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New Wave of Web Ads? 197

Posted by CmdrTaco from the can't-get-to-much-worse dept.
jdkane writes "This report from CNET news that "Internet marketers are promising a new generation of online advertising that's more effective and less annoying than some current methods, but they could have a hard time convincing jaded Web surfers they're for real." It appears to be evolutionary but certainly not revolutionary. Apparently we all need less advertising, and just enough so that we find it acceptable. Sounds like the advertisers have to be running out of slants on this web advertising thing soon. Most of this is rehashing or reforumulating old ideas."
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New Wave of Web Ads? More

New Wave of Web Ads?

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  • From TFA (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dolo666 ( 195584 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @10:53AM (#8761419) Journal
    No matter how you slice it, this is bad news. New adverts means new browser interstitials, interrupted surfing or attention grabbers, or at the worst it means more data/advert integration; that is like "paid content", or similar to the much-loathed paid television programming. Content for adverts is much like what we're seeing on television today, so this is in no way useful and does not endear me further to the plights of commercial internet interests. This is not the magic bullet, people. It's just that the net is relying on the age-old standby that television has, since inception.

    • Re:From TFA (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      or at the worst it means more data/advert integration; that is like "paid content", or similar to the much-loathed paid television programming.

      Integration could also mean 'data'-heavy adverts, i.e. advertisements containing a lot of useful or entertaining content, e.g. the BMW short films.

      Paid content isn't always bad or ad-heavy btw. Sometimes people pay to display on the idea that the exposure alone will generate enough sales to break even or profit, without needing a hard sell.

      Content for adverts
      • Heh, 'Pioneers of flight' on discovery channel comes to mind.. airbus advertising, but heh... who is gonna buy an airbus for their private plane collection anyway, and its sortof informative, esp. for those who never really looked into the early days of the airplane.

        At any rate, realize that advertisements are playing for your free web content. Too much of it is annoying, the right amount of it is quite fine (ie, I do not mind Slashdot's advertisements at all, they are there, but non intrusive. Google is e
    • No matter how you slice it, this is bad news.

      It's good news for people who like making fun of people who use Windows.

      • Re:From TFA (Score:4, Informative)

        by ncc74656 ( 45571 ) * <scott@alfter.us> on Sunday April 04, 2004 @04:12PM (#8763171) Homepage Journal
        No matter how you slice it, this is bad news.

        It's good news for people who like making fun of people who use Windows.

        The ad-killing features (popup blocking and the Adblock [mozdev.org] & Flashblock [mozdev.org] add-ons, specifically) in Mozilla work just as well with the Win32 version as they do with other versions.

        • I still use Proximitron... mainly because I've been using it for years, and I have many personal filter writen for it to override many annoying features I find in many websites I visit on a regular basis.

          It not only blocks ads and other annoying crap, it lets me modify damn near anything sent to my browser. That is a -GOOD THING-.

          Anyway, I would like to point out an ad based system that I go for all the time: Salon [salon.com]. I used to have a subscription to Salon, becuase I really like it, thought it was good,

    • "No matter how you slice it, this is bad news."

      It means funding for websites like Slashdot. Unless you'd prefer to make 'micropayments' as you browse.
    • Not if they go the way of Google Words (i.e. targeted ads, clearly marked, and unobtrusive)

  • The best ads (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) * on Sunday April 04, 2004 @10:54AM (#8761424) Journal

    Are the Google side-bar ones. Yet again, Google got it right. The ads are
    • non-intrusive, they don't detract from the page layout (GOD I hate those Flash animations that flash large areas of colour RED-WHITE-RED...)
    • have minimal information in them - just enough to tell you what the product is, and no more. That's enough to decide whether to read the ad or move on
    • Well-positioned. If I search for electric chainsaws, I get ads related to electric chainsaws. Probably.

    Every other ad-system I've seen has fallen down on one of those. All hail Google.

    Simon

    • Re:The best ads (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PaintyThePirate ( 682047 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @11:02AM (#8761463) Homepage
      The best part is that Google Adsense ads actually earn much more than annoying banners and pop-ups in most cases. I can't give specific figures because of the Adsense policies.

      • Re:The best ads (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Wolfier ( 94144 )
        New business model:
        1. Open web business
        2. Keep doing innocent things that make people think you're a GOOD company instead of an EVIL one
        3. Start advertising
        4. Profit!

    • Re:The best ads (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jonbryce ( 703250 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @11:07AM (#8761475) Homepage
      The other type of ad that does well is classified advertising. For example, recruitment sites, estate agents, autotrader moneysupermarket and so on.

      These ads are sucessful because the advert is the content of the site, and they are displayed to people who are actually interested in what they are advertising.

    • Re:The best ads (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Jehova, I mean, I blocked Google's ads. I found them reasonably unobtrusive when they only appeared next to the search engine results, but recently the Google ads have become a plague. It's like there's not a site which doesn't use Google syndication. I guess quality does matter, but quantity still gets on my nerves.

      Besides, I don't like the idea that a privately held company under U.S. law can track my way through the web. This was the primary reason DoubleClick was introduced to my hosts file and that's

    • Re:The best ads (Score:5, Interesting)

      by XorNand ( 517466 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @12:06PM (#8761748)

      A year ago I was part of a .com that did advertising via Google AdWords and Overture's partner sites. For our advertising dollar, AdWords was the most effective search-engine. (There were other, more-effective forms, but I'm sticking with search engines for this discussion). We'd easily drop $2k/mo into Google's coffers. If we hadn't throttled our campaign, we would have gotten double that. The people who clicked on our ads a) were specifically looking for something that we offered and b) were fully aware of the fact that they were (gasp!) responding to a paid-for advertising.

      What I cannot fathom is why marketing people seem to all believe that people have to be tricked. Ad agencies are tripping over themselves to come up with the next "killer" stealth technique. Why? Can someone please provide some insight into this? Why is more effort put into convincing a large audience that they need what you're selling instead of finding the people who are knowingly seeking your products/services?

      • Re:The best ads (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Mad Marlin ( 96929 ) <cgore@cgore.com> on Sunday April 04, 2004 @12:43PM (#8761952) Homepage
        The google ads are the only ones I can remember that I have personally purchaced from in recent memory. But that is because, if I am looking to buy something, one of the first places I'll try to find a place to buy it would be on Google, so it is actually a relevant part of my search. I don't know how their Froogle thing (if it ever gets really useful) will interact with those ads though.
        • So is that a result of the ads being relevant or the content of the site (i.e. the search results) being relevant (to get you there in the first place?).

          Just curious... I've been playing with AdWords lately and have found lousy clickthrough rates even though I'm advertising on very specific keywords that only fit exactly my target market.

          --D

          • Basically I was specifically looking to buy what I was searching for, and the links on the right provide an easy way to find stuff. It is a lot easier to sell me stuff when I am actually looking to buy it in the first place. The last time I can remember was when I bought a 9-in-1 SD/xD/CompactFlash/etc. drive for my computer. The important point to remember here is that I was actually looking for a place to buy it, not just randomly surfing.

            In general, I think a lot of the advertising has it complete

      • What I cannot fathom is why marketing people seem to all believe that people have to be tricked. Ad agencies are tripping over themselves to come up with the next "killer" stealth technique. Why?

        I have often wondered about the same thing - my conclusion is that the biggest reason is the profit motive - especially for sales people who work on commission (where they are rated on number of items sold). Obviously, there is a tradeoff, do it too much (and get caught) and the repurcussions are there (just see he [google.com]

      • "What I cannot fathom is why marketing people seem to all believe that people have to be tricked. Ad agencies are tripping over themselves to come up with the next "killer" stealth technique. Why? Can someone please provide some insight into this? Why is more effort put into convincing a large audience that they need what you're selling instead of finding the people who are knowingly seeking your products/services?"

        Well, speaking as someone in advertising/marketing, I can say we DON'T all believe this. I

    • Re:The best ads (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      non-intrusive, they don't detract from the page layout (GOD I hate those Flash animations that flash large areas of colour RED-WHITE-RED...)

      I think those should actually be outlawed. My wife has a mild seizure disorder and I had to make sure her computer is configured with NO flash enabled and animated GIFs turned off. Imagine what happens to epileptics who don't know how to shut that shit off upon seeing some god awful flashing animation. There's no reason for them other than to incite seizures IMHO.

      • To be fair, your wife's problems are far broader than just Flash. You've got TV, video games, movies, and just plain old walking down the street to worry about.

        I don't agree with you that they should be outlawed, but I do think creating an promoting a "seizure safe" guideline would be prudent. I'll tell you right now, as somebody who does animation for a living, I'd read it very carefully.
        • Games come with warnings about the possibility of seizures and can be paused. TV programmes and films normally carry warnings if they include rapid flashing. I don't expect to see many rapidly flashing lights while walking down the street.
    • I initially went to subscriptions a little over a year ago because I had used Commission Junction for a year prior and after 70,000+ impressions I hadn't made a penny and my bandwidth was being saturated.

      Then a little less than a month ago I decided to look into AdWords. I made quite a few pennies the first day. And the next and so on. My site isn't even that big or popular since I successfully hosed it with the subscriptions. I also completely overhauled the site shortly before trying AdSense which is
    • Not to mention, they're just links so I can open them in a new tab without interrupting whatever I'm doing and look at them later.

      I frequently do this with regular non-flash banner ads if they're advertising something that looks interesting. I don't click on Flash ads, though, because I can't right-click to open them in a new tab. I can, however, use the menu that appears when I right-click to stop their playback.

  • Downloadable ads, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @10:55AM (#8761428) Homepage
    Highlighting the trend, 180solutions this week will begin promoting a downloadable program that purports to offer a gentler twist on "adware,"

    If by "downloadable" they mean my browser might automatically download and install it if I don't configure my security settings correctly, I'm not going to download it.

    If they mean it's just something I can manually download from their website if I so choose, I'm still not going to download it.

    That takes care of me and pretty much every other tech-savvy surfer out there.

    Now we just have to worry about that rather large chunk of population that constitutes "everyone else."
    • How abuot this- our adware program isn't running on your PC, you can't view our content.

      Of course no one will want to visit the site with that requirement to begin with, but somehow I think that will be the requirement to get the 'content'.
    • Now we just have to worry about that rather large chunk of population that constitutes "everyone else."

      And that's a very big twinkie! Think of all the comet cursors, toolbars and other parasitic junk that have been loading user PCs for years. It must be morbidly entertaining to run something like Ad-aware on some machines after a couple years of accumulated crud. (Less entertaining to run the scan a week later and clean the same stuff off again!)

      We think you're stupid! Click here! *sigh*

      • We think you're stupid! Click here! *sigh* Hey your link is broken. :(
      • It must be morbidly entertaining to run something like Ad-aware on some machines after a couple years of accumulated crud.

        I've had to do that a few times on my niece's Windows98 system before she went off to college (god only knows what shit she's got on her new system there), but she went 3 years with no virus scanner and no spyware checking. She was always complaining about how slow her computer was so I popped on over and removed the 250+ spyware components installed on her computer, along with 7 vir

      • It must be morbidly entertaining to run something like Ad-aware on some machines after a couple years of accumulated crud.

        It was great fun seeing how much crap was on my sister's machine after only one year of use with completely ignoring my admonitions to never use IE or OE and to never install anything but let me do it. She let her virus scanner expire and "only" had 19 separate viruses and well over a hundred spyware items installed. Quite remarkable it still booted at all when I think about it.

        Of

    • It's probably a java Applet. I was at weather.com the other day, and it downloaded a bloody applet and ran a small video in it (complete with sound!). F'ing obnoxious. Time to disable the 'ol Java Applets in Firefox...

  • Google (Score:5, Insightful)

    by coldtone ( 98189 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @10:55AM (#8761429)
    Didn't google already settle this? Adwords looks like the solution to this problem.

  • Web Advertising (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ianoo ( 711633 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @10:57AM (#8761435) Journal
    Sounds like the advertisers have to be running out of slants on this web advertising thing soon.
    Much as I dislike Web Advertising, I sure hope the industry doesn't collapse again. Adverts provide a valuable (and sometimes the sole) source of income for large numbers of sites (including open source sites, like kde-look.org [kde-look.org]).

    If webmasters suddenly lost the money they receive, and had to pay out of donations or their own pocket, I think you'd see many more sites simply going under.

    I really hope that pop-ups and pop-unders dissapear (and it's likely this form of advertising will be smashed to bits by Microsoft's pop-up blocker going in to IE6 in XP SP2, like most people here I already have a browser that does this) but you're not going to get rid of them entirely. In an ideal world web space would be free and unlimited and we wouldn't need adverts, but the Internet is controlled and financed by corperations in capitalist economies, and as such there's no such thing as a free lunch.
    • "and it's likely this form of advertising will be smashed to bits by Microsoft's pop-up blocker going in to IE6 in XP SP2"

      I suddenly had the thought that if Microsoft were like the U.S. government, pop-up advertisers would be lobbying like crazy for them NOT to include a pop-up blocker in the new IE. Good thing Microsoft doesn't need to run for office.

  • Flashblock (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Fanta Menace ( 607612 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @10:58AM (#8761440) Homepage

    A combination of tab-usage (makes pop-ups easy to spot), plus image blocking and FlashBlock [mozdev.org] gets rid of the most offensive ones, for me.

    Turning image animation off also makes the web far more usable.

    • I've been thinking of creating some sort of virtual post-it that I can stick over the annoying animations. That takes care of the problem with plug-in specific blocking and that is it is plug-in specific. Plus some sites put their animation in javascript and make the whole site unnavigable unless javascript is enabled.
      • I've been thinking of creating some sort of virtual post-it that I can stick over the annoying animations.

        If you're using Firefox, try Nuke Anything [mozdev.org] -- just right-click on the offending object, select "Remove This Object" and it disappears. Also very useful when dealing with badly designed pages where images and tables overlap the text.

    • Re:Flashblock (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04, 2004 @11:11AM (#8761490)
      ... or get flashblock AND ad-removal in one with Adblock. [mozdev.org]
      • I second that.

        AdBlock is probably the single most useful Mozilla extension.

        • AdBlock is probably the single most useful Mozilla extension.

          I had been using Squid for years with an ad-blocking [taz.net.au] add-on. After my home server's hard drive crashed, I reloaded Gentoo onto the replacement drive, but left off Squid and configured Adblock on my other computers (running a mix of WinXP, Linux, and Mac OS X). It's worked so well that I'll probably just keep things this way. It's especially handy for my notebook, as it saves me from having to switch proxy settings every time I move between

      • Or you can do it all with the Proxomitron [proxomitron.info]
    • Firefox (now re-nameable) out of the box has been great for eliminating all annoyances that I know of.

  • Nothing new here (Score:5, Insightful)

    by richard_za ( 236823 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @10:59AM (#8761443) Homepage Journal
    I don't see anything new in the article. It seems a rehash of the downloadable spyware which plagues windows users. (especially aunt tillie's who will click "OK" on the install software dialogs which popup just to get rid of the window). I think website designers should follow google's example with non-intrusive ads.

  • "Relevant" ads... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @10:59AM (#8761444) Homepage
    "We introduced a concept called time shifting with the idea of letting readers get access to content unencumbered by banners and pop-ups," Smith said. "Instead, they would install our software, and then, when they are shopping or looking for something online, they would get ads that are relevant and timely."

    So, something more relevant than, say, ads for coitus when I'm browsing for male and female DB-25 connectors?

    Or vice-versa? I mean, if I were browsing for DB-25 connectors, a relevant ad would be "What century are you from?"

  • New wave of advertisements... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BenSpinSpace ( 683543 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @11:00AM (#8761450)
    New advertisements! They're so unintrusive, you don't even see them! All these handy advertisements do is beam signals into your brain that makes you want whatever they're selling! You won't even know that you don't want to buy it!

    I can just see it now... "Man... I may be in my college's computer lab, but damn I feel like shampooing with Herbal Essences right now!!"

    Just imagine the pornography ads.

  • Product placement... (Score:5, Funny)

    by skraps ( 650379 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @11:01AM (#8761455)
    It occurred to me, as I type this with my Microsoft Natural Keyboard [microsoft.com] (TM) (R) (btw, only 23.95 at Fry's [outpost.com] (TM) (R)), that product placement in blogs, such as Blogger [blogger.com] (TM) (R), Livejournal [livejournal.com] (TM) (R), and Diaryland [diaryland.com] (TM) (R) may be one of the things in store for the future.

  • How much money is actually made with these ads? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by $inisterAngel ( 768361 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @11:02AM (#8761459) Homepage
    I've always wondered how much money is indeed made from the more intrusive forms of advertising, such as the pop ups, unders, adware, etc. Obviously some money must be made because they keep doing it. I agree though, Google has it down. Only problem is if it can't figure out what your page is about. My dad uses it on www.regurgitated.com and it can't figure out what the page is about, so it throws random stuff up from supporting gay marriages to diamond rings.

  • I for one... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gnascher ( 645346 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @11:05AM (#8761467)
    REJECT our advertising overlords.

    ugh :( ....

    -G

  • We here at Microsoft agree (Score:4, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @11:07AM (#8761476)
    From now on our marketing campaigns will be more subtle, insidious if you will and we promise to stop displaying annoying Visual Studio adds on Slashdot and start posting marketing comments instead.

    Buy Microsoft Products

    AH go on, go on

    You know you want to

    Theres cocaine in them

  • Means just another instance of Action canceled and (Score:5, Informative)

    by robin147 ( 708285 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @11:08AM (#8761484) Homepage
    since I make extensive use of the HOSTS file, and have spybot running, this'll probably just mean a few more occasions of


    Action canceled
    Internet Explorer was unable to link to the Web page you requested.
    The page might be temporarily unavailable.

    and maybe a couple of addditions to my "restricted sites" list.

    ho hum

  • One is downloading a "WM9" plug-in to play video and audio in a little 80x80 box. Nothing like having an advertisement for the movie about the kid and the porn star next door get everybody prairie-dogging at work.

    Just as bad as the eyeblaster, pop-over, pop-under, scroll down, overlay, scroll-across, click-through, media-intercept, content diversion, pop-up, console, "content-rich" flash, flash, Java "shoot the monkey", roll-over, animated .GIF, and every other damn thing before it.

  • consumer-wise (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @11:12AM (#8761494) Homepage Journal
    IMHO, most of the problems with ads involve a misunderstanding of the medium and a lack of respect for the consumer.

    This is shown in animated push ads that gives the consumer no choice about viewing the ad. The ad downloads and begins to play. There is no way to stop it. There is no way to pause it. You must watch it. There is no analog to this intrusion in any other medium. On TV ads appear once in a while, and that is an opportunity for the viewer to take a break. The net is a much more interactive experience and not suitable for the intermittent viewing of tv.

    We also see the crap about click through rates and viewing. This is also from television. Some fly by night company puts an ad on the TV and measures success from the number of viewers that call in. Again, the web is not TV. Most users are not as completely the mindless zombies of the TV. For one things, much of the web is still text based, and reading requires much processing (decoding/comprehending/analyzing) that watch tv.

    Then there is the issue of pop-ups and third party servers being significant security risks. MS pushes these technologies, but MS has never put the security of the consumer over the bloat and ad-centric IE.

    The ad model needs to be primarily based on print medium. Ads are sold in bulk and no guarantee is made about who will see the ad. Branding needs to be a primary purpose. Any animated ad must have a play button.

    Also, like print ads, the advertisers must give away something of value in exchange for the click. As usability studies cite, the user must be told of the value of clicking or registering. It must not be assumed that the consumer is obligated to do these things. Once the user clicks, the promises must be met. One of the biggest problems is the fraud perpetrated by advertisers(which happens in the offline world, but online the reprecussions are swift and merciless).

    • One way to slow these ads down is to contact the advertiser and tell them you don;t appreciate having your web browser hijacked for their ad.

      i recently contacted Saab because of an incredibly intrusive full-page 15-second ad on the NYTimes that I had to look at 10 or 20 times a day. Even though I could click through it, I was sick, sick, sick of that ad very quickly. I received a reply from Saab saying they were sorry I didn't like their ad, but NO ONE ELSE [emphasis mine] had complained about it.

      So com
  • Apparently we all need less advertising, and just enough so that we find it acceptable.

    says jdkane on ad-riddled Slashdot...
    • Ads? I see no ads!
      (Text-main page setting on /., and firefox + adblock +flash click to view + firefox.. Yeah)
    • Ads on Slashdot? What are those? Ever since I put:
      • 127.0.0.1 images.slashdot.org
      • 127.0.0.1 ads.osdn.com
      ... in my HOSTS file, and run an image replacer for images that are blocked, all I ever see on Slashdot is:
      • text
      • big blotches of blocked images

      • Re:Amusing (Score:3, Informative)

        by (H)elix1 ( 231155 )
        And for those using mozilla and fire*, take a look at the Adblock plugin.

        http://adblock.mozdev.org/

        Makes the web a nicer place.

  • I still like ... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by BlackShirt ( 690851 )
    good old advertisements in paper newspapers

    Bigger.
    More information.
    Nice design.

  • Sounds Familiar (Score:2, Informative)

    by artlu ( 265391 )
    Hasnt this been tried many times like with the original NetZero where you had ads displayed while you got free internet?
    At least we should be able to find a way around it.
    • Remember those crazy ones during the boom that PAID you to view their ads? I never did it, they couldn't pay me enough. Way too type A to put up with all that crap swimming around my screen distracting me.

  • AdSense is pure, unadulterated evil (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04, 2004 @11:49AM (#8761659)
    This is the Vibrant Media technology mentioned in the article that puts paid links directly into articles along with the links put in by the articles' authors. I'm posting this anonymously because my company has considered doing this, and as a reporter I might find my job in danger if I speak out strongly against the idea.

    Vibrant Media talks about how Motley Fool and other big-name sites are putting in these bogus links and hardly any readers complain, so no one else should worry about doing it.

    Every publishers' and journalists' group in the world has an ethics code that prohibits mixing editorial and ad content.

    To me, Vibrant Media's, "These well-known sites are doing it so it's okay," pitch is exactly backwards. Sites that use this ad method are sites that have decided their readers' trust is worthless. They're effectively saying they value a few short-term dollars more than they value long-term credibility with their audience.

    We're just starting to see online media get a bit of credibility. This Vibrant Media nonsense will set that back if it spreads -- or perhaps it'll kill credibility only for sites that use their fake links, and serve as a "litmus test" for which news sites are putting out honest stories and which have whored themselves to the point where they can't be trusted.

    As an honest reporter I couldn't work for a publisher that would pull this crap, but it seems that more and more managements are susceptible to short-term profit pressure at the expense of honesty. I suppose, sooner or later, I'll need to find another way to make a living and post my work to a blog I control myself instead of working full-time as a journalist. So it goes.

  • downloadable program that purports to offer a gentler twist on "adware," providing users access to free music downloads and other content in exchange for the right to flash a limited number of ads onto their computer screens.

    180solutions =~ GAIN

    Vibrant Media, is making headway with a system that delivers ads through links attached to keywords in the text of news stories and other articles published on the Web.

    Vibrant Media =~ TOPText

  • Less annoying than what? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pjrc ( 134994 ) <paul@pjrc.com> on Sunday April 04, 2004 @12:47PM (#8761981) Homepage Journal
    Internet marketers are promising a new generation of online advertising that's more effective and less annoying than some current methods

    Less annoying than...

    Reprogramming the browser's toolbar, sometimes even removing the back button.

    Collecting private information without consent.

    Slowing computers to a crawl, and sometimes even crashing them.

    Making the users home (default page when starting) a bunch of advertising, and disabling ways for them to set it back to something desirable/useful like google or yahoo or whatever they originally had.

    Detecting ads placed (and paid for) by the website authors, and intentionally displaying other competing ads on top of them.

    Well, I supposed to get any MORE annoying, they'd have to do something like completely disable your whole computer until you scan in a receipt for one of their advertiser's products.

    The article mentions they're planning to intentionally add hyperlinks to existing web pages as the browser displays them... similar to Microsoft's (abandoned) Smart Tags. But unlike Microsoft, which has the power to make those links visually distinct (the plan was a purple squiggle underline, visually similar to the red one under misspelled words in their word processor)... these slimey adware crooks are going to have to make their added links look exactly like legitimate links placed in the html by the author.

    Yeah, that's less annoying than a wave a unstopped popups, expecially porn, drugs, mortgage and other commonly pitched crap. But not much less annoying to anyone who actually "surfs" around by clicking on links.

    As a website author (who's put in a LOT of work on hundreds of pages for my own site over the years), I personally find it really annoying that someone visiting my site is going to see a bunch of links in MY html that I didn't write and I don't endorse. I put a lot of work in the site and there are many links to products and other sites... but I only make links when I know the remote site has good, valuable information or a solid product I can personally recommend. It really pisses me off that someone who's fallen victim to this new adware/spyware is going to have my intented links mixed in with a bunch of links to all the questional products and services that are willing to stoop to the lows of these slimey adware companies.

    I hope someone sues them into oblivian over making unauthorized derivitive works (copyright), or maybe trademark violation, or maybe injury due to modifications interfering with business, or anything else. These slimey bastards deserve to be put down.

  • This has to be a joke.
    Download an ad serving program ?
    • This isn't a free download as in linux.iso. This is a free download as in W32.TROJAN. Kind of like the Anna Kournakova worm except without hope, albeit false hope, of nudity.
  • I predict these will be nothing more than a re-hashed Google AdWords [google.com]

    AdWords are the only online advertising that I pay any attention to, mainly because the ads are targetted to the site I'm visiting. CatOfTheDay [catoftheday.com] has ads about cats. Not washer-dryers, credit cards, local car dealers, or prescription drugs. Cats. That's why I went there. So why shouldn't their ads reflect that?

    Chip H.

  • Bring it on baby! (Score:3, Informative)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @01:25PM (#8762161)
    1. http://www/smoothwall.org [smoothwall.org]

    2. http://adzapper.sourceforge.net/#install [sourceforge.net]

    3. http://martybugs.net/smoothwall/adzap.cgi [martybugs.net]

    Get them. Do it.

    Try all you like, you filthy, rotten marketeers, but you won't be peddling your wares in MY house...

    Hahahahahahha!!!

  • I think the solution is simple. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Moofie ( 22272 ) <lee@@@ringofsaturn...com> on Sunday April 04, 2004 @02:01PM (#8762362) Homepage
    Obviously, by virtue of the fact that they can buy music from somebody for me to download free, my eyeballs on their ads is worth some small, finite amount of cash to the advertisers.

    If they give me that small, finite amount of cash, I'll watch their ads. And I promise I won't set up a network of computers all over the place that will also watch their ads, thereby giving me cash. I'd never even consider such a thing. *bats eyelashes innocently*

  • My perspective: ads are good (Score:3, Informative)

    by Morris Thorpe ( 762715 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @02:24PM (#8762477)
    Please, let's not be anti-ads just for the sake of it. I hate billboards and other intrusive ads as much as the next guy. But unless you're willing to pay for content and information on the web (an article at a time sometimes?) you should just learn to deal with some ads. I am a journalist. My salary is derived from advertising dollars. You people consume information like it's an all-you-can-eat buffet but whine about having to "pay" for it. Guess what? Information ISN'T free! (at least good information isn't). I recently did a story about U.S. jobs being outsourced to China. It took weeks of planning and a lot of dough to send to of us overseas. We stayed in a hotel, ate meals, needed transportation...not to mention we had the gall to ask to get paid for our work! I came back and spent days working my ass of to put together a series of reports. Once they appears in the media, all we ask is that you look at an ad. And you whine?
    • I pay for my information by giving back information, not by being forced to watch certain content. I contribute. I pay, and pay a fair price. and you whine about me not viewing ads?

    • unless you're willing to pay for content and information on the web (an article at a time sometimes?) you should just learn to deal with some ads.

      Have you ever heard of a book? Have you ever been to a library?

      You act like all information in the world is expensive, and everyone must be forced to pay, over and over, to get bits of it.

      Books are far more expensive than web content for two very important reasons. First, books are much more in-depth than any online content I've ever seen. Reading a book on

  • Too little, too late (Score:3, Insightful)

    by inkswamp ( 233692 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @03:12PM (#8762772)
    The war was already declared by obnoxious marketing that produced such lovely ideas as pop-ups and floating javascript ads and whatever else. Like most Internet users, I accepted the idea of banner ads long ago as a necessary evil (even clicking the ones that interested me to help support the sites I visited), but drew the line when it came to advertisers doing pop-ups, maximizing my windows or other obnoxious crap.

    Best of luck to anyone trying something new, but by now the attitude is that online ads must die. I don't see there being a cease-fire at this point. Something marketing folks might want to keep in mind: Internet users are not the ones who started the war.

  • It's more popups - more adware, probably spyware, and more annoyances.

    Jim Rapoza of eWEEK has been hammering at these morons for quite some time, trying to get them to understand that no one can build up a business like this. His quote at the bottom here says it all. JR has the word.

    Spyware Needs to Go
    http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1396972, 0 0.as p
    More Than A Nuisance
    http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,113 0527,00.as p
    Pop-up Ads: Bad for Business
    http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,154 2836,00.as p
  • It's pretty apparent to me that their "new wave" is simply to push products/services that most people do not want in the first place. For the most part, I think it's a con job between the ad serving companies and advertisers. The ad servers would better serve the public and their advertisers if they took the time to place their ads on relevant sites, rather than conning advertisers into believing that they will see a great return on their ad investment by blasting their ads all over the web.

    The cardinal
  • He added that users will only see two to three ads a day.
    Two or three adds from one particular location maybe. This would still amount to several ads an hour. It's like when we were all in grade school and our teachers proudly said that they believed they should give each student 1 hour of homework each night, the problem being you had six other teachers who thought the same way. If it's true I'd only get a few ads a day, how will this be profitable for the ad company and partner? Oh, wait... it'll be pro

  • Maybe these people should stop trying to find the most insidious "integrated solution" and take a page from American Express.

    Recently, the ugly stepsister of the credit card world has launched a campaign of web-only ads in which Jerry Seinfeld teams up with an amimated Superman. Link: here. [digisle.tv]

    The thing is, these are indeed ads, but they have a few very unorthodox characteristics:
    1. Amex lets the user decide whether they want to see the ad. As far as I know, you have to willingly point your browser to the

  • We'll clean your computer _and_ give you advice on security, all in one nice little package.

    And we don't have ads on our site. ^_^

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