Quote:Original Post by Myopic Rhino Telling us that you hate them isn't particularly helpful. Since they are a fairly unintrusive form of advertising
I actually find it very intrusive. It distracts me when I'm trying to read articles and ends up dilluting the effectiveness of the article. As mentioned earlier, it stalls my web browser (Mozilla Firefox) when trying to load. Given all the things I like about this browser, I'm not willing to switch back to IE just so I can view "context sensitive" advertisements. I wouldn't expect them to be too effective, because they're irritating to a lot of viewers and pretty easily Adblock-able (I haven't seen statistics, but I'd imagine this site has a high FireFox readership, and if a new form of advertisement is stalling their browser and distracting them, they'll block it without thinking twice). Finally, this kind of advertising is something I've always personally viewed as a bit tacky. I couldn't give much constructive backing behind that statement, but it just has an interface that's reminds me of adware infections. Maybe that's it.
I find these types of ads annoying, but if GDNET need 'em, fine. They're not in the forums, which is where most people probably spend most of their time.
Why do I find them annoying?
1. Visual clutter. They don't fit the text around them, making reading pages with these ads harder to read.
2. Visual clutter 2. As you move your mouse to click somewhere, or just to get it out of the way, you pass over an ad... a big hoving block of crud appears, making it impossible to read the page for a while.
3. "context sensitive" isn't the same as "keyword matching", which is what these ad systems do. I've yet to see any site using these where the ad linked to anything remotely interesting to a person reading the page. Sometimes they'll pick up a keyword like "Radeon" and link to a place selling old Radeon cards. Okay, vaguely related, but if I'm reading an article on the latest Radeons or GeForce, I probably don't care about the cheap old cards. Often they'll pick up on words like "programming", and link to all sorts of unrelated items.
Still, these ads are better than some other new trends. Ads with audio are quite annoying. Some sites have new ads which have a "roll over" feature that's more than just an interactive flash thing. If you roll over they'll pop up new windows, stop videos you're watching to show a video ad, etc. Often you'll click a link, get a window with an ad and something else. You try to mouse over to click on something and suddenly you're getting some fullscreen obnoxious ad. I "asked" for it, by mousing over it.
So, yeah, I don't like these ads, but there are much worse types, and if Gamedev needs 'em, so be it.
The Firefox stall is a legitimate concern. However, I just tried loading 30 pages simultaneously in Firefox and didn't experience even a slight stall. I wonder if this is version-dependent (I'm running 1.0.4).
As for effectiveness, over 2 years of data show this ad format as being extremely effective, even on websites with a highly technical audience. This is part of the reason we decided to do the trial.
I can't say I care, being a GDNet+ member (and planning on being indefinately), this doesn't bother me at all. However, having totally obtrusive ads isn't productive or good for the site in any respect - considering that a number of technically brilliant minds haven't even signed up here yet, and post as anons. If they suddenly find it obstructive to browse the site - it's possible that they would move on.
Perhaps another case for people to sign up for GDNet+?
I notice stalling in IE when I mouse over the links. Of course, I try to avoid them but when something does pop up overtop of another link (such as on the forum list page), I'll sometimes come very close to actually clicking on the advertisement itself which is not a good thing [lol]
Seriously though, I don't know what to make of the ads. My personal experience is that I won't click on something even if it's completely related to whatever I'm doing. If I do click on something, it will be with the intention to help out the site with the ads - because, after all, ads are useless if no one clicks on them. But clicking on the ad just to help out the site with ads rather than the site advertising doesn't make much sense either.. Maybe I should just sign up for GDNet+
I like this form of advertising. It gives me the option of looking at it if I'm interested, while if I'm not, it doesn't take up large areas of screen real estate, or distract me with loud flashy animation. I would definately not like this advertising to be employed in the forums, but I can accept it on the news areas of the site, and I'm willing to try having it present in the articles, mostly because I understand it probably has to be in more areas than just the news to be effective for you and the advertising company.
The only thing I would say against this is the extra emphasis placed on the keywords can attract my attention to those words, and away from the purpose of the thing I am reading. I expect this'll become a non-issue once I'm used to it though. At any rate, I am rolling over some of these keywords when I'm curious as to what they have to offer, so I'd say it's a pretty effective form of advertising. I like the fact I can roll over these keywords and get more information without comitting to anything, where banners and the like are a wildcard, and also take time to investigate. Personally, I give it a thumbs up.
Being GDNet+ this doesn't really bother me. Maybe more of you should join up [wink]
Quote:2. Visual clutter 2. As you move your mouse to click somewhere, or just to get it out of the way, you pass over an ad... a big hoving block of crud appears, making it impossible to read the page for a while.
On other websites with this sort of advertising it is this "characteristic" that most annoys me... that delay where they block everything underneath it for 5-10 seconds just gets in my way [smile]
To be constructive, if they disappeared MUCH faster I wouldn't be so fussed. Yes, this means people won't see whats in the advert unless they go back and look at it again... but if I see a "unix" highlighted I know that I'm not interested in that advert because I dont need/want/use any *nix stuff - on the contrary if "DirectX" were highlighted I'd be tempted to hover back over it to have a look.
Quote:Original post by Nemesis2k2 The only thing I would say against this is the extra emphasis placed on the keywords can attract my attention to those words, and away from the purpose of the thing I am reading. I expect this'll become a non-issue once I'm used to it though. At any rate, I am rolling over some of these keywords when I'm curious as to what they have to offer, so I'd say it's a pretty effective form of advertising. I like the fact I can roll over these keywords and get more information without comitting to anything, where banners and the like are a wildcard, and also take time to investigate. Personally, I give it a thumbs up.
Thank you. That is a rational analysis of this form of advertising, and I appreciate it. I feel the same way you do about these ads, and I've found myself clicking on a few out of pure curiosity - very effective advertising.
I also do not find it obtrusive at all. Certainly, the first few days you see it takes some getting used to, but within a week you find yourself hovering over the links to see what it will point you to. I just ask our visitors to give it a week before forming their opinions about this form of advertising.
Whatever script is controlling these is buggy like most adware.
If there's a problem downloading the pieces of the ad it will try over & over forever at high cpu utilization.
I find them extremely obtrusive because of thier neon-green color. Also they kick in if the mouse goes over them even for an instant - like say when I want to click a real link. Please tone them down some and for the love of god make it so the mouse has to hover over them for a second or two before popping up so they don't actively block real content.