We are trying out some new forms of advertising, as you may have noticed. The latest is “IntelliTXT” which we started testing yesterday evening. A user must mouse-over an IntelliTXT word (green, double underlined) to view an advertisement, which makes IntelliTXT is a 100% user-driven form of advertising. We like ads that the user can control. IntelliTXT works in real-time and is the last piece to load on page. IntelliTXT comes into play long after the article has been written and posted to the website.
Our interstitial test went well, but based upon reader feedback, we decided not to utilize that form of advertising. We are looking for a form of advertising that can offset the revenue from other forms of current advertising that we wish to discontinue.
Thank you for your patience while we test out these ads and thank you for patronizing our sponsors without whom we would not be here today.
Please let us know what you think of the IntelliTXT ads below.
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I think the IntelliTXT is preferable to a page littered with display ads — especially animated display ads which I find visually distracting when I am trying to read an article.
IntelliTXT sucks Sucks SUCKS!!!
GET RID OF THEM!!!
Like a speed reader who slides their hand back and forth across a printed page, I have a habit of moving my mouse back and forth as I read. so when I hit these things accidentally, a stupid window pops up to cover what I’m reading. HELLO! It’s a POP-UP AD!
Underlined, italicized, shadowed, embossed, engraved, outlined, and bold formats are visually annoying and make reading text a pain.
If you want to continue to advertise I would prefer that the links be identified in normal size and unembellished, but identified only by a specific color (e.g. green). Links to other non-advertiser sites (i.e. other blogs, magazines, newspapers, etc.) would also be normal size and unembellished, but identified by a specific color (e.g. blue).
The bills have gotta be paid, and people deserve to be paid, especially the ones running MacDaily News.
My opinions run like this:
– Keep ads as user controllable as possible.
– Nothing (please oh please) that “pops-up”
– Try not to interrupt the main body of the page with ads. (I realize that’s probably prime[$$$] space.)
Thank you ladies and gentlemen at MDN!!!!
My business is advertising, so I’m not going have the negative knee jerk reaction that I’ve seen on these boards. However…. the relevance of the ads to this readership need improving. Internet users have come to expect relevance in the messages presented and that is where your “test” fails. Example: in the article about Apple’s New York Store Cube entrance, where it mentions the hardware used to hold the glass together (the items Jobs was complaining about) there are two relevance problems.
1. The hardware being referenced is obviously a mechanical connector or support of some kind, and the pop up had no association with that type of hardware; and
2. The pop up was an ad for HP Servers (or something like that), which is not a mechanical connector and is not of much interest to readers at a rabid pro-Mac, pro-Apple news and discussion site.
Make the rollover ads relevant to the typical profile of MDN visitors and you might find us appreciating them a bit more. As they are now, they are very annoying.
Seems to me MDN should be increasing it’s ad revenue by finding ways to attract more readers, rather than finding ways to annoy and scare readers away. The more readers you have, the more potential click-throughs and the more you can charge for ad space.
I find the green double-underlined IntelliTXT ads are annoying and interfere with easy reading of the printed article, making the experience less enjoying. Those IntelliTXT ads are one of the reasons I stopped frequenting MacNN.
They would be a little less annoying if they didn’t automatically pop up an ad when you accidentally mouse over the link. If they only popped up when you click on them, THAT would be opting in. Having ads pop up from accidental user interaction is annoying and presumptuous.
How far are you going to take this MDN? Are you going to start putting IntelliTXT ads in user comments and headlines next? Let’s see. Ads above the article, check. Ads to the right of articles, check. Ads below articles, check. Ads to the left of articles, check. Where else can we put ads then? I know, how about ads IN the articles? BRILLIANT! C’mon, enough is enough already. Quit abusing your readership’s loyalty.
ROFLMAO! The MDN magic word is “paid”.
I wouldn’t hate these ads so much if they were a bit smarter about the context they are advertising in. I find myself accidentally clicking on these things and they open up to items that have NOTHING to do with the interests I have or the article I’m reading. You are already over advertising on this site. I recommend that you just do what you do best, which is gather info about Mac industry news and live with the revenue that brings in.
If you want more money, start more sites, grow your emprire. You can only advertise so much on a single web site.
Now, if you are planning on replacing the density of static ads you have now with these roll-over ads, I think I’d be more open to it. But this need you have to add loads of advertising is overkill.
How’s about finding cheaper hosting on normal commodity hardware?
The “Powered by Mac” ROI rings hollow with the inordinate amount of ad revenue necessary to keep this ad factory running.
What happened to the iTMS Hotlink that shared revene? A prominent link at or near the top would be great. I buy a lot of music and I would use it if it were available.
These ads suck and are intolerable.
Add full article text to RSS feed.
I’m surprised you took so long with this MDN. A lot of sites have had these for a while.
And on some of those sites, these ads are the most interesting thing on them
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on something totally unrelated there are no products apart from Xserves on the refurbished section of the uk apple site. never seen that before.
could something be brewing?
Blinking, dancing, flashing, and all other forms of animated advertising are the single most annoying form of communication ever.
Is natural selection occuring here ?
Idiots who can’t read without their hands will defect the site leaving only interesting people on the forums. Will we finally be rid of our pet trolls ?
Ho! but wait, if that happens, nobody’s gonna click the ads and MDN will have to bring back pop-unders and other crap that’s a lot worse than intellitext.
Come on people, here’s a way to get rid of the most irritating forms of publicity, why complain so much. Better is the enemy of good (and you’ll end up with bad if you keep complaining).
MW: showed. as i whish their mother had showed them how to read.
(god I hate that alternate form of “shown”).
Run ’em all you want. They’re apparently non-functional in NetNewsWire as it’s configured by default. I had to open my browser to get the link.
Can you do some other form of revenue? For example, isn’t there some way that if we click through your website, you get a percentage of iTunes revenue? Or Amazon.com revenue? Just keep on reminding us readers and we’ll do it.
And I’m not sure if this will work as well, but what about merchandise? Shirts, mugs, etc. etc. Will that work?!?
I just hate seeing all the ads and these new intellitxt ads are annoying (makes the articles harder to read).
I don’t mind a few IntelliTXT ads, especially if they could replace the ads below the article and above user comments, those are more obtrusive than the intelliTXT ads. If they are just being added, it seems the things are getting overwhelming and it’s harding to find what you came for.
This is a free site so if they need to raise revenue from advertizing then so be it. Of course it is annoying but a neccessary evil for probably the best mac news coverage.
If a lot of people find the adverts too noxoius they will go elsewhere and MDN will have to find other methods.
As an aside, and in support of MDN,
we have massive amounts of advertising in newspapers and magazines, in theaters, on certain DVD’s, billboards, and even advertising within movies and television shows.(product placements).
Advertising, whether you like it or not, is absolutely, totally, pervasive. Even pay HBO advertises its own shows. It is simply inescapable in a capitalistic society. Of all the sites Apple-related or not, that I view, this is the site that without fail, people bitch about ads. Get over it. Do you want this site to charge $10 a month instead? I sure as hell don’t.
The ads suck.
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Apple computer does not even advertise here, no big name companies advertise here? Why?
Instead of turning away readers with your tonz of adz, why not attract better and more readers and get a better group of advertisers.
Or do they know something you don´t? Such as visitors to this website are not buyers….just like to come here to add their 2 cents opinion over and over using different names.
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And we readers are what make MDN. People may read the headline and part of the story once, but they come back again and again to read the comments.
Anything that interrupts the flow of a story or tries to draw my attention away from something I’d like to read and is wholly unrelated to what I’m reading will annoy me to no end.
1) Pop-ups / Pop-unders (even though they “pop-under” there’s still a slight blip as they disappear behind the page that is visually distracting) – this also includes the intellitxt auto-pop inserts in stories. I’d rather those be clickable as someone else mentioned above so that inadvertent mouse movements don’t cause an unintended interruption. I had already disabled those in my Hosts file because of other sites’ use and still don’t like ’em.
2) Flashing or blinking ads – especially those that have no way to stop the blinking or flashing. Yes, I can refresh the page and hope another one doesn’t appear in its place that might be even worse, but that still means my reading experience has been interrupted.
I know you folks have to at least make enough $$$ to keep the site running, and I appreciate your efforts to get feedback on how best to keep things “free” around here.
And ya know, I might be wiling to fork over a few dollars a month if you wanted to create an alternate version of the site – something of an alternate “ad-void” version that would allow me to read stories and respond with comments in an ad-free environment, safe in the knowledge that I was still contributing to the site’s bottom line without the threat of constant interruption.
I don’t mind the idea of inline ads, as long as they are optional, clearly marked, and don’t interefere with quality or performance. It is about quality that I complain about these ads. The double underline is graphically obtrusive and jarring on the eye, making the surrounding text hard to read. How about something cleaner looking such as a single green line? Real links are in blue, with already clicked on links generally in reddish. The idea isn’t bad, but the execution is.
This is fine. As compared to the last advertising fiasco MDN tried.
Go for it.
I don’t mind the IntelliTXT ads as much as I abhor the cluttered, unsightly look of all of the banners and ad links all over the place.
Gawdy! Like on MacNewsWorld. I dislike all of these dang text bubbles popping up every time I move my mouse.