Bravenet Popup Watch

Hey, I got a pop-up when reading Heretical Ideas. That can mean only one thing:

Yep, there it is, in the bottom of the right sidebar.... free counter by Bravenet.

Mocking Spam

Hey, you didn't come here to see someone mock spam, I hope. Because we don't do that here.

However, if that's what you want, perhaps you should go here.

Because I want to serve my readers. And because Harvey of Bad Example said to.

Right-Sizing the Pop-Up

No, I don't mean laying them off or laying them to rest. I mean blowing the window size out of proportion to the ad, like this:



That's professional, ainna?

I appreciate I don't need to buy anything or receive anything to merit the privilege of your eternal marketing programs. That's not a bug, it's a feature!

I particularly appreciate that I got this ad as an onClose event from another ad. That's another new tactic I love. You mainstream marketers are about seven years behind the porn sites, but you just keep working at it. Hey, I got an idea for you: Kiosk mode.

Targeted Mocking

Come on, guys, I just love the ads thrown by Next Student, the Student Loan Consolidating Company (or something). What's not to love?

After all, there's the minimalist ad that really does not beg for clicking:



Save 59%! Why, that could be me! But without further information, I'm not going to heed. Of course, since I run a blog called Pop-Up Mocker, it's a given that I'll never heed a pop-up ad, but please, humor me and pretend I am a gullible consumer. A gullible, graduated-from-college-in-the-last-ten-years-consumer. Better make that "beauty school" or something. Never mind.

They also offer the inherent anti-intellectualism of this ad:



Brother, I don't know about you, but I graduated with degrees in English and Philosophy from a liberal arts college, and I am now making upper five figures. If I had learned mathematics, chemistry, or other science, undoubtedly I would make more. It's not what you've studied, it's how you apply it.

Particularly my English degree, which keeps my away from similes like A pile of student loans that siphon away your hard-earned cash like a fraternity guy with a beer bong. Geez, you cretins, that metaphor breaks down early.

1. A bong is not a siphon, it's a funnel.
2. A beer bong drains beer, and no frat guy will separate me from my Guinness as long as I have fingernails and teeth.
3. Would you trust your money with a fraternity guy?

I don't get it. The inanity of all these Next Student ads gives me a headache. And cottonmouth. Perhaps I should have let the fraternity guy have the last four Guiness in that fifteen pack after all.

New Tactic?

Thanks to the friendly folks at Opinion Journal and other old media sites, we can see a new pop-up ad tactic displayed: the pages now throw a pop-up ad when you click a link, so that the pop-up displays over the current window while the new content loads in your main browser window.

I know, it's a small price to pay for free content, and it's even easier to close quickly than a pop-under ad, but jeez, if your magazine fell through my mail slot and the blow-ins started scampering around, piddling on my floor and chewing the edges of my sofa, I'd feel inconvenienced, too.

Everybody Down! It's a Honda Ad!

Jeez, Louise, ABCNews.com served up this monster Flash-animated ad today:



The size was maximized to fit my desktop, which I keep set to a rather high resolution. Sorry you don't get to see the whole storyline, climax, and denouement because I just capture a single frame.

But it does lead to a question....how many other husbands has this woman had, and how many met mysterious fates in unpopulated fields, leading to the woman "looking" for them? I'm just asking.

Wowzers, guys, thanks for the blast.