Popup ads are NOT evil...

Great Debates
61

I can’t speak for the others, but I was thinking of realtor.com. Since it’s working from an immense database, it already takes awhile to load each page. And as I am scrolling down the page trying to look at the listings, it suddenly freezes, and begins loading a popup window. I can see the little x in the upper right corner, and I can move the cursor to it, but clicking it does not close the window until it is finished loading. When I am finally able to close the popup, the original window I was looking at resets itself to the top. I put up with it because that site has some valuable information that’s free of charge, but it’s still annoying as hell.

The other thing I was talking about was geocities. Their popups are disguised so that you can’t easily figure out how to close them.

Another thing I could do without are the ones that load after you close a window. And this is not peculiar to porn sites; I’ve seen it on some otherwise fairly benign sites. My question: Why does the capability to launch a new window AFTER I’ve already left the site I’m on, even exist at all? I’m done with your site - please don’t come back to haunt me.

62

This is one of those “learn how to debate by advancing a totally untenable position and then try to defend it” threads, right?

63

You beat me to it. The Proximotron is quite possibly the greatest little web surfing app out there. Popups…what’s a popup?

64

Pop-Up adds always make my computer freeze and have me restart more often then I should.

65

Gee, Crusoe, I just saw you bitching out people whose browsers downloaded stuff the people didn’t know about. Is that what you meant to do?

66

Nope. It was a separate paragraph, just trying to explain what your friend may have fallen victim too. I have no time for web designers or site maintainers who deliberately set out to hijack control of the browser through being misleading or preying on inexperienced web users.

67

The annoying thing about

WIN IN OUR ONLINE CASINO!!!

popups is the appear

ARE YOU PAYING TOO MUCH FOR YOUR MORTGAGE?

in front of what you are, rudely

YOU ARE A WINNER! CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE!!!

interupting you and stealing your

IMPORTANT! YOUR COMPUTER IS A SECURITY RISK!

bandwidth. The annoying thing about pop-unders is you don’t realize they’re there until you close your browser and they lie there, like discovered dog turds on your shoe under the table.

FREE SOFTWARE!
POTS OF MONEY!
CHEAP HARDWARE!
SIGN UP NOW!
IS YOUR COMPUTER SLOW?
WE KNOW WHERE TO GET EVERYTHING DIRT CHEAP!
CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK!

68

Appreciate the clarification.

Sorry. What I described isn’t just “beingmisleading or preying on inexperienced web users.” It’s unethical and immoral hijacking of someone else’s resources, to wit: the computer and the attendant telephone line. Clicking on the “x” is supposed to close the offending window, not connect you to some other site.

69

Advertising is just plain annoying in any form but the worst is when they intrude on you in the privacy of your own home. Yes im talking about telemarketers. Excuse the strong language but, What in the FUCK gives anyone the right to call my home to try and sell me something? At least i understand that when im surfing the net those annoying pop-ups are allowing the site that im interested in viewing to stay funded. If i wanna download something for free, i gotta look at a few pop- ups, easy enough to ignore as long as i get something out of it. But these parasitic telemarketers just drive me outa my mind calling all times of the day, usually when im busy with something or eating dinner. Telemarketing is just plain invasion of privacy- no different than a crank call.

On the topic of net ads though- anyone know about spyware? When you download certain things, you will get a program along with it known as spyware. This program can track anything and everything that you do on the internet (sites you visit, searches, personal info- you name it) for marketing purposes, but there is NO WAY to tell what they do with this info. Chances are YOU have SEVERAL spyware programs on your computer right now tracking what you are doing. These programs are difficult to identify and they are made less detectable all the time. Find out more by searching :spyware. By the way, it is completely legal. I dont have the link but there is a progam called ad-aware that detects spyware and allows it to be removed so if you want to do a search it is made by lavasoft. It might not get rid of all of it because new spyware programs continue to be written and become less detectable all the time. So much for the right to privacy huh? Oh and to top it all off, some of these can damage your computer because of the sloppy programing- of coarse adevertisers dont give a damn about your computer, they only want your money.

I was surprised to find how much my privacy is being invaded, and i urge everyone else to be aware. This is a great site to find out more about how your privacy is invaded on the net, http://www.spywareinfo.com/

And there are many other ways your computer privacy is compromised, go to that site and find out how to protect yourself.

70

TV ads are made by a group of professionals spending many millions of dollars and is based on years of experience. Popups are made by the webmaster on a spare afternoon using various GIFs stolen off Google.

71

Shalmanese: So if the popups were of higher quality you’d be okay with them? That sounds odd.

And, BTW, I have lots of ad agency friends who spend lots of their clients money building very slick and professional popups.

Having said that, I’ll agree with PurpleFloyd. I find telemarketing MUCH more annoying that popups myself, and unlike popups there is no free way to end it.

(I recommend KillPopup off download.com myself)

72

AHunter3: No, it’s not a setup. I believe it’s a fully supportable position and I am genuinely curious as to the viewpoints of various people. Thanks for playing, here’s your consolation prize, we now return to serious responses…

73

Futile Gesture said:

Excuse me – whose bandwidth?

You see, I find it amusing that you call it your bandwidth. Why? Because I pay for all the bandwidth that is used when people access my site. Generally, people who are out surfing the net don’t pay by bandwidth, but by the hour (or, more likely, just a lump sum per month).

And why do I advertise? Well, because I need to pay for the use of that bandwidth! Wow…

Shalmanese said:

Thanks for showing that you don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.

74

If you have a modem connected they can use it to call an intenational pay site.

75

Understood. Maybe I was being a little gentle in my language, but I’m with you on that. That sort of thing should have absolutely no place in legitimate marketing or advertising efforts.

76

My problem with Popups compared to advertising on television and radio is that there is no regulation behind it.

DrLizardo continually argues that advertising on television is just as intrusive as popups - i.e. it prevents you from continued enjoyment of your program/website in order to pass along an advertising message. However, with television (and radio) there is a limit on the number of commercials that can be shown and how often. It produces a comfortable schedule that people can adapt to and ultimately accept.

With popups however there is no such predictability. Nor is there the abiity to have the same “contract” with the content provider (I’ve looked at your advertising, now I want 20 minutes of unfettered access to your website). Generally, in my experience, everytime you click on a link to change the information on the screen, you get the popups again - whether it was 30 minutes or 30 seconds after you last saw the ad.

And that is why popup adds are evil.

77

Oh, yeah, and that.

78

Pop ups are annoying because

[ul]
[li]they just pop up and (sometimes) take up all of your screen. With TV you ca change the channel. With magazines you can turn the next page etc. Whereas if you have a slow internet connection a webpage will take a lot of addiotoinal time to load the ad properly then show the page to you.[/li][li]Most of those other things don’t just suddenly multiply x10 if you change/close/ throw away them.[/li][li]One of the most annoying things with pop ups are the new pop unders. Doesn’t it annoy you when a ad flashes for 3 seconds then just disappears?[/li][/ul]

Banner ads do not bother me at all, seeing as they don’t have any of those features.

79

Here’s one. I know where to buy official NASCAR memorobilia.

Now, I have no interest in NASCAR. I don’t even know what the words that correspond to the letters in NASCAR are. It’s got something to do with automobile racing. It’s not a big sport in Saskatchewan.

Still, I know where to buy official NASCAR memorobilia, should I be so inclined.

See, I saw the sign. It’s on the front of (irony alert) an insurance brokerage. They’ll set you up with your car insuarance and whatever you might want in the way of NASCAR stuff.

I know it’s there if I want it.

If I want it, I’ll go there.

They have accomplished all that I’m willing to let them: they’ve told me that they have a product for sale. Any further steps on their part are just going to piss me off.

This is probably a broader issue than the OP seeks to address, but it does apply to popups. Marketing campaigns that go beyond letting me know that a product I may want exists and start trying to make me want to buy the product insult my intelligence and raise my hackles. They create antipathy that replaces the awareness.

The fans of popups that I’ve seen posting here have tended to concentrate on the outlandish aspects of that medium. We start talking about spyware and Vanuatu and “Well, if you didn’t go to porn sites you wouldn’t get your browser crashed by respawning ads”. That’s not been my point.

You have a product. Good for you. Let me know it exists. Okay, I know that now. Stop.

Banner ads that flash in 19 different colours and tell me that I’ve won something are trying to scam me. Popups that look like a message from my OS are trying to scam me. Popups that tell me I “have a message” are trying to scam me. SPAM that claims to be from someone I requested information from is trying to scam me.

Popups do not provide me with information, they demand my attention. Even if they are perfectly civilized, as most are, they automatically engage my sales resistance by trying to “sell me” the product. They also bring to mind all of the examples given in the paragraph above.

Now, that’s all stuff that should be directed at the original advertiser, not at the person running a site that’s hoping to get revenue from some clicks.

I can’t help you pay for your website. All I can do is tell you that I have, for whatever reason, not only a lack of interest in clicking on a popup but an interest in not doing it. I can’t be alone here, because the advertisers have obviously noticed this and started, in some part, leaning towards deception and chicanery to generate traffic. Not all of them, but enough that this comes up again and again in the thread. Even lacking that, if I’m not interested in buying a tiny camera that can be used for whatever purpose I desire the first time I see it, I’m not going to be interested the seventh time, or the 40th time, or the 900th time.

How many times am I going to visit your website and not click on that ad? If it’s a nice quiet banner ad, then I could come back there alot. If it’s an annoying popup that arrives on my screen every time I move to a different page, I may decide not to bother going to your site anymore.

If I do that, then you’ve lost the thing that any advertiser supported media has to sell to the advertisers: a viewer.

You don’t need to know why we hate them. You can’t convince us not to hate them. You just need to know that we hate them.

A compromise might be reachable. If there were a way to apply a code of ethics to popups such that they showed up in a non-deceptive way only on the first access of the index page in a given session online and, let’s say, on the first page change every ten minutes of elapsed time spent on the site, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. I’d adapt. Like I did to television commercials.

Failing that, the advertisers are just going to get sneakier and the surfers are just going to get more suspicious and the software designers who write scripts for popups and popup blockers are going to make a lot of money. The fate of your site, of course, is not one of their main considerations.

80

I operate a group of sites which get around 4,000 unique visits per day. Modest traffic in the big scheme of things but it’s still expensive to run and somehow I need to pay for it. I agree with some of the other site admin’s comments, in particular the fact that it’s my bandwidth you’re using, my time to keep the site running, etc. These costs come out of my pocket.

I also work in television and we have the same old arguments. Everyone hates ads, but everyone hates pay-per-view. Exactly which business model do they think we should use?

Having got this off my chest, I hereby vow to insert a large knobbed object (on fire) into each of my orifices before I allow a single popup on any of my sites.

The reasons people hate popups so much are varied. Perhaps it’s largely their experiences with a minority of unethical advertisers. But whatever the reason, the fact remains that people hate them far more than other forms of advertising. For this reason alone I’ll never use them.

I actually attribute some of the success of my sites to the absence of popups. In one case we won a ratings war with a major competitor - users cited the main point of difference between our sites was nothing more than the popups.

There are other ways to generate income. We support two full-time wages with only 4,000 visits per day. Use creative sponsorship options instead of the carpet-bomb banner approach. Find good sponsors and look after them. Offer membership (yes, some people are willing to pay). Sell stuff online. There are always other options.

One last thing - I use Opera with popups disabled. Sorry David B, but I just hate them so much.