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Article here [silicon.com]. Login required.
AOL Time Warner has released a version of its Netscape browser that lets web surfers suppress pop-up ads - potentially signalling the end of the road for the hated marketing format.
Netscape's decision to offer pop-up blocking on version 7.01 comes as the advertising unit finds itself under siege by irate web surfers and web properties increasingly nervous about the format's intrusive use.
AOL's popular proprietary online service recently revised its pop-up policies, ending sales of the format to third-party advertisers - a move AOL said would cost it $30m next year.
Some web watchers said AOL's brave new stance will likely stoke a broad consumer backlash against pop-ups that could eventually lead more publishers to cut back on or abandon the format altogether.
Jupiter analyst Michael Gartenberg said: "The pop-up ad is so negative right now that, over time, it will be all but gone from the landscape as advertisers work to find new and more palatable ways to get their message across to consumers."
Although AOL is moving to distance itself from pop-ups, it's being cautious. Some researchers have identified the format as among the most effective marketing tools available on the web. Netscape 7.01 comes with the pop-up filtering off by default. Once enabled, the filter is preset to allow pop-ups on some sites, including several of AOL's own properties.
AOL said users can alter those settings to block pop-ups on all sites, explaining that the exceptions were only selected to ensure a seamless web experience on certain popular sites that use pop-up windows to display important non-advertising information.
Suits me :)
Regards to all for the festive season.
Rich
[edited by: Woz at 10:18 pm (utc) on Dec. 17, 2002]
[edit reason] shortened URL [/edit]
Cleaning up crappy coded web sites to look good on AOL could mean more business for me. :)
No they will stop
"Yes but will the free trial pop up still appear on the aol.com or .co.uk home page?"
as apparently "in recent surveys conducted by AOL found that the average AOL cannot read."
;)
Rich
I read above that pop-ups are seen by some researchers as a very effective measure of advertising. I can accept that they get a lot of impressions as they are automated (people get them whether they want or not), or that they may get a lot of "mistake" click throughs (fake forms, mistakes when trying to close them down), but is there any data on their real ROI for clients who but this sort of advertising. I havent seen any yet, but am willing to be convinced!
is there any data on their real ROI for clients who but this sort of advertising.
I can't offer first hand experience with pop up campaigns on outside sites, but I have hard figures for on-site pop ups providing dramatic returns.
I've seen opt-in subscriptions boosted by as much as 300% via pop ups vs. a traditional on page sign up form making an identical offer.
Even with the undeniable gains, each webmaster needs to decide whether the risk vs. reward is worth it for their site and audience.
The article was written by Paul Festa for News.com Cannot find any indepth stats on silicon.
[news.com.com...]
Seems to be part of the big AOL shake up...
from news.com (October 15th 2002)
...Sure, the swagger displayed by America Online executives trying to tell Time Warner veterans how to run their businesses rubbed many the wrong way. But AOL's money problems were the real undoing.
Once considered the "jewel in the crown" by former AOL Time Warner Chief Executive Gerald Levin, AOL has watched its online advertising revenue nosedive. Earlier this month, AOL Time Warner announced that advertising and commerce revenue for the online division would drop 40 percent to 50 percent in 2003. That's on top of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into AOL's accounting practices, an internal investigation that forced AOL Time Warner to restate earnings by $190 million and sent angry shareholders looking for their next scapegoat to hang.
AOL Time Warner's stock price, which traded as high as $35 at the end of 2001, has fallen as low as $8.70 largely because of AOL's troubles. In reaction, AOL Time Warner's board of directors has chopped enough heads to give Henry VIII a run for his money.
Here's a partial list of executives that have since departed from AOL Time Warner's Rockefeller Center executive suite and AOL's Dulles, Va., bunker:
Gerald Levin, former AOL Time Warner CEO; Robert Pittman, former AOL Time Warner co-chief operating officer; J. Michael Kelly, former AOL Time Warner chief operating officer and currently head of AOL's international operations; Kenneth Lerer, AOL Time Warner's former communications head, now in a newly created position; Mayo Stuntz, former executive vice president at AOL Time Warner; Marshall Cohen, also former executive vice president; Barry Schuler, former CEO of the AOL division; James de Castro, former president of AOL's interactive services division.
The story's not over. For the past two months, speculation has heightened that members of AOL Time Warner's board have joined with influential shareholders to orchestrate Chairman Steve Case's ouster. AOL Time Warner continues to insist Case's job is secure, but all bets are off from a company that once seemed invincible in the eyes of futurists.
zeus
