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July 13, 2003
Annoying Web Ads
I just got a freakin ad on Yahoo! that actually contained JAVA. I mean, its bad enough that some ads have flash in them, but JAVA? I mean, what about cross-browser compatability? People should just have ads that will work in the lowest common denominator, which means a browser and JUST a browser, no plugins.
I have too many times seen my browser eating tons of memory in the morning because I left it open on my.yahoo.com with a flash ad open. Obviously, flash has some meory leaks and anyone who has run anything Java, knows that Java seems to have them all over the place. (Yes, and most browsers are full of them as well). This is just a plain bad idea.
I mean, I guess the normal user doesn't leave the computer on all the time, with a browser open all the time, but I think with broadband becoming more and more prominent (MANY of my less technical friends now have things like DSL or a cablemodem, hell, even my Mom has one!), people are going to be more likely to just leave their machine on and in the same state as when they last were working on the machine. Wow, that was one run-on sentence. But, I think you see my point. Leaving the browser open with some flash or java application open could easily kill off a machine or make it completely unusable. Then, the user reboots, and "clears" the problem. But, rebooting a running machine is NEVER a good idea (though seemingly the best cure for Windows most of the time), so therefore, this could even cause users to mess up their machines more than they are already doing today.
OK, maybe I am going a bit too far, but considering web advertising is rather un-effective, (affective?), making them flashier is more likely to turn someone off (longer download time, more annoyance distracting them away from the real content of the page, etc) than make some more likely to click on them.
I guess, that's why I like services like MarketBanker or Google AdSense. They are text based ads, easily downloadable, don't interfere with the user's experience (much), etc.
OK, enough ranting about web ads for this evening.
Posted by Skadz at July 13, 2003 11:00 PM