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The Almighty Buck Spam The Internet

Unicast Claims Success With Internet Commercials 284

Posted by timothy from the what-else-would-they-claim dept.
LightForce3 writes "Remember that trial run of full-motion commercials on sites like ESPN.com and MSN? The BBC reports that Unicast, whose caching technology makes these ads work, is claiming a strong favorable response from Internet users who viewed the advertisements. It looks like they could now be making long-term deals with clients (the article mentions Forbes.com and weather.com). As a dialup user, I am less than thrilled about the idea of an extra 2 MB download each time I visit one of these sites."
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Unicast Claims Success With Internet Commercials More

Unicast Claims Success With Internet Commercials

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  • Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by whoda ( 569082 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:40AM (#8577116) Homepage
    As a dialup user, I am less than thrilled about the idea of an extra 2 MB download each time I visit one of these sites."

    Then don't go to their websites.
    Boycotting is still an effective tool, unless of course you are in the minority, which you may be, since I'm sure there are a couple million sports freaks who won't mind the commercials.
    • I can see it already. New AOL 11.0 Super-Ultra Mega Turbo Hyper High Speed, now with pop-under ad blocker! You read it in this comment first, folks. :P

      I admit I would be more excited about the advertising arms race if something interesting came out of it, besides finding exciting new ways to connive people into watching a commercial for your product.

    • Re:Simple solution (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Boycotting is still an effective tool, unless of course you are in the minority, which you may be, since I'm sure there are a couple million sports freaks who won't mind the commercials.

      So really you are saying that it is not effective?!

      Blocking the commercials is probably the only way to prevent them downloading

      • Re:Simple solution (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Kailden ( 129168 )
        Privoxy [privoxy.org] makes it pretty easy to boycott ads...

        Now, if it was easy/cheap to set up a transparent proxy (so that your grandma could do it) then ad/commercial boycotting could be so effective that you'd have to start swiping your credit card to surf a site (pay-per-page).

        Like many others, I use Privoxy along with Squid [squid-cache.org] so that I cache everything that is static non-ads.
    • Perhaps the message they're trying to send to all dialup users is - "Upgrade!"

    • Re:Simple solution (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Ilgaz ( 86384 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:11AM (#8577276) Homepage
      As a media worker, I am not against advertising...

      I only wonder 1 thing... Couldn't these ActiveX, JVM 1.1 geniuses who "invents" a thing which will result in more users filtering ads, code a small (64kb) bandwidth test BEFORE sending them 2mb?

      • Re:Simple solution (Score:4, Interesting)

        by oliverk ( 82803 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @10:52AM (#8578559)
        They do. Unicast and a couple of the others use a bandwidth checker to figure out if it's worth it to actually worth it to start downloading. It's how they're avoiding the problem of users lacking broadband. It's basically a "speed check" (I've used it in campaigns for Compaq...so you get the sense that this has been around since 2000/2001).

        Question then: has anyone experienced any bandwidth problems that are associated with these types of ads?

      • Re:Simple solution (Score:3, Interesting)

        by frostman ( 302143 )
        Actually it's trivially easy to do that, assuming you only need to divide people into "slow, fast, superfast" connections.

        You just feed them a very large yet invisible background image on their first visit, and have a program feeding the image. Program knows how long it took to feed the image, therefore which category the user is *probably* in, and puts the IP address in a database and a cookie on the machine.

        If the cookie is there you put that speed value in the DB (again with the IP address).

        Over time
    • Right now, in the US, broadband customers are actually a minority. I think the home market penetration just passed 25% several months ago. That will go up but somewhat slowly.
      • The simplest solution would be to drop broadband prices by 30-50%. Most average US homes don't want another $50+/month charge. Me, I couldn't live without broadband, having experienced the wonderful world of dialup at my folks just recently. Blah!

    • Re:Simple solution (Score:2, Insightful)

      by operagost ( 62405 )
      That's funny - Black people in the USA are in the minority, but boycotts seemed to work pretty well during the civil rights movement.
    • Then don't go to their websites.

      That's fine, and I agree with you. However, a dialup user doesn't really have a choice in this matter - downloading a 2MB (or whatever it is) video clip to go to the next page is simply not practical as part of a browsing session on dialup unless you are an extraordinarily patient person.

      Furthermore, is there any kind of warning [for the dialup user] that you're downloading a 2MB clip to give someone a chance to back out? Or does the page just sit there with nothing happen

  • Funny (Score:3, Funny)

    by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:43AM (#8577130) Homepage Journal
    I read the ESPN website pretty regularly, and have never seen one of these. What am I doing right^H^H^H^H^Hwrong?

    • Re:Funny (Score:4, Informative)

      by Sla$hd0tSux0r ( 762264 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:50AM (#8577176)
      You have to enable "ESPN Motion", which gives you video highlights and video clips from their regular TV shows (PTI, etc.). So, you only see the video ads if you watch their video content. Seems like there isn't really anything new here. Beware of "ESPN Motion" though. It installs a service that constantly downloads content in the background so that when you hit the site it is all ready to go. Interesting idea, but can choke off that UT2004 session at just the wrong time!

      • Re:Funny (Score:2, Informative)

        by nycstinger ( 762691 )
        Actually, the ads Unicast is pushing are not part of ESPN Motion. They are entirely seperate.

      • Not ESPN motion (Score:3, Informative)

        by donutello ( 88309 )
        This is not based on ESPN Motion (which is also evil, evil, evil, btw). I don't have ESPN motion and yet I see the ads. You just need to be on the site long enough for the entire ad to download. I see the ads most often when I'm trying to follow the scores of a basketball game that's not on TV.

        CBS.Sportsline.com is much better anyway with extensive personalization. Unfortunately for me, some games are only on ESPN.

  • Do we have to miss out on this on Linux? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:44AM (#8577132)
    ... The format is based on Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Series and uses Unicast proprietary pre-cached technology.

    What a shame. I use Linux! :-)

  • Technical Background? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Psychic Burrito ( 611532 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:44AM (#8577138)
    Can anybody tell me how this "caching technology" works? It looks like they cache video while a user visits several pages on a given site, and when everything is loaded, the video is played back. How do they make sure the caching operation keeps storing stuff while a user jumps from page to page? As far I know, when you switch to a new page, any javascript/java/activeX code on the old page is stopped and its data is deleted.

    Frames could be an option (have a invisible subframe keeping on storing stuff), but this would mess with the URLs, which I think is not the case here.

    Any insights? Thanks! :-)

  • Please (Score:5, Funny)

    by PacoTaco ( 577292 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:45AM (#8577143)
    "These results further indicate that given the opportunity to use video, advertisers can shift consumer attitudes and accelerate favourability and purchase intent for their brands," said Allie Savarino, senior vice president of Unicast.

    Keep this person away from me. Thanks.

  • I'm already trying to block as many banner ad sites as possible, using MozillaFirebird on Linux. Now, I'm seeing text ads in their place, along with flash animated ads. How can I escape this barrage of advertising? I rarely, if ever, click on any of these ads unless there's something truly compelling about them.
    • http://adblock.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org] there you go

    • Re:My eyeballs aren't for sale (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:05AM (#8577255)
      "unless there's something truly compelling about them."

      And that is why they do it. No one (except for microsoft) honestly assumes that every one will want their products. But they to this broad form of advertisement to catch the person who is interested in that product.

      So you can deal with these broad adds or have companies install spyware on your computer to learn you interests and give you more compelling adds that fit what you want. I myself much rather have a bunch of uninteresting adds then spyware.

      If you were to truly boycott these adds you will need to stop clicking on the adds that you like as well. That is the point of a boycott.

      But expect to have these adds of some form or another until there is a way to operate a website at a profit or for free. Some sites sell website related products online like homestarrunner.com and others are just online store. But most of the informational sites that want to offer there service for free will need to give adds to help support there work.
    • I notice that you are not a subscriber, so does that mean that you enjoy posting and taking part in this site without paying for it by allowing items to be advertised to you? For many sites the only way that they can make money from their content is to have people pay for it either directly or in advertising potential, but many of the people currently on the internet, and it seems to be mostly made up of longer term users, feel that they have a right to view a website without paying for it.

      On the same no
      • Absolutely, if I wasnt unemployed right now I would be pleased to buy a subscription.

        However more generally I think people still have a right to express a preference for the ammount and kind of advertising thrown at them. Otherwise we would all have tvs bolted to our heads with constant advertising twenty four hours a day. We have a perfect right to "circumvent the cost factor of these websites" if it involves choosing what advertising we want to see.

        Also it should be possible to withold private informati

        • We have a perfect right to "circumvent the cost factor of these websites" if it involves choosing what advertising we want to see.

          Certainly, its called "refraining from viewing the website". Dont try and say you have a right to do anything else.

          Also it should be possible to withold private information from businesses if we choose to.

          Again, its called "refraining from viewing the website". Does a great job in both the situations.

          It is a matter of freedom of the individual to choose without coerc

      • you do not have a right to circumvent the cost factor of these websites

        No? Why not? Does it actually say somewhere in a contract which I agreed to that I must not download content from NYT or slashdot or any other site without first looking at the ads or registering? I've never seen such a notice anywhere on slashdot, and I don't recall seeing one on NYT although I don't look at the registration page that hard. Why don't I have the right to only download some images on a page but not others? Why don't I h

    • The "Flash Click-To-View" extension for FireFox/FireBird is pretty sweet - it replaces all flash objects with a big grey button that doesn't play the flash animation until you click on it.
    • The only proof of commercial viability of any advertising mechanism is that of clients who
      have tried it RENEWING THEIR ACCOUNT.

      Nothing else matters.

  • Strong Favorable Response (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tarwn ( 458323 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:48AM (#8577164) Homepage
    Y'think?

    Never ask the sales person how good their product is, all you'll get is whatever they can spout off the top of their head as the newest sales line.

    "Our stuff is great, people love it and can't seem tio live without it" - Every sales person that ever lived

    Heck, why bother asking the originating company when you already kn ow what the answer is going to be. 1. The company will say the customers love it, 2. The customers will be pissed off at yet another intrusion and time wasting tactic when all tey want to do is see the content they came to see. This isn't TV ya bastards.

    • Re:Strong Favorable Response (Score:4, Interesting)

      by awol ( 98751 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:09AM (#8577263) Journal

      Never ask the sales person how good their product is, all you'll get is whatever they can spout off the top of their head as the newest sales line.

      So true. This is the problem with the advertising industry as a whole. The people telling you how effective the advertising is are the same people selling you the advertising. People, wake up! Believing them is not a good idea. It never ceases to amaze me how intelligent business people are hoodwinked by the advertising charletans. Even before the click through debacle. Now that we have seen how that littel beauty worked, surely this kind of crap cannot be taken seriously?

    • The sites mentioned are drooler sites anyway (Score:4, Insightful)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:43AM (#8577506)
      It wouldn't surprise me at all of ESPN and MSN site viewers liked the ads. First of all, most sports fans are droolers whose idea of quality TV and filmmaking isn't "Six Feet Under" but a beer ad where the women go topless and dogs fetch beer, plus, they're very "watch TV" oriented, not interactive oriented, so they're conditioned to a TV-like experience.

      The MSN crowd is largely the same, except you can drop "sports fans" and replace it with "reality TV fans". Same neaderthal content, same neaderthal reaction. "MMMM..TV PICTURE WITH FUNNY COMMERCIAL...AND ME NOT EVEN WATCHING TV...MMMM...MIRACLE..."

      I'm sure I'll get modded down as flamebait, but is ANYONE surprised that ESPN fans and MSN fans like commercials? Given the dreck they otherwise watch, it's hardly surprising.

  • Never works for me... (Score:5, Informative)

    by DrPepper ( 23664 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:49AM (#8577167)
    I've tried to look at the demo on their website many times, however it never works because of the requirements:

    Windows
    Internet Explorer
    Windows Media Player
    Microsoft (not Sun) JVM ...but you can't get [microsoft.com] the MS JVM any more :-( And I don't use IE (although I appreciate most of the world does).

    You can try it yourself here [unicast.com]. If you do, be sure to comment what it's like, because I've never seen it!
    • Hey, it has links to download some of the necessities, but not all. Where's the link to download this "Windows Operating System" thing?
    • (from the unicast website)

      Unicast is committed to ensuring that all ads either play perfectly or not at all.

      At times, we make temporary decisions to exclude certain browser and/or configurations that contain known bugs or perform inconsistently in our testing and quality assurance environments.

      Unicast has temporarily blocked the Sun JVM as a result of some modifications made with the most recent Sun releases. Unicast has seen consistent instability with this configuration and will continue to eval

  • More commercials?!?!?!?! (Score:4, Funny)

    by BrainSmashR ( 731616 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:50AM (#8577178) Homepage
    You mean pop-up's and spam aren't enough.......now I have to dodge full-length commericals on the web too? Anyone remember when it was the information highway and not the advertising highway?
    • Anybody remember when the real highway didn't have ads covering it?
      Me neither.

  • adblock (Score:3, Interesting)

    by amembleton ( 411990 ) <aembletonNO@SPAMbigfoot.com> on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:51AM (#8577183) Homepage
    Will Adblock [mozdev.org] be able to block these ads. It would be usefull if it did.

    • Re:adblock (Score:4, Informative)

      by PoisonousPhat ( 673225 ) <foblich@netscap e . n et> on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:08AM (#8577262)
      Doesn't look like you'll have to worry about that. As a previous poster commented, the ads seem to require (for now) Internet Explorer. If that gets changed, then I think we (I'm also a happy Adblock user) will be able to block the ads just like regular flash ads. On the Unicast site, their Header Specs page [unicast.com] seems to indicate that the code will still have to call a specific location in order to retrieve the ad, which is then easy to stamp out using Adblock.

      Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here; IANA Programmer and am not sure if there are tricky Java-based things they could do to get around regular ad blocking measures.

  • The lesser of two evils (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Max Romantschuk ( 132276 ) <max@romantschuk.fi> on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:51AM (#8577184) Homepage
    As annoying as ads may be, I'd rather have a site with heavy full motion ads and quality content than no ads and poor content.

    After all, content producers need to get paid, and ads are among the few ways to achieve that without subscription services. As long as there are no feasible ways to internationally pay for content safely I'll put up with ads rather than loose the information I can get completely.

  • A possible solution (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SmackCrackandPot ( 641205 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:52AM (#8577188)
    As a dialup user, I am less than thrilled about the idea of an extra 2 MB download each time I visit one of these sites."

    Maybe you could set your Internet Options to restrict the space for temporary files to be less than 2 MB?

    • Re:A possible solution (Score:3, Informative)

      by smcv ( 529383 )
      That's a really bad solution for dialup users, who rely on their cache being large enough to hold a decent volume of common images (for instance, to make Slashdot non-painful on dialup, you want the top-left logo and the comment icons to be in cache).

  • Suit speak (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Underholdning ( 758194 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:54AM (#8577197) Homepage Journal
    An online survey of more than 3,500 users who saw the ads found that just 28% said they were annoying
    Ok, first of all, I'm pretty sure that number is way too low. But even if it's correct, would you place a technology on your website that's proven to annoy at least 1/3 of your potential customers?

  • Sssshhhhhhhh (Score:3, Funny)

    by Imperator ( 17614 ) <slashdot2.omershenker@net> on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:55AM (#8577201)
    No one tell them about Mozilla on Linux...

  • Internet Commercials (Score:3, Insightful)

    by myownkidney ( 761203 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:56AM (#8577211) Homepage
    In quite a lot of countries outside the US, one has to has to pay exhorbitant amounts at a per MB rate to get bandwitdh from the US or elsewhere. This is especially true in Thailand.

    I am in no way willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money to WATCH advertisements. Don't get me wrong. I am totally pro-advertising, I do understand that advertising is a way for content providers to make some money, but I prefer textual targetted advertising.

    So what would I do? Firstly, I will try to find a way to block these ads. If this fails, I will just boycott these sites and find alternate sites. And I figure a lot of people will do the same.

    So these people will lose the audience to gain revenue. Doesn't sound logical now, does it?

  • Yup, I'm sure this "technology" is as much as "success" as SiteFinder.

    "We removed all negative feedback and all we were left with were three glowingly positive emails! They were from upper management, but who's keeping score anyway..."

    If you can't believe the people who are implementing an idea in order to make money to be honest about their success, then who can you trust? yeesh.

  • Personally.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:02AM (#8577240)
    I dont mind the ads so much, as long as audio does not come on right away in them.

    Also, these people need to understand a lot of people are going mobile now, and with b/w usage fees, people are going to be getting hefty bills from their mobile providers. Also, people with internet with very low caps pay over for usage, and probably arent expecting that the news sites they read are feeding them 2mb ads.

  • Or, "Why fast WAN will never be cheap." (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jasin Natael ( 14968 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:03AM (#8577244)

    1xRTT, 1xEvDO, 3G GSM, 4G, you name it. It's because of things like this that most users won't be able to afford wide-area broadband connections. Why do content providers never consider the sensitivity of the connection the user is on?

    Will I only be able to access new and exciting services wirelessly with a PDA or cellphone, but not with my laptop? A simple weather check for an unknowing user might suck away 10% of their bandwidth allotment. I mean, forcing dialup and ISDN users to endure this is bad enough, but what about poor Joe Schmoe with his laptop on the road hooked into his cellphone with packet data service? These are oft-visited websites! Either:

    • Joe has a per-kilobyte plan and pays through the nose
    • Joe and others like him increase traffic on the carrier's expensive network and everyone's bill for unlimited service goes through the roof.

    I'm not saying that the sites are wrong for doing this, but I am suggesting that some attention should be given to actual connection speeds and types. With laptops outpacing sales of almost everything else, a browser cookie is most certainly no longer good enough.

    --Jasin Natael

  • Only 28% of respondents were annoyed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TobascoKid ( 82629 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:04AM (#8577248) Homepage
    An online survey of more than 3,500 users who saw the ads found that just 28% said they were annoying.

    That's almost a third of those surveyed found the advertisments annoying. Who would want to piss off a third of thier users?

    And how do they count the number of users so annoyed that they go off the site and don't bother filling in the survey?

    Tk

  • What an achievement (Score:3, Funny)

    by BenjyD ( 316700 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:06AM (#8577260)

    The company behind the trials said that people found the commercials much less irritating than other ads on the web.

    So it's less annoying than DHTML animated adverts that move around getting in the way of what you're trying to read or those red/yellow flashing "You've won" banners in the middle of an article. What an achievement.

    You have to wonder at the mind set of advertising executives. "People aren't taking notice of our adverts. What can we do?" "I know, lets make them even bigger,more intrusive and waste megabytes of our potential customers bandwidth as well". A serious case of needing to stop bailing and plug the leak.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:11AM (#8577273)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Opera (Score:2, Informative)

    by subjectstorm ( 708637 )
    An AC mentioned this above, but it's worth noting:

    Opera will disable/enable plug-ins with one click, and yes, that includes windows media and flash. i have mine set up this way, as well as animated gifs turned off and javascript disabled unless i request it.

    I know everyone is in love with Mozilla, but honestly, what's not to love about Opera? i'm HOOKED on the mouse gestures and the ability to emulate a text-browser if i feel nostalgic.

    also, it's available for linux (though i haven't tested it on a lin
    • I know everyone is in love with Mozilla, but honestly, what's not to love about Opera?

      It's not free. If this were 1996 you might have a valid point in getting us to buy a copy of Opera, but there are a bazillion web browser out there that cost absolutely nothing (yes, I consider watching their adware version to come with a cost as well). I'd rather just use Mozilla or IE.

    • I did give it a shot - I tried Opera and Firebird at the same time when I decided to get away from IE. My experience was quite simple: pages load much faster in Firebird (Opera was dead even with IE). Firebird has mouse gestures (All-In-One Gestures extension is great), and I can disable Java, JavaScript, and gif looping (TTLO extension). The price difference didn't even come into play; Firebird wins hands-down in my opinion.

    • Re:Opera (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Monty67 ( 634947 )
      To begin, if you enjoy using Opera by all means don't change. Opera is a very good browser with some very good features. I tried it, an use it to test my site dev given its adherence to web standards.

      My main browser is Firefox/Firebird/BigBird/Bird/etc etc. I install one of the smallest icon themes I can find, hide both of the toolbars, and place all the needed buttons on one horizontal. I then install mouse gestures, ADblock and Click to view flash and RSS reader. I have a very large screen area, IMHO, fa
  • I've been using PopUp Cop for some time now when I have to use IE and the first time this story was unleashed claiming then to be unblockable I dropped a line to my friends at PopUp Cop.

    The fine folks at PopUp Cop assured me that UniCast was NOT using any new and they would definitely be able to block any ads, especially those requiring a download. So there!

    Besides their is always Mozilla, Opera and Netscape. Besides if this "new" advertising method requires a client-side download how are they going to

  • Rape my eyeballs, why not? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by humberthumbert ( 104950 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:18AM (#8577329)

    With the proliferation of adverts on every spot you can imagine (I can't even enjoy the view on a public bus ride no more with the massive eye-searing ads bombed across the windows), there has to be a point at which the average consumer no longer conciously registers an ad. So then what's the point of advertising?

  • They only polled a market share that would give them the response they were looking for. Noone i know would react well to another form of in-your-face advertising.

    More marketing fraud if you ask me.

    I, personally, will be boycotting any company that uses this form of advertisment.

    Much as also avoid anyone that provides me with a popup or spam.

    Regardless if it was them directly or thru a 'e-marketer'... Same result.. they lost a customer for life.
  • This is as bad as spam. Worse maybe.

    We're not given the choice of whether or not we want to view it (as with all advertisting, it's thrust in our face without concern for whether or not we're interested), and we're paying to watch it.

    I feel for the Telstra Cable customers on 300Mb p/m plans who generally won't know any better and will visits sites containing these ads which may very well contribute significantly to their download limit. Worse, once they hit their limit they're charged AU 20c per MB.

    Somet

  • Commercials? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WCMI92 ( 592436 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:28AM (#8577402) Homepage
    Where? I haven't seen ONE of them... But then I use FireFox with Adblock and Flash Click to view plugins ;)

  • I might enjoy internet comemrcials (Score:3, Insightful)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:28AM (#8577403) Homepage
    But these internet commercials would have to follow some rules:

    Rule #1: I can turn them off

    There are some other rules, but they aren't as important as the first so I won't list'm.

    Some TV spots are rather entertaining at times. I believe if internet spots were at least as entertaining, people would watch them. Now I understand that a lot of slashdotters here are generally against anything commercial and I respect that, but I also recognize that gobs of people respond to spam and other interent advertising that isn't half as nice as a voluntary commercial ad.

    Some of these things, if done well, would be something worth sharing from time to time. One case in point is the famous farting woman from ... what were they advertising? Ah yeah, SmartBeep. But back to rule #1, it should be voluntary.

    A lot of great things can be done even on dialup using Flash or similar technologies by the way...

  • Advertising the Works (Score:3, Insightful)

    by enkafan ( 604078 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @08:45AM (#8577512)
    I've installed the ESPN Motion and don't mind the ads at all. Based on the comments about having to wait for an extra 2mb download and the such, I'll assume very few people have actually seen this in action. What the thing does is sit in your "notification window" and download the video in the background. Then when you visit the ESPN.com site, the video has already downloaded and is ready to play. Kinda cool (of course if I was bandwidth limited I'd be pissed off about the thing downloading 6mb of golf highlights in the background).

    But more importantly I think the article fails to mention why people are ok with the ads: Because they are the cream of the crop, best ads out there. You are talking about Gatoraid, Nike, SportsCenter and car commercials that have a better production value than 99% of anything on TV or the in theatres.

    As soon as McDonald's starts running those terribly unhip, awkward and just plain dumb "I'm lovin' it" ads, I think they'll find people's opinions changing pretty quick about putting up with ads on those sites.

  • In other news... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Unknown Kadath ( 685094 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @09:04AM (#8577621)
    Focus groups will say anything for sweet, sweet candy.

    And finding one kind of intrusive web add less annoying than another is like finding Gallagher less annoying than Pauly Shore.

    -Carolyn

  • The web is not TV (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tetrode ( 32267 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @09:09AM (#8577654) Homepage
    REPEAT: THE WEB IS NOT TV

    It's almost too obvious a point, but apparently it bears repeating: The more the Web is like TV, the less we need it. TV already does a pretty effective job of delivering what Net content people call "broadband multimedia information and entertainment" to the home, and most consumers already own the hardware. What sells the Internet to newbies is its promise of things TV can't deliver: "many-to-many" communication via bulletin boards and e-mail; interactive services that go beyond catalog shopping; quirky content unavailable on TV's limited number of channels; specific, accurate information that's there when you need it, whether it's sports stats, stock quotes or plane-ticket availability.

    from: http://archive.salon.com/march97/21st/webtv970327. html

    Seven years later, and it still counts. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. People will either block those ads, or go to other sites. Just like TCP, they will learn to route around the problem.

    The web is not TV, it is not a one way communication channel where you can shove as much commercial bullshit to the other side as your CFO requires you to do. You don't have regulations on the number of channels, you have an unlimited number of them, and they get popular or less populer in a matter of days/weeks/months.

  • TV commercials on the internet? Absurd. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SeaDour ( 704727 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @09:14AM (#8577682) Homepage
    What Unicast doesn't seem to realize is that the internet is really not, in any way, a comparable medium to television. Today's newspapers and periodical magazines have proven that effective, well-placed static advertisements still work even in today's multimedia-crazy world. Even though the news channels offer live, full-color, slow-motion replays of the latest news events, many of us still turn to the old-fashioned, ad-supported newspapers as a reliable source of information. Similarly, we go to web sites like ESPN, MSN and the Weather Channel to *read* information. Full-motion video ads only distract from that purpose.
  • What, exactly, is a "favourable" response to advetising? Not going postal? Not stabbing yourself in the eyes? Not smashing your monitor?

    Seriously, am I expected to believe that anyone likes Internet advertising?

    I tried to read an article on GameSpot yesterday (yeah, first mistake there...) and they had some sort of streaming video ads embedded in the pages. But, of course, the streaming video ads had to play a streaming video ad indicating that the streaming video ad would start soon. I wasn't that i

  • Option to reduce ads (Score:3, Informative)

    by g0bshiTe ( 596213 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @09:29AM (#8577768)
    As an option to "get around" the advertising issue, my boss informed me sometime ago of Mozilla. Since then I have been a loyal user. When Firebird was released I thought there was no use for me to use it, as I was running the latest build of Moz. He otld me that Firebird was the same browser just a lighter version, and tha there were a few things it did that its larger companion didn't. What impressed me was FIrebirds ability to surpress banner ads. Turns out it filters out more than 90% of them. Now I am not sure in the authors case whether or not it would work, but were I he I would give it a shot.

    Life without banner ads, No longer do I need to read "Meet HOT singles in your area today".

  • Firefox/Mozilla (Score:3, Informative)

    by AstroDrabb ( 534369 ) * on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @09:56AM (#8578007)
    Just use Firefox/Mozilla [mozilla.org] and download the adblock [mozdev.org] plugin. Then you can block any content you want. If these ads are coming from http://ads.foo.com, you can block it with *ads.foo.com* or *.foo.com*, etc. If for some strange reason you want to use IE, you can still stop this junk. Under your internet options, go to the security tab and click Custom Level and select prompt for all the Active X options. Then when this thing tries to run just deny it. There are other ways as well. For example, you can put dummy entries in your hosts file for the servers that these ads are coming from, block it with a firewall, etc.

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