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Ad peeling away users?

Advertising shouldn’t interfere with the navigation of a Web site. I’ve already written about that blimp, which floats over the headlines and text of news site Ohio.com. Not to felt left out, Cleveland.com, Ohio.com’s competition to the north, also runs annoying, page-navigation-interfering ads.

A recent example involves a page-peeler advertisement for a PGA golf tournament.

Upon entering Cleveland.com, the ad automatically folds out, covering a major chunk of the front page, then, a few seconds later, folds back. If you choose to close it before it closes itself, you must click on the dark blue area at top, marked “click here to close.” Clicking the ad closed, however, does not really “close” it. When you move your mouse pointer over to the top corner to grab the scroll bar, the ad reopens, causing you to have to “click here to close” again, which really doesn’t close the ad — again.

In a partial sleep-induced coma one morning (where was my coffee?!), I must have repeated this process three or four times until I  realized that I had to maneuver around the folded-corner ad to grab my navigation bar and scroll down the page. What a terrible user experience!

Advertisers struggle to grab users’ attention online. Eye-tracking studies repeatedly show people ignore banner advertisements. Usability god Jakob Nielsen calls it “banner blindness.” So page-peeling ads on sites like the Cleveland.com one break out of the traditional, ignored spots for advertisement online to capture readers’ attention. Do they work? Or better yet: Are they worth it? Probably not.

The Gazette slowly dies

A couple days ago, my tech-savvy grandparents e-mailed me a link to a story in the Gazette, my hometown’s newspaper and location of my summer 2003 internship.

While the Gazette has long been negligent in its online efforts, the reporting and photography at the paper has always been top-notch, garnering many awards for the 15,000-some circulation publication. Within the past two years, the Web site finally received a nice face lift, which was subsequently gutted for an awful replacement earlier this year. At least they enabled comments.

As circulations plummet, ad dollars evaporate and American newspapers head toward bankruptcy, what has the brilliant leadership (read: publisher George Hudnutt) decided to do for the Gazette? Start charging for content online.

George, where have you been for the past 18 years? Continue reading »

AP goes mobile with investment

• AP puts money into Verve — Verve provides mobile services for news companies. I don’t get why media firms wouldn’t just bring this in-house, although a third-party platform may be useful, like Brightcove is for video, etc. This alone will not save newspapers.
• Webcasts are boring — I’m glad I’m not the only one not on the newspaper Webcast bandwagon.
• China now largest user of Web — The behemoth grows larger and the implications are huge. With more users, China may slowly push how the Web grows, albeit behind a big stone wall.
• MPAA to create online guide for legit places to download movies Industry research indicates many struggle with differentiating legitimate sources from illegal ones. The more tech savvy of us “scoff,” but it is plausible.
• Yahoo to reimburse users for DRM-protected music — somehow — Another DRM scheme fails
• College textbooks being pirated Quote the NYT: “THE e-book is wrapped with digital rights management, which, history indicates, will be broken sooner or later…”