One of the hot tickets currently on-line are in-text relevance advertising. All the big publishers are testing this idea using various implementations. I’m using Kontera. I’ll be testing the overall effectiveness, annoyance factor, click through and other elements. Most of all I wonder if these links are doing well for many site just because they are a curiosity. It’s hard to resist clicking opn them when you first see them. Ziff is using someone’s system on my online column, for example. The ad links in the case of this blog are double underlined and in green. I welcome any other suggestions. I also apologize in advance for any possible annoyance.
Times is changed since the 1980s when you self-published your Examiner column on the Source and asked people for ideas on how to make Internet publishing work economically, huh, John.
Elly (51) said it best. Clicking is an OPTION, folks. Well, except for those with a mouse that can’t stay away from the links, like Chris. Those damned self-driving rodents are a plague.
Okay, I tried one – there doesn’t seem to be any way to open the link in another tab inside Firefox. That means no clicking out of curiosity to let it load while reading comments or whatever.
That means I won’t often be clicking, if that makes a difference to you.
#66: iRider can these links into a separate page just fine. You’re using the wrong browser. 🙂
I absolutely despise these types of “context” ads. Fortunately, all of these technologies require Java and I use Firefox with the NoScript add-on installed, so I don’t see them.
Come to think of it, considering how tech-savvy your audience is, I imagine most of them have various forms of Java script blocking software.
Hey Colin-
Great to see that you are supporting the sites that you visit by blocking their only form of advertising. People like you should be charged to use the internet.
Thanks for telling me about adblock. Open hit add filter type in Kontera it is gone. These things have been annoying me on a lot of sites. .Ev3 I buy a lot off the net but not from company’s that annoy me. John and his advertisers need to know that to. Constructive criticism.
64,
It isnt the ad’s that I worry about, its the abuse.
If they were all done in HTML, on site..It wouldnt be to bad..
Story:
I reinstalled a system, WinXP, and had to asign the setup to the net.
The first page to popup, was MSN front page.
this using dialup, and 5 virus and 15 bots later, trying to get ANYTHING to work on the net was redicoulas(sp).
Had to do a full cleanup, DL the AV and anti bot software from other machine, and port it over…
I reported it to MSN, how they Get ad’s from remote sites and HOW they dont run AV or anti bot prgs ON THEM..
recently MSN dropped the adverts, because of that problem.
THOSe who have NoScript…
How many times have you seen Googlesyndication???
Its the same with MOST ad’s they want to track when you SEE every Ad, they have out there, and they Want to do it from your machine.
Thanks to all for pointing me to adblock !! I’ve only been using Firefox for a few months. Wish I had one of those multi-finger touch screens to move tabs and links around here, too.
#58,59 OH NO… JCD, you are corrupting the youth. I’m speechless…
(in a sarcastic tone) great… more shit to ignore, thanks John
#66 — Good observation.
The only thing missing from this list of complaints and compliments is the fact that anyone still using IE is getting the links like it or not. There has to be some humor in that concept, no?
The test runs for 30 days so I can look at the numbers. I was actually hoping that someone would suggest a different color than green. I’m thinking black.
Oh, and complainers should note that I did warn you. I just didn’t throw this online with no mention. Go to the EETimes website and look at that miserable page furl they do. There is something that totally sucks.
Thank You, John, for the warning..
But i don’t even like going to the pcmag page because of the forced popup (Although i did buy a subscription)
I’d sooner see a donation button.. It’s a little more honest
OK..I’ll test this against a donation button next month…
I’ll pull this and ask for money.
I actually think that if it helps make people writing articles more money and it is relevant which mostly is the case it is fine – The free Internet Model died years ago…
#79 John,
On the Weather Underground site a user can pay $10.00 per year to view the site with no adds at all. Seems resonable.
http://www.wunderground.com/
Alan