.

>>Well, I often find print ads as annoying as popups. You ever try to find the TOC in some magazines? It's frustating as hell and often takes quite a bit longer than it takes to close a couple of popups.

You're talking about problems with layouts, not a problem with the ads and how they're displayed. Magazines put too many ads ahead of the TOC, no question. But that's not a problem with the ads themselves. That's a completely different issue.

Think of it in terms of expectations. When you picked up that magazine, you were expecting to flip through pages to find that TOC or articles, weren't you? Yes, ads may make it annoying, but it met your expectations.

However, when you go to a website, do you really expect to have additional windows pop up on your screen without your input? Your browser is doing something you did not expect, nor was it something you actually wanted. Again, it would be like the magazine automatically turning pages on you to view an ad.

Eudora has apparently even set their new free e-mail version to give you a warning message of the ad is covered by another window. It will then always bring the ad forward. That, I'm afraid, goes well beyond annoying. That would be like your television not letting you shut it off or change the channel during a commercial.

>>So yes, there's plenty about advertising in magazines that is just as annoying and which I find hostile to my reading experience. The difference is that we're used to it.

But in a magazine the advertisements are better separated from the editorial. They may be hostile to your page turning, but do they provide distractions when you're actually trying to focus on a page? Is there animation in mid-page? Generally speaking, no.

Bad layouts can provide this level of distraction, but only on rare occasions do print ads because they're typically not integrated into the page and directly in your field of view when focusing on a page.

>>Like I said, they appear when you initiate your site visit and you can close them, so for the rest of your visit they're gone.

Not if you go the homepage, read a story, and go back to the homepage to select another... every time you do that, they pop back up.

"But really, who really finds print ads obtrusive? You may be annoyed by their
quantity (though you normally wouldn't find 3 or more on a page) but you typically
have very defined editorial pages with little in the way of visual disruption.

"And that's my problem with pop-ups and Flash and animation. They screw up my
concentration when I'm trying to read an article, which is the only reason I'm at
the site in the first place. That kind of hostility toward readers is something I'd like
to see go down, not be increased."

I think this gets right to the heart of the matter. The layout of magazine ads can be annoying when they make it hard to find what you want in the first place, e.g., Mark's comment about the TOC. But print ads don't aggressively get in your face AFTER you've already found the material you're looking for. That's the difference in intrusiveness between the two media.

There's really no more effort involved in closing a pop-up window than there is in flipping past an ad page. What's so annoying about the former is that it agressively breaks your concentration, while the latter doesn't. Of course, if DR resorts to that little trick of not letting you close the window by clicking on the "X" box, I'll have to revise even this statement.

I think the popups will be phased out at some time. The new CNET ads won't though. They're the worst right now because of the animation. If they turn off the animation, they're not so bad -- they're a lot like a print ad then.

Anyway, bigger ads are defintely going to be a wave of the future. I hope they realize that making the automatically animate is a bad idea.

>>Anyway, bigger ads are defintely going to be a wave of the future. I hope they realize that making the automatically animate is a bad idea.

If you click on them, let them perform song and dance routines. But there's nothing I hate more then to try to read something while they're sitting there zooming text in and out.

I also wish C|Net wouldn't wrap text around them and just let them span the entire column.

I just went to ign and the site has no less that 10 FREAKIN POPUPS! Now I'm all for popups if they keep sites I like in business. However 10 popups, especially when 7 are for the home video release of Bedazzled, is going too far. I took a screen shot. I think it might be a fluke but still.

http://rcmerritt.homestead.com/files/ign.jpg

Ha ha ha! That's a great screenshot. Yeah, I'm sure they don't mean to pop up 7 Bedazzleds. Man, porno sites aren't even that bad.

Well, yes they are. They do that most despicable trick of opening up new browsers faster than you can close them.

"Well, yes they are. They do that most despicable trick of opening up new browsers faster than you can close them."

I assume someone you know told you about this? This couldn't be from personal experience. ;)

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Daily Radar and the rest of the sites under the IGN umbrella seem to be respawning that popup ad with each return to the main page. When I read IGNDC, I get a new one every time I go from reading a news story back to the home page. I don't think that's their plan, someone got their Javascript wires crossed.

--Dave

"Daily Radar and the rest of the sites under the IGN umbrella"

Daily Radar is a part of Imagine. IGN is part of Snowball. Separate companies.

Wumpus, yeah, I've checked out a few porno sites, but I've never subscribed to any. They're like warez sites in the way they spawn windows and trick you into clicking on links that spawn more windows. And no, I haven't actually downloaded warez. I was curious to see what was available. I'm still not sure, because the sites you can easily find don't let you easily download.