At the request of double-anti and his metaphorical sword at my throat :p I have made my question into a poll. opinions, replies etc welcome.
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At the request of double-anti and his metaphorical sword at my throat :p I have made my question into a poll. opinions, replies etc welcome.
muahahahaha... ::screams: "ACK!! govt let go! ahhhhhh!!!!"::
this is Govt speaking: all must put 'YANK!___MER!!!' on subject titles or da dies!!!! muahahaha...
[oh, this IS a joke, repeat, a JOKE!!!! don't have the other mods unsheath their swords please........]
Banner Ads have got to be among the most annoying aspect of the WWW. The bain of my website though thankfully I can hide them.
But just occaisionally something useful crops up. Exceeding rare though.
i don't mind banners so much but I HATE POP-UPS
Reason's to hate banner ads...
Banner ads are annoying!
How many banner ads do you see in one day? Don't they get irritating after awhile? Although many of them are really advertisements, to me they look more like grafitti -- the grafitti of the internet. What a waste of bandwidth!! Besides, would you REALLY want to buy a product from a company that produced irritating advertising? Sure, support the ads, convince the company that they work -- then they'll just make more (gotta love capitalism!)
Banner ads support the man!
My theory is that by not supporting banner ads, companies will realize that they don't work and only irritate customers, and will stop making them (or at least find ways to make them less irritating). Some ad producers even get paid for each time an ad is viewed or clicked on, so by clicking on a banner ad, you are still supporting the company even if you don't buy anything from them. Banner ads are just like unwelcome junkmail, except you can't send it back, and it blinks and flashes at you while you're trying to get more important things done.
Banner ads alienate users!
While some people currently claim the Internet is free and accessible to everyone, it really isn't. Physical and technological barriers are slowly coming down, but there are still lots of problems with access for everyone. The battle between the haves and the have-nots is active as ever, as are accessibility issues for the lower classes, miniorities and women.(but that's another rant)
However, people with disabilities may already have some trouble accessing information on the internet. Due to poorly-designed websites that aren't compatible with text-only browsers (Yay, no banner ads!) or speech synthesizers etc. Do you remember a few years back, and still occasionally now, when people would complain that some video games cause seizures in people who have epilepsy?
Wouldn't the bright flashing banner ads have the same effect, making most of the Internet unavailable to people with epilepsy? They could use a text-only browser, but why shouldn't they get to look at the still pictures with everyone else?
I ran a quick search through a few search engines, but couldn't find any research on this. Maybe it's a topic that needs more research... too bad I'm not a biologist with some grant money to throw away.
Banner ads slow you down!
Banner ads make a website take longer to load, and for the average home user, that can be pretty slow depending on modem speeds. In addition to paying for the ad each time it is clicked on or sometimes when viewed, you are also paying to see the unwelcome ad, assuming you are paying an ISP for internet time to view it. (there are a few free ISP's, but most of them are sponsored by advertising and give you even more banner ads to contend with) Even if you have unlimited internet access, it's the principle that counts in this case.
Banner ads are not user-friendly!
When you click on a link, even if the link is not named after the exact URL, the "major browsers" will tell you where you are going in the bottom of the browser window. (Unless someone put an annoying JavaScript scrolling bar down there, yet another rant...) With banner ads, you often don't know where you're going, and that's bad web design! Many banner ads are vague, not telling you what they're really advertising. Some are so lame they just say "click me", expecting stupid people to click on something unfamiliar. Would you buy a product from a company that assumes you have the IQ of a sheep?
Banner ads are big brother!
Some banner ads implement tracking scripts that can tell a company where you saw their banner ad, what city you are in, possibly even the IP address of your computer. If you click on the site itself, they may even track where you go in the site. Although they can't get your name or specific address, information gathering of any kind, without explanation or notice always creeps me out a little. Isn't life orwellian?
Demand a banner free internet!
We have rights don't we? Well, we at least have freedom of speech anyway...
So, even though you may have to click on an annoying banner ad or two to find out who's behind the evil banner ad that's getting under your skin this week, (see "Banner ads are not user-friendly, above) if you've got the time to kill, (or just having a REALLY bad day) go to their website and take the time to write them an e-mail (or if you're feeling really ambitious, an actual letter) telling them that you think their banner ads are irritating, and that you will refuse to buy their product until they remove the banner ads or create ones that are less seziure or eyestrain-inducing. It'll make you feel better ;)
i didn't need an essay but thanks.
>Banner ads alienate users!
i disagree with the points below this since my content should not be reduced because of someone with epilepsy.
>Banner ads are big brother!
how true, but they can get your adress from your ip, and from that your name and all sorts of other crap.
>Demand a banner free internet!
W00t!!
Okay then. I hadn't actually read it by the way. It was a copy/paste job from another URL I came across earlier. I agree totally. :)
-Pen
pendragon, thanks for your response, i bet i can guess which option you voted for!
I ask because i want to make a little money from my site, it is aonly a tenth complete but already averages around 16 vistiors a day (and 100 hits). I get payed per click, lead and sale.
But i have very carefull selected the banners for my site, tey are the same colours and use very few colours. Where possible i have selected banners that do not flash at all and they are far from intrusive.
keep thise replies coming in guys!
then your choices are good what i hate are the javascrpit adds such as shoot the monkey or the messagebox ones blech.
> Banner ads are not user-friendly! <
No kidding. They serve the purpose of irritating users that actually wish to do something useful, and slowing everything down to a crawl.
> Demand a banner free internet! <
I'll go for that! :)
Can you guess? I actually voted for one unobtrusive ad.
hah you really didn't read it did you.
The flashing and JScript one's I have removed from my site. They are exceedingly annoying. The non-flashy one's aren't too bad so long as there is only one.
-Pen
No... :)
i agree the ones like punch the monkey are very irritating. the others i odnt like are the ones that have an animated cursor moving over them, or the ones that try to look like list boxes. i would avoid them if i could but the websites arent free to keep up and im hoping my site will be big as i have lots planned for it. I refuse to even ask people to pay membership so will make cash from it another way. (wonder why nobody voted for option 5 :confused:
if you look at case, you will see the type of add i am using
popups are so terrible. sometimes I wind up closing the wrong window, thinking it's the popup which causes me to lose anything I was researching!!! Ugh. shcok the monkey is terrible. It moves everytime you have to go over it, and if you accidentally click there you wind up having the site change.
good choices iain. I voted for 2 unobtrusive ads as long as they're unobtrusive. Like the ones here, unless you count the flashing "winner" one *goes into a seizure thinking about it*
Wow - your site's coming along VERY well, iain.
thanks Ken :D
theres still lots coming up, i look over the net for things that id use and when i couldnt find them i thought id do them .
> shcok the monkey is terrible. <
I agree. That has to be the worst one I've encountered. Whatever possessed its creators to make something so annoying? :confused:
id be interested who voted option 6?
come on, show yourself!
Yes, show yourself! Whoever cast that vote will be forced to sit at their computer and shock the monkey for an hour! :D