Jupiter still counting pop-ups

[rcjordan]

You'll be happy to know that X10 moved up to #4 in June. (Now if we could only get them to add a spidering engine and a submit page.) Researcher Jupiter defends pop-ups [news.cnet.com]

(Bear with me, I'm trying to make a point here...)

So how well is X10 doing? Well enough to single-handedly create a consumer revolt and launch ad-killer apps into the mainstream. You've probably seen those annoying-as-hell "pop-under" ads from X10. [newmedia.com] Or, Somebody needs to smack X10 in the head. [channelseven.com]

Of course, SatireWire has something to say on this:
NET ADVERTISING OPPONENTS SAY ONLINE ADS TOO INTRUSIVE [satirewire.com]

[Drastic]

X10 have definitely taken the popup/under situation to a new level. People in my local PC user's group have even been complaining. One said their popup killer software worked on everything but x10. Too bad, since they are such a large percentage of all popups.

But I can't understand why someone would want popups in site metric counts. Visitors have this forced upon them, without choice. The numbers are terribly skewed because of this, IMO.

[rcjordan]

>I can't understand why someone would want popups in site metric counts.
>
I can't either, unless it is from X10's perspective.

I have a friend in PR that once said "There's no such thing as bad publicity." Looks like X10 believes him.

[mivox]

I am always stunned and dismayed when pop-up/under ads appear on 'major' sites... first Excite started having pop-ups... Then I saw X10 ads on About.com... ::sigh::

Utter garbage. But what do you do if you're a content provider site, and you need to pay your bills? High quality content requires time (which takes away from time available for a 'real' job), and high quality sites start sucking bandwidth when their popularity increases, which means increased hosting fees... but nobody wants to pay ::gasp:: SUBSCRIPTION fees for good content, so what's the site owner to do?

[msgraph]

>>>I am always stunned and dismayed when pop-up/under ads appear on 'major' sites... first Excite started having pop-ups... Then I saw X10 ads on About.com...

...Altavista....MSN....Iwon...

Does anyone have numbers on x10's actual sales from this heavy pop-up attack?

[rcjordan]

>numbers

I saw an article a few weeks ago. I think it said they had sold around 85,000 cameras from this campaign.

[NFFC]

Internet researcher Jupiter Media Metrix said Wednesday it would exclude some “pop-up” advertisements from its Web site rankings as part of an overhaul in the way it reports traffic figures

[msnbc.com...]

[meannate]

This may be a little off topic...

Opera offers a great little option:
Refuse Pop-Up Windows

Which happens to work quite well. Also, it is easily changed if you so desire to be innudated with CRAP.

-meannate
no sigs please

(edited by: NFFC at 12:03 am (utc) on Jan. 10, 2002)

[tedster]

One of the problems with pop-up killers (including the Opera option) is that they stop ALL pop-ups, including the ones that a visitor clicks on. Many sites use such links to offer enlargements, added information, etc.

What's needed is a stop to automatically launched pop-ups that still allows pop-ups when the visitor "opts-in" by clicking.