Just a note to advise people that we are running a fearDotCom campaign for Warner on DVD Talk which involves pop-ups.

If all is working right you should get 1 pop up no more than 1x every 15 mins. (think of it as a commercial durring your favorite TV program).

I thought I just got a new popup, thanks for the heads up.

I just got it too! I may try and stick around to see when it comes back...

Just got another one so it seems to be working okay. And it is alot like TV, I see the same commercial every break it seems.

Pretty cool looking. I clicked on it and took the test.

15 minutes like clockwork, Geoff!

Do you think there's a way to get that Miller Lite 'perfect commercial' as a popup???

(just for you Joe )

Well be testing/launching a rich media part to this thing later this week as well.

Thanks for your understanding & support.

What will that entail?

rich media? i don't mind the popups, i even took the test, and entered the insomnia contest numerous times, but animation really slows my crappy computer down. Ain't it Cool news has some that just slows my system to a crawl. don't ask me why, just my crappy old HP. so, my question: does it involve animation (flash/shockwave)?

Yes, it does. I just had one pop up (at work) and luckily I didn't have the speakers on too loud. At least you can close it easily...

But, g, if it means higher $s from Warner then continue doing it!

Wow, I came here to complain about the annoying feardotcom popups, but it seems that everybody likes them.

Oh well.


On another note, am I the only one who doesn't like the new wave of "rich media" popups everywhere?

And as somebody who's had their homepage reset and other various problems via unscrupulous webpages (including being infected with a trojan/virus simply by visiting a certain webpage), it bothers me that the boxed "X" that normally closes a window isn't really a button as much as an image mapped portion of the pop up. In other words, it seems like that click-zone could be set to do any number of things besides closing the pop up window.

And for those who think you can't be infected with a virus by simply visiting a webpage (and not even clicking any buttons) I happen to be the person that tracked down this virus for McAfee so they could add it to their definitions http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_99457.htm

I don't think it's the fact that everyone just loves the popups, it's the fact that Geoff provides us with this awesome site, and we understand he has to have some sort of funds to support it.

So far, we never get popups on this site that really use dubious tactics. If a popup every now and then is what it will take to keep this site up, then so be it. No complaints here.

THe ones with sound (rich media) really suck.

I can handle pop ups, but if rich media is that crap that puts itself over top of the actual page so you can't read it, and has sound I think it'll push people away from the site
Yahoo has that crap on their tv guide page and if that's what rich media is I fear it coming to dvdtalk

At the same time, the rich media that's appeared on the pages I've viewed only cover the banner ad and the links to featured articles and the like...not the text of the actual threads. I don't find them intrusive, admittedly somewhat helped by the fact that I keep my audio muted unless I'm actively listening to something.

As with anything intrusive we only do stuff like pop-ups and rich-media for specific campaings. It isn't the 'norm' for the site.

Here's an excellent article on "rich media" and why it'll only become more previlant during your web travels ...
http://www.dougbedell.com/webads.html

Turn the sound off on the rich media crap.

I have to admit something. When I saw the banners for fear.com I become interested in the movie. I wanted to rent it and check it out. Now after all the pop ups and obnoxious rich media, I have nothing but apathy for this movie. I couldn't care less if I see it. This sort of advertising has the negative effect intended. It's great Geoff though. Maybe as part of the contract for doing these big campaigns, you could have a big giveaway (more than 5 or 10, giveaway like 50 copies!) that would be for putting up with these things? That'd be cool.

Gallant Pig- We understand not everyone is going to love these rich media ads. We also understand that people would love paying for forum access even less. So all I can say is grin and bear it, these intrusive ads pay for members use of the forum

I can't believe how poorly written that post was, I need to proofread

Sorry, Geoff, it's not even your fault, it's how those people choose to spend their money (going rich media over just banners...) that bugs me. Popups in any form turn me off to the product they sell. On the other hand, it's great they are willing to pay you for having them. If it keeps the forum running I'm all for it

HUH??? Really???? I'm not sure why that is, the fear.com rich media ads appear right in the middle of my screen, occupying about 1/9th of the screen, completely blocking the threads.

Yeah, I understand that. I just felt like the tone of this thread was oddly positive

I agree. It was more of an overall rich-media comment.

Right now you'll find lots of sites that will give you a yes/no option for setting them as your home page, but when the "wondows" are completely controlled by the rich-media, those "yes" and "no" boxes can be anything.

Anyway, if it's what DVDTalk.com needs to keep it up and running, then that's the way it is. I just find them annoying.

G'day

"If it ends up that every Web page is a little circus performance, what you'll see is that people will basically stop using the Web and do something else," he says. "It's just too much."

But yeah, this is only the beginning. Oh well...