1031 Skip This Ad

1031 Skip This Ad

Internet ads are getting more annoying every day.  Even the ones that allow you to “skip” after a few seconds get in the way.  So it’s time to plan a work-around.

We got rid of pop ups with pop up blockers.  Ads that pop down -- hide behind the main screen until you close it are easy to ignore, all you do is close them when you discover them and they don’t interrupt you.

The ones that are really REALLY annoying come up before you get to watch a You Tube video, and You Tube is the main source of music for those of us who want to program our own song lists and don’t like “internet radio” (why would you want to listen to bad music from, say, Minsk or Boise when you can get all the bad music you want right at home with nothing more than a radio?  Why would you want Pandora to choose what you hear?)

If you’re running ‘Tube in the background the ads will play forever until you notice and kill them.  

The local newspaper teases you thus:  Start reading an article and after a few seconds it grays out and is replaced by an almost full page animated ad and you can’t get rid of it.

This is besides the clutter of banners and little box ads that are forever jumping out at you.

Even the pay per view New York Times throws these things at you (you’d think if you had to pay to read they’d subject you to less advertising, but no.) Newsday is even worse.  It not only forces you to pay but it showers you with ads even on the page that previews the story you want and can’t read for free.

A modest proposal:  Since all your websites look like television shows anyway, why not schedule ads like the TV networks do?  Run content.  Run a “stop set” with ads, then resume whatever was stopped.  You could even insert little promos in the lower left or lower right corner like TV does, because we’ve learned to ignore those.
Give you a chance to go the bathroom or get another beer from the refrigerator.


Shrapnel (old media edition):

--If you’re looking for quick and concise info on the Sandusky case, you’d figure the best place to get it would be from the local paper in State College. But you’d be wrong.  The Harrisburg Patriot-News’ Pennlive.com is better, and no ads but the ones you click on.

--The Patriot News’ parent company has some pretty good papers including the Star Ledger, but also has its own problems.  For example, its Times-Picayune in New Orleans is putting itself into the river by cutting back its print edition to three days a week and firing an awful lot of good journalists.  This doesn’t bode well for some of its other publications like The New Yorker magazine, Architectural Digest and Vogue.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012