First off, DJ Mouse’s “The Grey Album” is at is available on BannedMusic.org. It’s so funny that when I was a kid music was banned because of “naughty content”, that kind of stuff is mainstream now. What’s “considered banned” music now is stuff that violates copyrights. Kind of says a lot about our society.
Wired’s got some good stuff up from this month’s magazine. There’s New Browsers, Same Unwanted Ads and an open letter to Media Sites: Say No to Pop-Ups, wherin the owner of Topix.net says something that I’ve long maintained:
“Our users hated (them) and our stats suggested (they were) hurting our trial exposure to new users,”
Advertisers like them because the clickthrough rates are so high, but many people click through on a pop-up because they’re trying to close them, or they’re trying to get to the content under the ad. That’s not a “real” click through, and the sooner that advertisers understand that, the sooner these ads will vanish.
The big problem with pop-up and pop-under ads is that they damage your brand. Sure people click through to Orbitz, but how many more people consider them a “scam” because they employ pop-up ads as their primary means of advertisements? I for one never bought from X-10 because of pop-ups, I was sure they were a scam. Turns out they provided a lot of really cool gadgets, but I wouldn’t buy from them because of their advertising practices which made the whole business look shady.
Finally, Wired has the 2005 Wired Rave Reviews which include awards for Brad Bird (director of the Incredibles), and Bungie for Halo 2.