21–30 of 42 posts
I don't want to see graphical ads with tits (I'm looking at you Evony), ripped bodies, or oral cavities (teeth whitening). All of that stuff is, just like porn, opt in. Its also why I sign new PC users up to Gmail and not Yahoo Mail. Anything else, and especially contextual text ads, is fine by me. That's why I agree with Google's position.
>> "But the truth of the matter is that most people won't install ad blockers on Chrome because people are fundamentally lazy." BS. Most people don't install ad blockers because they don't want them. Not everyone is a new age hippy anti consumerism activist. If an advert annoys you, don't visit that website again. Vote with your feet. That's being honest. I not lazy, and I won't be installing adblock. I don't think d…
...BUT not the ones that float in when I've already started reading the page, or that take over my screen when I unwittingly roll over them with the mouse (and obscure their close button), or that feature hot pink silhouettes of people dancing in a .gif loop to sell me car insurance, or use what's apparently some guy's mugshot to tell me about some shady mortgage refinance scheme.
For every informative, polite, and compelling advertisement that represents a meaningful commercial communication, there are about 99 that are equivalent to being shouted at via megaphone.
I don't want to see graphical ads with tits (I'm looking at you Evony), ripped bodies, or oral cavities (teeth whitening). All of that stuff is, just like porn, opt in. Its also why I sign new PC users up to Gmail and not Yahoo Mail. Anything else, and especially contextual text ads, is fine by me. That's why I agree with Google's position.
I don't care about tits, skin or toofs, but I am incredibly easily distracted, and a single blinking flash ad can totally plummet my concentration.
The same thing occurs on the web. I find it very hard to read text if there is something flashing right next to it. For this reason I install NoScript as one of my first add-ons on new systems. It blocks the worst offenders and adds a layer of security to boot.
Simply blocking unauthorized scripts is usually good enough for a while, but eventually I'll get to a few pages with non-flash, non-javascript ads that are so annoying I go out and install AdBlock anyway.
I'm happy to meet in the middle, but I don't intend to waste my time.
I don't believe the market will balance itself at all. Online publishers are reliant on advertiser revenue, and there's far too much ad space to fill solely with useful ads for useful products. At the same time, the vast majority of AdBlock users block almost everything - including the 'useful ads for useful products' and the high-value branded advertisements that pay by the impression and really don't care whether y…
Which site do you want to go to:, the annoying one that forces you to watch an ad, or the one that just has a few less-obtrusive ads that you might block? Which one is going to benefit more from network effects and draw in more users?
In brief: only 32% of Internet users clicked on at least one ad in a month, and 8% of users accounted for 85% of ad clicks.
The people using ad blocking software are not the people often clicking on these ads, and most of the clicks come from people who click on a lot of ads and are (I'm guessing by this behavior) unlikely to install an ad blocker. In other words, ad blocking is not a threat.
Wow, the first half was all good and informative, than the second half the authors started to dump all his opinion as known, absolute facts. The fact is that Google, a multi billion dollar company which make ~90% of its revenue through ads, not only allows ad blocking extensions to be installed in its browser (which is rapidly gaining market share) but also not-so-evil enough not to tinker with the Top 10 extension l…
Agreed. Google should really be applauded. I'm bored of all this "Ah but google have access to all my data. What if they turn evil". There was a recent story about Google adding a cookie so that people without google accounts/not logged in, got some extra functionality. Instead of being applauded for improving the product, people started moaning that they were harvesting data from everyone. Tracking peoples movements…
This is not meant to flame, I'm really curious why/when the usage shifted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Google should really be applauded. I'm bored of all this "Ah but google have access to all my data. What if they turn evil". There was a recent story about Google adding a cookie so that people without google accounts/not logged in, got some extra functionality. Instead of being applauded for improving the product, people started moaning that they were harvesting data from everyone. Tracking peoples movements…
OT, but why do people keep saying "Google have too much power," "Google have 60 billion dollars", etc. ? It's a singular noun. The circle is round. Google is powerful. It is turning evil. We are hungry. etc. This is not meant to flame, I'm really curious why/when the usage shifted.
Wow, the first half was all good and informative, than the second half the authors started to dump all his opinion as known, absolute facts. The fact is that Google, a multi billion dollar company which make ~90% of its revenue through ads, not only allows ad blocking extensions to be installed in its browser (which is rapidly gaining market share) but also not-so-evil enough not to tinker with the Top 10 extension l…
I'm asking because, if you push this argument further, you could think that it's good for Google to have all ads served by competitors disappear, to leave only google ads everywhere.
Irony: http://imgur.com/4QOPv.png . Note that the only ads so blocked are flash ads.
I also have a shellscript to download Youtube videos and feed them to mplayer, since my computer is too slow for most Flash video.
I don't believe the market will balance itself at all. Online publishers are reliant on advertiser revenue, and there's far too much ad space to fill solely with useful ads for useful products. At the same time, the vast majority of AdBlock users block almost everything - including the 'useful ads for useful products' and the high-value branded advertisements that pay by the impression and really don't care whether y…
If ad-blocking got popular and sites tried to get past it I believe those sites would likely lose some of the customer's respect as they would be disrespecting the customer. Which site do you want to go to:, the annoying one that forces you to watch an ad, or the one that just has a few less-obtrusive ads that you might block? Which one is going to benefit more from network effects and draw in more users?