Questionable marketing strategy of the day
I have all my browsers configured to block pop-up advertisements. You’d think that would be an obvious enough cue that I’m not interested in receiving them.
Sitepoint, a web development content website (no linky goodness for them), has found a way to circumvent the pop-up blockers. (Not hard, actually, you can do it with a little smart Flash programming). So, when I followed a link to Sitepoint, they threw one up at me.
Question for Sitepoint’s marketing team: if people are actively avoiding your advertisements, what makes you think they will respond favorably when you are sneaky and find a clever method to bug them anyway.
Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to be one of those horrible parasitic readers, so I’ll make sure to never go to Sitepoint.com again.
September 1st, 2004 at 11:42 am
you might want to switch to a good browser where you control how a site looks, not the site. I block popups, bad javascripts and flash only starts when I want it to start.
September 1st, 2004 at 11:54 am
bertboerland was pointing to Mozilla: http://www.mozilla.org (sorry, I have html turned off in the comments).
I use Mozilla (as should everyone reading this — go download it and ditch Internet Explorer) when I’m working on Microsoft machines.
September 1st, 2004 at 12:00 pm
Hey Jason, welcome back! Funny, I don’t get their book promo pop-ups when I use Netscape7… only in IE… strange that you’re getting them with Mozilla. Heck, Sitepoint probably has a ‘how to’ on blocking their own in-house ads.
September 14th, 2004 at 7:58 pm
We use a one-time pop-up ad to inform first time visitors of what we sell. We use cookies to ensure that you aren’t harassed on every page of our site as you browse around.
Given that we invest hundreds of thousands a year in content, columnists, bloggers, hosting, newsletter distribution, editing, content management system management, etc. I think its a small price to pay.
Of course, like you did, you’re welcome to think otherwise and not visit our site.