A Blog About Making Culture
Useful Analogies
February 10, 2004
Now that we're in the last few months of the Era of Pop-Ups on the web, I'm kind of curious what the annoying ad format means. I think pop-ups are distinct from pop-unders; The ones appearing behind your browser seem more like a slime trail left by aggressive advertisers, whereas those first X10 ads always seemed somewhat more invasive.
It seems to me that pop-ups should be analogous to the tear-out cards in magazines, a form of promotion that calls attention to itself and is intrusive but somehow doesn't seem to be against the "rules" of the medium. Yet everyone I speak to thinks pop-ups are damn near offensive and has no problem plucking all the tear-outs from a magazine or simply ignoring them while reading. Even accounting for the learning curve that some users will have just figuring out how to close these windows, there's a visceral reaction that I find fascinating.
Why is our experience of pop-ups on the web qualitatively different than other forms of intrusive advertising?
Previously: I've got the urge to kill
Next: While we weren't looking
Jason Wall
Perhaps its because there are so many of them, and unlike a card between magazine pages, they obscure what you’re reading, and take up bandwidth, wasting your time.
ripples
‘Cos we consider the Internet as the most personal and customized medium and can’t bear to see that this small, imaginary world being intruded upon by strangers!
‘Cos closing these pop-ups require great skill with the mouse, a slight inaccuracy in aim might crop up 1000 other ones!
Jeremy
We hate popups because they obscure more than just a small portion of the screen. We also hate them because traditionally killing one may spawn a hundred more. Some of the popups may have been bearable. But the cascade of terrible ones ruined it for the ones who used them correctly. I personally just don’t feel like taking the risk of a crashing my computer by allowing unsolicited popups to spawn. The Magazine cards can’t spawn more cards when you pull one out. They dont reappear when you tear it out. They don’t expand when you look at em to fill your whole screen. Popups were infinitely more invasive than a magazine card.
Meri
I think that there are different reasons for different types of computer user:
Those less comfortable with computers in general are scared that something has gone wrong, or feel they have lost control, when a pop-up appears
Those completely in control of their computers find it offensive when someone takes control from them and displays them something without asking nicely
I think it is the mere action of the pop-up that makes it so much more despicable than annoying.
raj
Interesting.. I hadn’t thought about pop-ups for quite a while.
The browser/pop-up blocking combo I use, Pith Helmet with Safari, defaults to blacklist all known ad servers. It also stops pop-ups. It also blocks “ad-sized images” and plays animatied gifs only once. Somehow it even blocks Google Adwords… I seem to have forgotten that pop-ups existed.
I think there are a lot of people who haven’t seen advertising on the web for a long time. I would guess that most of the vocal webloggers would have ad-blockers installed at some point in the near future, and public discussion of annoying adversiting practices will soon come to an end. Although tons of people will still be bothered by increasingly annoying web advertising, people like webloggers and teenyboppers will soon forget about ads completely.
Damion
Personally, the biggest reason I hate them is that they have no relevance to me and usually never to what I’m doing at the time. It’s like going to RecordTown to find a music cd and having all the employees periodically asking you if you want a washer machine when you have one, or to help you find airplane tickets when you don’t travel.
Other forms of intrusive advertising seems to generally fit whatever they’re hitching a ride with. Magazines inserts generally are for more subscriptions. If they aren’t then it usually fits the mentality of the piece. When was the last time you saw an advert for a washing machine in Playboy?
Joerg
It’s MY computer. EYE am the one requesting information. Pop-ups push information back - it just goes totally against the paradigm of my computer and the Internet. That’s why it’s invasive, ‘cos it feels wrong.
Wilson
One other issue is that, with tear-out cards, (a) you see them coming, and (b) once you tear them out, they stay out. They will never show up again on the same magazine (granted, next month there will be a new batch). That is different from pop-ups in that they will appear when you least expect them (and this is, I think, the worst part of the problem: people don’t like their computers doing something they didn’t ask them to), and, most of the time, closing them will have no effect on what happens the next time you go to the same page: you will see a pop-up again.
Paul Cline
In addition to their other troublesome characteristics pop-ups generally intend to trick you. For example links drawn as the close ‘X’ or the ‘Cancel’ button. They cross the line between marketing and swindling.
What ever happened to consumer agents that broker targeted advertising and deposit the gains in the consumer’s account?
Peace, Paul
Pushkar
Different because 1. Degrading readability: Magazine Pull outs do not interfere with the actual reading process. Pop ups interfere with the actual reading process. Hence embedded ads seem to work better. 2. Choice: We can choose to not read the Magazine tear outs. Pop-ups get assigned a prominent place on the screen real estate. There is no choice (but of course to ‘kill’ them). Esp if you pay, you shoudl have a choice. I am not sure if anyone is doing that fully yet (it may also not be possible, but worth trying) 3. Push v/s pull: Pull outs are more ‘pull’ type advertising. Pop ups are traditionally push type. There is significantly more resistance to push type than pull type. e.g. do not call list happened because it was push advertising. 4. Relevance: Except for a few gator-type programs, the pop up ads are usually (pinch of salt please) not as relevant to the topic being browsed. I mean if there is X10 on kottke, it doesnt make sense though a ‘pop up’ for camera or a CSS product might be!! Pull outs are relevant that is to say that you will not find viagara pills ad in a time magazine pull out! Google ads and keywords concept thus will work better. 5. Effort : It takes significantly more effort to kill pop-ups than to ‘nto see’ magazine tear outs. 6. Percentage of content: Percentage wise.. for every page of content, there are 4 pages of online ads. In a magazine, there is one tear out ad for every 10 pages of good solid content.
So overall its a combination of many factors. Google realises some stuff and thus their ‘related’ items side bar or ad-sense works spot on. No additional information, easily blends with the content, does not interfere with actual display of content, is relevant and it is proportional (web -wise atleast) to the actual content provided. Yes, it is ‘push’ in some sense but 5 out of 6 is not bad! :)
Brian
I hate the tear-out cards in magazines. They interfere with reading the magazine in a relaxed way, like pop-ups on the web. As Wilson posted above, I can tear them out and they don’t come back, similar to configuring a pop-up blocker. Seldom are there cards that manage to evade the process, but some pop-ups do.
Pushkar
Different because 1. Degrading readability: Magazine Pull outs do not interfere with the actual reading process. Pop ups interfere with the actual reading process. Hence embedded ads seem to work better. 2. Choice: We can choose to not read the Magazine tear outs. Pop-ups get assigned a prominent place on the screen real estate. There is no choice (but of course to ‘kill’ them). Esp if you pay, you shoudl have a choice. I am not sure if anyone is doing that fully yet (it may also not be possible, but worth trying) 3. Push v/s pull: Pull outs are more ‘pull’ type advertising. Pop ups are traditionally push type. There is significantly more resistance to push type than pull type. e.g. do not call list happened because it was push advertising. 4. Relevance: Except for a few gator-type programs, the pop up ads are usually (pinch of salt please) not as relevant to the topic being browsed. I mean if there is X10 on kottke, it doesnt make sense though a ‘pop up’ for camera or a CSS product might be!! Pull outs are relevant that is to say that you will not find viagara pills ad in a time magazine pull out! Google ads and keywords concept thus will work better. 5. Effort : It takes significantly more effort to kill pop-ups than to ‘nto see’ magazine tear outs. 6. Percentage of content: Percentage wise.. for every page of content, there are 4 pages of online ads. In a magazine, there is one tear out ad for every 10 pages of good solid content. 7. No additional Cost: When you buy a magazine, it includes the cost of ads. Bandwidth is different and typically pops are more graphics intensive than the actual page content they are attached to!
So overall its a combination of many factors. Google realises some stuff and thus their ‘related’ items side bar or ad-sense works spot on. No additional information, easily blends with the content, does not interfere with actual display of content, is relevant and it is proportional (web -wise atleast) to the actual content provided. Yes, it is ‘push’ in some sense but 5 out of 6 is not bad! :)
Jeremy Lyon
I just finished reading Small Pieces Loosely Joined, and I think Weinberger’s observation that the web feels like a place is relevant to your question. Reading a magazine is an activity, and insert cards are a minor interruption of that activity (and btw, I hate insert cards nearly as much as I hate pop-ups).
Using a web browser, on the other hand, is a kind of being. When I visit a website, I feel like I’m going to some place, and when a pop-up jumps into my face it feels like I’ve been forced to go some place else. I respond a lot more viscerally to someone that threatens my preferred way of being than someone who interrupts an activity.
Bob Myers
But I hate the magazine insert cards too. I especially hate it when I’m reading a magazine in the bathtub and the card falls out into the bathwater! And what about when you are browsing magazines at the bookstores and one of those cards falls out? I never know whether I should just ignore it or stoop down and pick it up so it’s there for the next reader or purchaser.
Charles
Popup ads, eh? I had forgotten about those also. Firebird/Firefox seems to make them a nonissue. The minute number the browser misses are taken care of by NoAds.
Leonard
Are you kidding? I can’t stand those cards that fall out of magazines just as much as I can’t stand pop-ups. My biggest pet peeve in printed media.
Kevin
I also hate those cards. I used to just stick them in the mail without filling them out so that they would cost the magazine money. Pop ups are the reason I switched to Mozilla even before it was better than IE. Now, when I use someone else’s computer, I am totally shocked by them. I also forget how they are exponentially more aggrevating on dial-up.
Manuel Razzari
has no problem plucking all the tear-outs from a magazine or simply ignoring them while reading.
By the way, as the above commenters said, yes there is a problem. People in the US (don’t know about Europe) have become used to them. But here in Argentina they’re not used so when I get an US magazine they DO disturb just as much as pop-ups.
And by the way, pop-ups haven’t always been bad: See an excerpt from the book How to Make Pop-ups
Anonymous
Magazine inserts exhibit the same properties as paper. Popups on the other hand (especially in IE) will grind your computer to a halt and severly disrupt your browsing experience.
Keith A
I am among those who also hate the tear out cards. But, worse than that, are the perfume ads that simply assault the reader’s senses.
Along these same lines, one might ask: What is so bad about spam? You get junk mail at home….
For me, I hate all advertising and marketing : Spam, Junk Mail, Pop-Up Ads, doesn’t matter. At least pop-up ads don’t waste paper. I must go now so that I can go hug a tree…
pb
Because unlike TV and magazines, we are in compelte control.
jim
If I’m ever elected to public office (which is pretty unlikely due to some high school inhalation) I will outlaw magazine inserts. They are bad enough when they fall out of the mag while I’m in line at B&N. However, when they fall out on the way from the PO box to my car….
Pop ups are similar, IMHO. If I’m a regular to the site I should be able to turn em off. If I wonder on in, I can deal with the annoyance…
j
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