Thought this was an interesting twist to the ever growing Ad movement on the net, with Salon this week starting to experimenting with the latest advertising format, presenting an ad before Web surfers could see the story they clicked on.
Web publishers tried making the ads bigger. They tried making them pop out through a new window. Now they are trying to make them unavoidable -- presenting them before a viewer reads a story.
You can then click on the "Go directly to story" link in the story, OR after 7 seconds the story comes up via the meta refresh feature in your browser. A cookie gets placed on your PC which stops the ad's coming up for every story you visit on Salon, but information at this time is not available as to how long this cookie affects the production of the ad's.
Salon.com spokesman Patrick Hurley said the online publisher (www.salon.com) does not have a set schedule it will sell to advertisers. The first advertiser to try the new format was telecommunications provider Sprint.
He said Salon.com has received a smattering of negative reader comments interspersed with some positive comments. When one goes to Salon.com's Web site and clicks on a story, an ad pops up. A link in the corner says "go to story," which you can then click on to read the article.
"It's less intrusive than the pop-unders. It's not creating a new window and it gives the consumer a choice. They can click it and go to the story," said Jupiter Media Metrix analyst Marissa Gluck.
News source: Reuters
