Now I try to avoid Fox News unless I absolutely have to, and even then it doesn't work. I'm way too interested in how the current government are spinning the news. But I never flat-out blocked their site or ignored their headlines on news feeds.
But today, Forbes.com went well over the line. I clicked a link from Google news feed on a story about NBC selling TV shows on Amazon's online provider after they crapped out on iTunes. The first thing that comes up is a welcome screen. When I say welcome screen, I am being only partially misleading; Forbes.com calls it a welcome screen, but really it's a huge, full-window advertisement for something I can't afford. Normally that's okay, but after 30 seconds, Forbes showed no signs of letting me go on to read the article. You know, the only reason I was even looking at Forbes.com.
I clicked the (in)convenient 'skip this welcome page' link and it took me to the story. I hadn't even had a chance to start reading the thing when some middle-aged white guy with a suit and bad haircut starts talking at me about, according to the flash window containing the VIDEO ADVERTISEMENT THAT AUTOMATICALLY PLAYS, Fisher Investments. Addendum to self: avoid investing with Fisher Investments even if they're the only investment company on earth.
There is no legitimate reason to have entire pages devoted to adverts and then include a 'skip this rubbish' option. If you don't have enough faith in your customers to be interested in the product you're whoring, don't advertise it. You won't get click-through money. And there's even less legitimate reason to have any page open and start playing music or video (I'm looking at you, MySpace users and YouTube). And if possible, there's even LESS reason for such tactics to be used for advertising.
Commercials are on television for the person who is too lazy to change the channel or go to the kitchen during the break. Advertisements on web pages are there to provide smallish amounts of revenue to keep the site up. However, most successful ads, in my experience, are simple banner ads. If they're well sold, I'll click on it. I'll be incredibly wary about doing so, but I have clicked banner ads. I have NEVER watched an entire auto-play video ad, and I've never even clicked full-page ads if I had the option to skip it completely.
If you're a web designer, don't do these things. It's that sort of thing that makes people describe you as "a self-centered jerk who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes". If you're an advertiser, have the balls to push your product and don't allow us the option to not view you pushing it. Until fast-forwarding and DVR, we sat there and took it, and occasionally bought it. We didn't have the option to not watch if we wanted to watch that show. Keep doing your job and you might just get somewhere. Don't half-ass it. Don't be like this blog column.
