Tuesday, June 28, 2005

First Ten Readers Will Win $1000 Guaranteed! Visit www.ripoff.com For Details

Well, I have more bad news for all you web-surfers out there.

Creators of new web browsers have been warned not to include any built in Ad-stopper software. In fact, pretty soon, anything that blocks online advertisements may be made illegal.

The first question many will ask is: Why?

Well the answer is simple, and for once, makes sense.

There’s a lot of free stuff on the internet, but free to us doesn’t necessarily mean free to the webmaster. There are bandwidth costs, web hosting costs etc. In other words, everything on line, free or not, has to be paid for. So rather than charge users a monthly fee, they throw in a couple of ads and pop-ups, and the site remains free to the users.

As an example, if you could buy a 25 cent newspaper, with all the advertising cut out of it, it would cost about $5 a copy.

See, it makes sense…for once.

If this was the Bizaro World and I had a million readers a day, if I wanted to make my living from blogging, I wouldn’t charge you good people an entry fee, (chances are, no one would pay it…I have no delusions) Instead, I’d put up some Google ads.

The problem is everyone hates pop-ups, everyone hates ads. With my computer and crappy internet connection, they’re more than a nuisance, if I get two pop-ups when I’m surfing, that’s my entire bandwidth used up. My web surfing grinds to a halt.

The other problem people have, that each and every one of us has experienced, is when you arrive at a site, and get literally hundreds of pop-ups, and each one you close opens up two more. Even when I had 3mb broadband, sometimes I had to completely reset my computer just to clear them all. Nothing like 500 pop-ups causing your computer to freeze up.

Not to mention that a lot of these ads carry viruses and browser hijacks. There is nothing more annoying that having your homepage reset to some crappy search site that refuses to change back, no matter what you try. Oh, and when you search for one thing, and the browser sends you to a completely different site, with even more pop-ups and marketing…ARRRGH!

Also, from personal experience, there’s nothing like trying to convince your wife, three days after your wedding, that those 50 porn sites in your favorites got there through pop-ups.

In my opinion, if nothing is done, the internet will be completely unusable within ten years.

However, I don’t think advertising in itself is the main problem. I think the main problem is the sheer volume, and content of the advertising.

Take the Google ads for instance. That’s a prime example of non-intrusive advertising. Anyone who has checked out the Google adsense program will agree. You get three or four advertisements in a banner or sidebar, and it scans your page and delivers relevant advertisements to the content of your site. (For example, if your site is all about say, cars, all your ads are car based).

That’s a win-win situation. The webmaster gets the advertising revenue, the surfer gets a few non-intrusive and above all safe ads that are tailored to their interests, and no one gets bothered by pop-ups.

However, a lot of advertising programs treat their ads like a bludgeon. The idea seems to be to bombard the surfer with as many ads as possible, under the mistaken assumption that they’re bound to click one of them sooner or later. One site I visited, that wasn’t even that interesting, opened a new pop-up every 5 seconds. The ads weren’t even targeted, I had everything from Sony’s PSP, to ‘Spanish Amputee Grannies want your c**k’.

I, like most people, don’t put up with it. I close the site, and add it to my ‘Do not visit under any circumstances’ list.

Honestly, if I get given an advertisement through a browser hijack, or through overly intrusive pop-ups, I completely boycott that product. If they think screwing around with my browser settings, and really annoying the shit out of me is going to convince me to buy their product, they’re mistaken.

Oh, and those sites that hijack your browser, then try and charge you for a piece of software to clear the hijack, become the recipients of email bombs. (if those bastards want to screw up my computer, they can spend a day opening a million emails with 10 meg attachments)

Another big problem with on-line ads are that they’re always complete and utter bullshit. They lie. They don’t even have a passing resemblance to the truth:

‘Swat the fly and get a free iPod’

‘You have won $10,000 click here to claim!’

‘Free vacation to the Bahamas! Click here now!’

Does anyone actually fall for this shit?

How about a little bit of honesty? You know ‘Click here for a fair deal on an iPod’. ‘We’re selling Sony PSP’s, click here for more information.’

The net-surfing public have become so jaded with too good to be true ads, that the only ones we even consider clicking are the ones that are actually less attractive. We’ll click an ad that says ‘PSP’s for $150, limited time offer!’ but won’t click an ad offering anything ‘free’.

Every online ad has gone the way of the worst TV infomercial ever made. They promise such outlandish crap, that they are never believable by anyone with an over 40 IQ. My personal favourite infomercial right now is the one that says ‘I went to this website, was given the perfect opportunity, and now I earn $8000 a week, working only 3 days a month!”

The funniest thing is they never say the name of the website, and they run the same advertisement, but the actual website changes every time! On week it’s ‘32biz’ then it’s ‘75.opportunity’.

It also has the dumbest quote I’ve ever heard. Delivered by the world’s dumbest looking blonde:

“This wasn’t one of those ‘get rich quick schemes’, but guess what? I did!”

In other words, this isn’t a get rich quick scheme, but if you try it, you’ll get rich… and quick!

Like the self-help guy on ‘The Simpsons’…

“There’s no trick to it. It’s just a simple trick!”

Anyone desperate to visit ‘this website’ yet, and definitely earn 2 million in a year? (Actor portrayal, results not typical, your results will vary).

No? I’m shocked!

Come on! Who actually believes this crap? If there was a business you could do from home, working 3 days a month, and earn 2 million in a year, they wouldn’t be advertising it at 3am on a back water channel! It’d be headline news!

If there was a pill that you could take and drop 100lbs in a day, they probably wouldn’t need to advertise!

If there was a pill that could give you 6 extra inches in the trousers region, guaranteed or your money back…that company would be bigger than Pepsi, Coca Cola and Ford all put together!

Come on, how about a little honesty?

‘Visit this website, we will charge you for our service, but you may find an at home business that suits you, and with some hard work and elbow grease, you might get a reasonable second income.’

‘If you buy this weight loss program, you’ll have to eat less, actually do some work and exercise, but if you stick at it, and don’t just watch the video, you will lose weight.’

That sounds better, to me at least.

I might actually consider visiting a site like that.

However, that’s never going to happen. We will continue to be bombarded with stupid ads, the technique will continue to be ‘volume, volume, volume’, and we’ll continue blocking them out.

You see, with the internet, you can reach literally millions of people per hour. If you can show your ad to 10 million people per day, it doesn’t matter if only half a percent of the people who see it, click it. Half a percent of a ten million people is still 50,000 people.

However, if advertisers would use just a little honesty, and concentrate on getting the right ad to the right people, they could earn more money, with a lot less ads, and annoy a lot less people.

In other words, advertisers, keep car ads on car sites, keep sex ads on sex sites, and keep gadget ads on gadget sites. Don’t try to fool us by telling us if we ‘stamp on the cockroach’ we’ll win an MP3 player, because we’re not going to!

You see, advertising on the internet right now is centered around tricking and fooling people into visiting an online store.

However, chances are, you don’t have a few hundred dollars to spend on an impulse purchase, so all the advertiser is doing is pissing off a potential future customer.

If you do have the money and want a particular item, you don’t need a pop-up, you’ll actively look for the item, which makes the pop-up a complete wasn’t of time.

Long story short, if you don’t have the cash, a link offering something you want for free is tempting. However, when it turns out that it’s not free at all…they’re not going to get your business.

Personally, I look forward to the day when I can go 15 minutes without someone trying to sell me something.

In closing, send me the low, low sum of 200 dollars, and I’ll send you some secrets that will let you earn a billion dollars a week, get more girls as you can handle and will actually give you the power of God. Also, for 1000 dollars, you can purchase the actual Ark of the Covenant and Holy Grail combo set!!! Numbers are limited, send your money now!

3 comments:

Sunny said...

Not today, dear-thank you anyway.
But I certainly hope the "dreamers" out there send in the money left and right.
:-)

How can people be so gullible?

MC Etcher said...

You didn't say where to send the $200!! Is cash all right?

Paulius said...

Cash will be just fine.

However, in order to send you the correct address, there is a $500 processing charge.

Just email me your credit card number, and give me power of attorney, and it'll be fine.