Personally I find the reaction to banner ads far more off-putting than the Banner Ads.
I’d just like to register my incredulity at how fiercely people have reacted to the appearance of a flashing bar near the top of of the board… Increasing the number of sites with ads by 0.00000000000000000000000128%
All my energy for being angry ad advertising is used up on Sky TV and paper-wastage in Magazines.
Hooray! Another thread.
Well there is also the audio component of some of the ads and the slower load times with the ads. Additionally for some users (mainly Firefox it looks like) the ads sometimes cover the menu options.
So this is a bit more serious than the nearly non-issue that the Google ads were.
Jim
Audio component?
I aim to please.
Yes, sound. Are you familiar with it?
Several of the ads are accompanied by very loud music or very loud, verbal advertisements. Even a few have little movies that play (the car ones).
Or as it says over the urinal, “You aim, too, please.”
I don’t surf that many sites, so it’s rather a higher percentage for me. And I only pay for one site, so the increase in that set is HUGE.
What we have here is a company continually reducing services provided for the same annual contract amount, which really is something unheard of in the IT business. NOTHING in this industry costs more per unit today than it did 3 years ago, yet we pay the same amount and get less and less as time goes on. Content is removed, we’re forced to have ads, they cut back on our search capability, then we’re forced to have MORE ads.
What really pisses me off most is that 3+ years ago, when they went pay, it was an effort to “save” the board, and the posters here blew away their expectations of how many people would pony up the dough. Ever since, all the management has done is cry poverty and try to figure out how to squeeze more money out of the board while providing nothing in added services or functionality. The only thing they did do was reduce timeouts from “constant” to “infrequent”, which I would consider the barest minimum they could get away with.
Vibration of air molecules, via computer speakers, that agitate one’s eardrums.
Or in other words, in this case, loud music and annoying slogany shit, sometimes triggered by a mouseover.
funny, until I saw three threads on this subject, I hadn’t even noticed the banner ads.
And for the sound, well…there’s probably a volume control on your computer.
Ah, the mousover bit clued me in. Because I’ve never seen a banner ad that just made sound if it was loaded on a page.
‘BOING’ springs to mind.
edit: If a sound or anigif annoys, pressing the stop button on your browser stops it.
And some of us use the speakers to play music while at work. A blaring ad for Ford isn’t conducive to a pleasant work experience.
…and it clues people in to the fact that you’re surfing the Dope.
But they’re banner ads! They take up several inches of monitor space! Assuming you don’t block them, you might have to scroll one, maybe even two seconds! THE END IS NIGH!
You have never seen an ad that just plays, I am amazed. I get these way to frequently. Mostly sports sites I think, but way to often. The biggest difference, is that they are from free sites.
I believe you are wrong about hitting the stop button. I will experiment tonight.
Jim
Personally, I find the SDMB to be way too fast, especially when I am on dial-up. I am sooo glad to have something that makes pages load more slowly.
Banner ads? How come I don’t have any? I tried with both Firefox and IE as browsers. 
So far the repertoire of banner advertisements that I’m seeing runs to two: one suggesting that I put my own photo on a US stamp and one for a cook book. No sound or moving bits at all.
While I agree that the reaction to the banner ads (in a few cases) is a bit over the top, I have to admit it bothers me too. The idea behind making me pay to see advertising is loathesome enough that I will not be renewing my membership here. I will miss posting on the rare occasion that I do, but while I don’t mind reading posts (for free) and having ads shoved at me, I simply cannot see how anyone would be ok with paying for that annoyance.
I will chime in with the “ads with sound are bullshit” crowd, as I work in a call center. The company allows us to surf the intarwebs “in between calls.” For most people, this is fine, as they do not have speakers, but I also do chat for our website. Since the chat notification is a sound, I have to a)have speakers and b) have them turned on to an audible (even if I am on a call) level. This creates huge problems if a banner ad has unexpected sound. While I admit that part of my hatred of those noisy ads is due to the fact that I surf while on calls, the other part is that it is annoying to my cube-neighbors, too.
In conclusion, meh.