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It's getting worse.
I was doing some research on the internet yesterday (I forget what for), and I came across a particularly worthwhile article on some very dry subject. As I settled in to attempt to read it, my attention was grabbed by a FREAKIN' VIDEO ADVERT of some hopeless white guy trying to
dance. It was for Samsung - see? I even know who it was for now, the knowledge has wormed its way into my head - and every time I tried to start in on the article, a movement in the corner of my eye would drag my attention back to this stupid video.
Eventually I put a Post-it note on the screen to cover it. Which was fine, until I had to scroll down. Then I had to move the Post-it.
Our eyes are very good at picking up peripheral movement - a skill which was great when that thing in the corner of your eye could be a sabre-toothed tiger. Now that it's more likely to be someone telling you you've won a free iPod, it's become something of a disability.
I don't want to prevent my browser from downloading video clips (although I might end up doing that). Equally, I don't think having some hotshot software program zapping adverts is the way to go, because that'll just start some advertising arms race, and half my computer is already taken up with the poor thing's immune system, blocking virii and worms and other nasties. All I want to do is automate my Post-it note. I want a little app which lets me use my middle mouse button in Firefox (for example) to create a rectangular area on the screen which is blanked off. This would then move up and down as I scrolled up and down the page.
This isn't the bad news for advertisers that it might appear, either. The fact that someone's taken the time and trouble to blank off your advert means that they've at least seen it, and actually shows that it's probably quite an effective advert. They're probably more likely to remember it, in fact, because they've had to spend precious moments of their attention in blanking it off. And moments of attention is what it's all about. It may be possible to collect information about what adverts are routinely blanked, and use that information to monitor the success of advertising campaigns, and create even more effective and pernicious memes to infect our brains with the desire to buy more rubbish. Yay.
But as long as I don't have to look at that ridiculous underlit and overfed fatboy acting out some ludicrous caricature of geekhood, then that's fine.
[link]
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That paragraph about the peripheral vision was great. |
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I think we do need it for the traffic these days, see killing cars coming your way just in time to jump out of the way. |
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Frankly I think we get into contact with killer cars much more then we ever got into contact with sabre-toothed tigers so I don't think our talent to be distracted by stuff that happens in the corner of your eye so to speak, evolved back then but is evolving now. I mean think about it, people in canada (for instance) in areas where there are bears don't get eaten all the time because they know how to avoid that. They hang their food high up in the trees and sing loud songs in the evenings which the bears don't like. |
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And that is how it has always been, we as master of the environment. The caveman was no fool and had a good life with the equivalent of a part time job and no worries on his mind. Things like picking up peripheral movement and reactions of fear (widened pupils, elevated levels of adrenaline etc.) did not come from those days, we are evolving in to new beings I tell you! |
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HUH? WHAT? Of topic? Oh, sorry, love the idea, nice and easy, bun. |
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Easily made. But not by me. [+] |
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// They hang their food high up in the trees and sing loud songs in the evenings which the bears don't like.//
Some of us just run for our igloos. |
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//sing loud songs in the evenings which the bears don't like.// which songs do bears not like? |
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They tend to get rather irate at hearing
"Teddy bear's picnic". They feel it
degrading to bears. |
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I am bunning this as a good idea even though I don't think I could live without adblock. |
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Adblock is a beautiful thing. |
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Great idea. I saw one of these ads the other day, on a downloads website. It was a PS3 controller jumping around very fast and they claim you get a free PS3 when it is released if you can catch it. Problem one: I couldn't focus on the page, just the ad. Others: annoying, useless, etc. One time I had an ad offering free software and said (details apply). If you click the "details apply", it said that it contained tracking software. This ad was also flashy. The idea here is actually quite good, something that lets me see the page and NOT the ad. |
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P.S. I am happily enjoying the free software, I removed the spyware that was included to send ads to me - (Cydoor Adware) |
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I see absolutely no reason that this couldn't be baked, you just need to find someone with the programming expertise to write a Firefox extension.
I've already seen extensions that let the user annotate the page with written notes, and even draw pictures on it. A simple rectangle should be easy. |
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//A simple rectangle should be easy.// |
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I don't know, I think it should retain it's post-it inspiration with an appropriately rendered gif. |
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I refused to install Flash for the longest time because of this. Funnily enough, the main reason I installed in the end was for YouTube & similar sites. Would be really nice if I could just enable flash for certain pages & have it disabled most of the time. |
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Not that that would do anything for the animated gifs, some of them are the worst for me. perhaps the same optional-enable solution could be applied... hrm. |
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.... ..... ..... ........ .... ........ ......... ..A peripheral Bun |
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Adblock+ does a darn good job of filtering out all those annoying bouncing ads. I honestly forget they exist sometimes until I have to use something other than Firefox. |
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You can unmaximize the window (so it's fully movable/resizeable), then slide the offending ad off the visible area of the screen. You can freely scroll down the page now because the whole margin with the ad is gone. |
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It won't work for pages with an ad on both the right and left margins. Wish they made compressible monitors for those. |
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