supersonic feet

With the hype over Web 2.0, it’s funny how many online advertisers are still using the same crass techniques of the web’s earlier years. Within a minute of each other, I just got hit by three of the most annoying advert types while checking two websites.

I loaded up an article on the Sky Sports website along with Blue’s News in separate tabs. Looking at Blue’s News first, there was an irritating buzzing noise.

“Oh look, it’s a Flash advert in the top right corner inviting me to zap a bug and win a laptop”. It’s at this point I could no longer care less about what gaming news goodness Blue might have to offer me and went to close the tab - as I do, a pop-under sneaks its way open. Marvellous. So they’ve irritated me enough with one ad that I’m closing the window without ever getting to the content of the site and now as I leave they find another way to motivate me in looking for a better site to read about upcoming computer games.

The pop-unders have actually been on Blue’s News for a while and I generally work around them, but today’s double-whammy just about does it.

OK, so that was an annoying website that stopped me in my tracks. Back to Sky Sports…

“Goodie, a floating Flash advert obscuring the article content” I think to myself (or is that just what the advertisers and webmasters expect us to think?). I was lucky this time and the ‘close’ link actually did get rid of the ad, but so often with these absolutely-positioned Flash ads the close link doesn’t work properly and you either have to reload the page in the hope the ad won’t show next time or just give up.

Given that both of these sites are driven by their content, why are they allowing adverts to hinder me in getting at that content so much? The Sky Sports one is the only that actually does prevent me reading the text, but the two on Blue’s News do just as good a job in making me leave as fast as possible. When it’s accepted (I’m pretty sure there’s actually proof, but can’t point to it now so I’ll not go that far) that people are much more likely to click on relevant text ads, why are we as site visitors still suffering with obtrusive, irritating advertising? Is there some mad majority of the population that actually responds favourably to having the content they’re trying to read obscured by an advert that they’ll actually change tack (from trying to read the content) to clicking the ad and then buying whatever it sells?

Having practically just burned myself, here’s a (potentially quite obvious) tip for laptop owners - make really sure the laptop has actually turned off before putting it in your bag. I usually set it shutting down, close the lid and start packing up.

I just went to get my laptop out of my bag (4 hours after leaving work) and though my bag felt warm, but was a bit confused as it wasn’t next to a radiator (and really, with the weather we’ve had it wouldn’t be on anyway). Reaching in to lift my laptop out of the pouch built into my backpack is the point I came close to a burn. Seriously. The laptop had failed to shut down (one of those ‘program not responding, end now?’ messages) and in the closed confines of a backpack there was no route for hot air to escape at anywhere near an acceptable rate - cue one VERY hot laptop.

Luckily no damage seems to have been done. It was still running - impressive by itself given it’s been 4 hours since it was unplugged - and has logged back in fine. Here’s hoping I don’t make that mistake again