Clicky

Navigation
People I Love
Search

Find Alex
Books Alex Likes
  • On Liberty (mobi)
    On Liberty (mobi)
  • Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis
    Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis
  • God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Hardcover)
    God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Hardcover)
  • In Praise of Christopher Hitchens
    In Praise of Christopher Hitchens
« My Favorite 108 People On Twitter | Main | On Setbacks - Finding The Way Forward »
Tuesday
Mar102009

Ads: Now Bigger and Badder Than Ever

DateTuesday, March 10, 2009 at 04:09AM
Apparently, when something is not working, the solution of to double its size and pray. A great number of OPA (online publishers association) members, 27 exactly, are working on some new ad formats. Big, large, wide, tall, ad formats. Forget the little 123x125 ads you find on TechCrunch. Welcome to reader hell, welcome to the new sizes.

Let's start with their numbers:  (quote of OPA via Silicon Valley Insider)

  • The Fixed Panel (recommended dimension is 336 wide x 860 tall), which looks naturally embedded into the page layout and scrolls to the top and bottom of the page as a user scrolls.

  • The XXL Box (recommended dimension is 468 wide x 648 tall), which has page-turn functionality with video capability.

  • The Pushdown (recommended dimension is 970 wide x 418 tall), which opens to display the advertisement and then rolls up to the top of the page.


970x418? Many people only run monitors that are 1024x768! That is a rather terrifying percentage of their screen merely for an ad. Can we agree, that more of a bad thing, is not good? I refuse to allow for this on any web property that I control. Any web property that will so abuse their readers, should be boycotted complained to in the name of keeping the internet usable.

We need a new way forward.
AuthorAlex | Comment1 Comment |
in

Reader Comments (1)

I am pretty supportive of ads, you have to pay the bills somehow.

But this is ridiculous and going way over board and as a person with a small screen resolution that would kill me.

Beating a dead horse with a stick will do absolutely nothing for the industry.

March 10, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterHolden Page

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
All HTML will be escaped. Hyperlinks will be created for URLs automatically.

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.