Is there anything worse than going to a website and having it automatically start blaring some video, jingle, or promotional material at you? A little earlier I was flitting around the internet and I came across some gaming website that automatically started some video promoting a new game and it was the most annoying thing in the world. Why was it annoying? Because the video was loud, obnoxious and paired on the same page as an article that was completely unrelated to the advertisement! So I go to this website to read about emerging technologies from software companies and I get to hear some Japanese-inspired music on a video that isn’t even viewable unless you go all the way down to the bottom of the page? No thanks.
TNAWrestling.com also has this problem. If you head over to their site you immediately get a blaring loud version of their “TNA Today” video or one of Don West’s Insane Deals yelling at you. This is one of the primary reasons why I stay away from that site. Why can’t they just leave the YouTube video there in an “off” position? Are they afraid that I won’t be able to figure out how to push the “play” button? Are they afraid that I won’t push that play button at all? Don’t I have a right to not push that button if, let’s say, I’m on my lunch break at work? Annoying.
And the most aggravating advertisements of all are those ones that say, “Congratulations. You’ve been selected to receive a free Apple iPod.” Bullshit! Those advertisements are total crap. For those of you that don’t know, they are for “freebie” sites where you essentially turn yourself (and whatever digital platform you can offer such as e-mail, blogging, personal site, etc) into a marketing tool for a variety of companies. Once you reach a certain number of people, you get a free iPod sent to you. The catch? You’re marketing services that sometimes cost $1 or $2 for the “trial” period and you need to include your credit card information in the required information. Plus, you need something like 5 or 6 people to sign up underneath you before you can get anything for free. The advertisement should say:
“Congratulations. You’ve been selected to have your identity stolen. We think that you just might be dumb enough to click on this link and give us your credit card information. Oh, free Apple iPod.”
Morons. To all website designers and developers out there – STOP this crap! Do NOT have automatic videos playing, do NOT put up advertisements that talk to the web surfer, and do NOT put up your own promotional propaganda and set it to auto-play. It’s incredibly annoying!
If you think that automatic video and audio shit is annoying, try doing it with your eyes closed using a screen reader that’s trying to speak the site’s content to you. Speaking as a blind person, I want to personally fucking kill everybody who’s ever programmed a site to do that.
Agreed. That’s why I surf the net on MUTE.
But they will continue. Know why? Because the idiots that click that garbage are the same ones that put the money in their pockets. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
I couldn’t even imagine, Steve. Again, you’d think that the owners of these sites would wake up and realize that they are alienating significant segments of the consuming public, but I guess they just don’t care.
Well, I like to listen to my Sirius Internet Radio while I surf the web, so I’d hate to have to mute during my browsing time. I would, however, expect these advertising companies to realize that annoying ads actually detract most of the public from clicking on the banner. It’s like that annoying “Head On” commercial that got booted off of most cable channels and forced the advertising company to tweak the ad so it was less disturbing.
I agree so much with this. I actually went to that TNA site and used my AD Block Plus to get rid of it all. Also, I went to the YouTube vid and flagged it. I also surf on MUTE!