WIN Does Popunders
December 19, 2005 by Mary Jo Manzanares
Filed under Leadership
Even though I make a living by making money online I wish everyday that I could go through all my favorite sites without even having to bother with ads. I know there are ad blockers, but I figure if I am going to visit the sites it might be good of me to help them out. It would just be cool if everyone could make money from their sites without ads. Anyways, that isn’t the point of this.
Has anyone else noticed that some of Weblogs Inc’s sites are using popunders? How fucking annoying can you get? It’s one thing to plaster a site with ads, but then to hit your readers up with some popunders pushes the line for me. It’s not like WIN was in the red or anything considering how much bank they make from all of their sites, but why even resort to popunders? Sure there is great money in them, but is it worth the branding hit or the risk of losing some people?
I know we get caught up in the idea that if we don’t visit a site then nobody else will visit a site. I know just because I will stop visiting some of WIN’s sites that doesn’t mean traffic will begin to dip, but popunders just rub me the wrong way and therefore I will get my World of Warcraft fix elsewhere. My opinion doesn’t really matter to Calcanis and company, but please remove them and find other means to rake in the cash. I would greatly appreciate it.
One day I will release my rant on how problogging ruined blogging. The irony of it coming from someone like me, eh?
I see your point Mr Scrivs, people are getting too greedy and website’s are become more ad focused.
I noticed this week a new massive red banner on this site ..
Hmm…you beat me to it. Good thing too because you said it much better than I would have.
I noticed the popunders and I was not pleased, especially since I just complemented them on making the site have more a “gamer” feel, but it still sucks from a gamer perspective and adding the popups is like an additional slap in the face. That is what irks me about site launches today. The site was launched and the majority of the content was written by a rookie, not that there isn’t a place for Josh on the site but he was ripped apart because his readers knew more about the game than he did. Now they are looking for more experienced writers…the drawbacks of entering a niche they know nothing about.
Jason and I have gone through this before where I’ve publicly stated I was unsubscribing to the blogs, he’d address it on his site, listen to what people had to say, and eventually it would get fixed or a compromise would be made. Jason is now an employee and might not have the power to fix this. I mean please, when does AOL ever get anything right? They just put huge ads on AOL journals - for paying customers. Highly unlikely AOL will whip some respect up for their readers…even though they need readers (badly) to survive…although not as much now since they got a billion for Google.
So once again, I’ve unsubscribed to WIN sites…unfortunately this time it might be permanent.
And I wrote this without mentioning the “S” word once… :)
Jamsi: Good point, but I think the only glaring fault of that ad is how red it is. It’s definitely not big by any means, but I guess the irony of me writing this and having that up is thick. Of course I took the other ads down on the leftside.
Tyme: Yeah, I just don’t get it. Jason also claims to be pro-blogosphere and I am all about making money with ads and whatnot, but this just screams 90s MSM garbage. I fear it will trigger more blogs to follow suit so they can increase the bottomline.
It concerns me that Google bought a piece of WIN (indirectly). Maybe it’s just me and my lack of trust but Google didn’t invest a billion for nothing. I don’t believe for one minute that Google will not give their billion dollar investment special treatment. I read Jason’s announcement on his site and my jaw dropped. It did not say promote Google on AOL, it said promote AOL on Google. WIN’s going to get a hellified advertising boost, putting all competing sites and an extreme disadvantage.
About how problogging ruined blogging - can’t wait to read it, although I personally don’t think you contributed to it.
As far as I’m concerned, when a blog starts using popunders, it ceases to be a blog. Anyone who willingly puts popunders or popup ads on their site clearly has no respect, nor care for their readers. I can take that shit from the NYT because I want their content and I have no other choice. A blog though? Fuggetit.
We don’t do popunders or popups.
Let me know where you saw them and I’ll look into it.
As I’ve said before sometimes a Tribal Fusion or Burst will let one slip in.