Lucubratrix

Complaints of the Day

You know what's annoying? Those ads with video. There was one on CNN's website just now, and it's very distracting to have some video playing while I'm trying to skim the headlines. These ads even offer the option of clicking to turn the sound on. Um, no. Why would I ever want to do that? Still, those aren't the worst. There is a special place in hell reserved for the man who developed those pop-up graphics that take over the entire screen and block the content you want to read and the links you might actually want to click on. (And it is a man, incidentally; I read a profile on him a while back in which he attempted to defend his vile creation. If someone wanted to send hate mail, it would go here, although the real offenders are the people who buy and design the ads.) Worse still, however, are the ones where the "close" button does not work. These despicable creations allow you to click on the ad itself to be taken to the website advertised, but attempting to hit "close" to get rid of the ad does nothing at all. The ad does not go away. It never goes away. If you really want to read the site infected with one of these ads, you're stuck leaving the site and re-entering until some other ad comes up.

A related phenomenon is the pop-up graphics on TV. I noticed this most recently on FX, while attempting to watch a movie the other night. Their ad for Nip/Tuck not only took up half the screen for several seconds, but it featured sound, loud enough to obscure the dialogue.

These sorts of ads only serve to irritate, and each time I see one, my resolve never to buy the product so advertised grows stronger. And yet, these ads have not gone away, which can only mean that somewhere out there, someone is actually clicking on these things. Some focus group must have said that a pop-up graphic with sound effects interrupting the show they were watching would instill in them a longing to watch Nip/Tuck, and any number of other TV shows, as FX is by no means the only offender. The real question is, where in the world did they find that focus group?

posted by Just Me @ 10:22