Internet Advertising: has it gone too far?

[Cloverfield]

I was just now looking at Molluck's FF7 forum... and found what has to be the worst form of advertising ever.

Molluck's forum is hosted on ezBoard (just like Oddworld Forums used to be). As many of you know, ezBoard is now full of pop-up advertisements, which are quite annoying, but you just close them anyway.

Well you would not believe what came up when I was over there ... a pop-up advertisement that asked you to install something.

Now I think this is totally wrong. Sure places need money, but to ask you to install software, IMO this is wrong. Who knows what kind of program it could be or even if it is safe/compatible with other software on your system.

The majority of forum users are teenagers and some may think it's needed for the forum and click "yes" to install anyway. If I were a parent I would be pretty pissed off that a site my kid went to made them install some useless software just to run an advertisement (or who knows what).

Resorting to this kind of lowness in advertising is the kind of stuff adult sites revert to.

I'm just glad that Oddworld Forums is no longer over there anymore.

Abe Babe...

[Gluk Schmuck]

oh yeah, i got that from one of those new FF forums...

hmmm, advertisers want to install something on my computer...what could that be...*monitor goes all blurry*...

• change the wallpaper to a flashing "click here for hot teens"
• make a browser window popup everytime you use your compuer, never mind the internet
• stick banner ads all around Word, Paint and Encarta
• put all your games in a letter box with banner ads at the top and bottom and floating around the screen

*monitor blurrs back into this page after a 'quick' word from their sponsors which lasts 10 minutes*
lol...


speaking of really bad ads...ign.com has really bad ads...eg. for some articles there's a full page ad that appears before you're redirected to the page WITH the article on AND there are sometimes ads that float infront of the content on the page, the ads even have a little bar on the top with which you can drag it around with...

[Sydney]

I agree. The purpose of an advertisement is to woo the viewer into taking a closer look at the product in question. The nature of pop-ups completely flips this concept around; I, like everyone else, become annoyed and close the pop-up before even glancing at the content. An inset banner on the other hand, I might look at if the image is interesting.

Popups that demand some sort of action on a user's behalf only irritate. It shows that the advertiser is a failure and can only succeed if their content is force-fed to the user.

I was on a site the other day with pop-ups that didn't even have an X to push to close it. I had to press Alt+F4. I'm not going to click on anything that forces itself upon me.

[Joe the Intern]

oh god i hate those! one thing i get all the time is bonzibuddy. who needs that shmit really? i hate online advertising. thank god we have the UBB forums. theyre much better than the ezboard. every time i went to the ezboard to read stuff all i ever got was ads. and the one that pops up and says "you have one message waiting for you", that one is really annoying. you see the x in the corner but if you press it it just asks you to download stuff.

[Sl'askia]

humph..i really hate those little ads that appear right next to where ever your mouse pointer is...and right over whatever you are 'trying' to read. I also hate when you get more ads every single time you go to a new page! AAARRRGGGHHHH!!! *gets out a shot gun and starts blasting ads left and right*

[FuzzyFuzzle]

Yeah, I go to one site with this REALLY annoying type of ad where if you close it, it pops up another ad no matter what. I also hate the ones that have a fake close button in the upper right corner that really just takes you to their ad page. I heard there was some court case about some website that took mispelled domain names like "cartoonnetwork.com" and all the kids who mistyped the site got about 15 different windows. Its horrible. One of the ads that wasn't annoying as much scary was at IGN before Planet of the Apes came out. I just got onto a page and was reading an article when one of the big apes appears on the screen and shouts "BOW YOUR HEADS!!!" I hate the ones that interfere with the page. Seperate windows are one thing, but when giant nike shoes are floating around what your trying to read, somethings gotta be done...