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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Personally I don’t mind the intellitext much, i am much more concerned with the moaning faced gits above me who need to chill out abit.
The new ads are aviodable which is cool, much better than pop-unders etall
cheers
Hugh
The new features are ok as far as advertising goes. In fact, I actually do some click throughs for an ad once in awhile if I see something interesting.
BUT I HATE THOSE DAMN POP-UPS. MY TOOLBAR AND BROWSER ONLY CATCH ABOUT HALF. HATE HATE HATE THOSE POP-UPS!
they are irritating, I mouse around them
the pop unders are also irritating, I close then as quickly as I can.
I have no problem with the ads as long as they don’t increase the loadtimes too much. If this is what it takes to keep the site running, fine by me!
The new ads don’t bother me much and they won’t keep me from the site, and I undesatand that you’ve gotta make a buck to keep the site running. They’re less annoying than the popunders, which did make me think about staying away until I got used to the once-a-day annoyance.
I find IntelliTXT ads distracting when I’m trying to read stuff. My immediate action when I see them on other web sites is that the site is unprofessional looking.
ANYTHING but those popups!
I have to weigh in on the dislike side. My experience with them is negative and as an interaction designer I have to say they intrude on how articles are browsed and read.
Initial Experience
When I first saw the links I assumed they were similar to the common acronym link and expected that when I hovered over the link I would get additional, relevant information. Instead I got an advertisement which did not match my expectation.
Browsing and Reading Behvior
1) I enter the article page by using the mouse to click on a link. Then because the cursor is in the way I move it to the side; I do this subconcsiously and do not pay attention to the path the cursor travels or where it lands. As such I’ve accidentally triggered the ads which end up obscuring what I’m reading.
2) Once I’ve moved my mouse out of my direct line of site I do not take my hand off the mouse. As such I sometimes subcounsciously move the mouse around a bit or otherwise shift the cursor position which once again accidentally triggers the ads which is distracting and sometimes covers what I want to read.
3) I have a wide monitor and often keep my browser wide. On sites like MDN with expanding text columns I will often select the line above the one I am reading and continue to move the selection down as I read. Since I do not pay attention to where the cursor is, this too will lead to accidentally triggering the pop ups.
Summary
The ad links create a mine field through out the text which, if I don’t want to see them, require me to think about how I am reading which takes away from my primary objective which is to read the article and think about it’s content. Generally speaking in interaction design you want to eliminate as much need for congnitive processing on the part of user which is not directly related to accomplishing the task.
When an ad is accidentally triggered it draws the attention away from the users primary focus and may even physically hinder the task by obscurring what they are trying to read.
Suggestions
From an interaction perspective, advertisements on the edges of the article are the least intrusive to the act of reading an article which is the users primary purpose for coming to the page. I would stick with those. As I look at the article on this page (viewed at 1280×1024) the content takes up about 20% of the page and the rest is advertising. I have no way of knowing how much additional revenue these links may provide but, once again from a UI perspective, it seems that everytime you try adding additional advertising now a days you get a lot of negative feedback. That would indicate that you’ve gone as far in that direction as you can and may need to look at alternative forms of revenue.
Not a good way of advertising
Very annoying, makes the page less enjoyable to read and to look at, and often the advertising is completely irrelevant in the context of how the word is being used
Take it off
I think the inteliTXT is totally fine as long as it is differentiated (green double underline) from regular links.
I would be interested in an Ad-free version of the site that required a _reasonable_ annual fee. I think monthly would be too much administration for you all and a hastle. But I’d pay $5 a year or something like that to support MDN. I would not pay $20 because the content is just too readily available from other sources, but I like the commentary and the work you all do to get the stories all in one place.
I really dislike the pop-unders but what drives me totally from a site are ads disguised as stories (OWC realeases new hard drive) and ads that interfear with the website – like hover over and require closing or skipping to continue.
Not a massive fan of pop-unders or IntelliTXT. But since I don’t donate via PayPal or otherwise support MDN, I can live with these things.
I don’t mind the underlined ads nearly as much as the pop up bubble. I hate those.
how about limiting the amount of intelliTXT ads per article. any more than 3 or 4 gets annoying. i don’t want to be reading a green underlined article someday.
Just hate it!
MDN said: “Please let us know what you think of the IntelliTXT ads below.”
I didn’t see any below, but plenty in the text! heh, heh…
HATE pop-ups/unders – also, animated, etc. ads. This seems a little less intrusive.
MDN Magic Word: sshh, “Three”, repeat – “three”, as in 3 ads per article would be enough…
This is being awfully snotty, as I am a confirmed Safari user at home, but at work I (have to) use IE 6.0 with Google’s popup blocker. I get zero, that’s 0 popups.
My feedback: I hate it. I find it immensely distracting, and makes the copied story bits and the MDN takes difficult to read. It also seems a little strange to me that 90% of these ads are running directly atop someone else’s words, a copy of someone else’s work (the copy & pasted story bits). I assume it all falls under Fair Use, although I have to wonder if if this is really done in the intended spirit of fair use. I’ll leave that one for the ethicists among us to debate!
I will stop coming by here if they become a permanent feature, not so much because of any moral outrage about the cheapness of it all or the greed factor, but mainly because it makes the reading such a PITA.
IntelliTXT Sucks. I might be able to put up with it, IF, IF They are not on every page. On other pages with IntelliTXT are every two or three words, and are annoying. If they are limited to one every two or three lines I could deal with it. Maybe.
P.S. I no longer read the webpages that have the IntelliTXT every few words.
I hate them. If a word is underlined, then think it is important; therefore those adds make the text diffecult to read.
I don’t care much for IntelliTXT, especially when ad for Dell keeps on showing up. I prefer all text ad like Google AdSense and Hotkeys.
I use google groups for one web site I setup. The ads show up in right column. Not too bad.
I also have a web site with Hotkeys. I won’t quit my day job and probably won’t pay for the web server hosting fee for MDN, but with low traffic web site, it does provide nice extra income.
I hate the intellitext ads more than anything. if you are scrolling with the arrow keys, or you mouse around the ads pop up and are distracting
it’s very low rent. very, very low rent.
Only PC sites, and the dying mac sites, use intellitext. It is well hated in the web circles. A fad which will fail.
Seriously, you have more advertisements on your website than a NASCAR car.
Either raise your prices or deal with the revenue you have. But adding even more ads, especially in the body of the text itself.
I agree with MacUser.
I’ve stopped going to sites with intellitext, including a couple Mac sites.
Itellitext sucks like nobodies business. MDN will quickly become a ghost town.
How many ads do you people need to make money? The site is about 60-70% ads as is. Or is this pure greed?
DON’T SPYMAC YOURSELF. SERIOUSLY.
SpyMac, the largest Mac community is a ghost town nowadays because they got greedy and cared more about advertisers than their community.
MDN runs the same risk. DON’T SPYMAC YOURSELF. Because once we are gone, we are gone.
These IntelliTXT ads are the second most annoying form of advertising, just below flashing banners. Even if you don’t want to see them, if you just run the mouse across the screen, they sometimes pop up.
Cool! MORE ads for me to IGNORE.
Before you know it web sites will be just like newspapers, almost zero content. Just like AM radio.
Idiots.
I want more ads. Lots more. I especially like the pop up ones. The
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animated ones where you can kill things are cool too. I don’t know why
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people get so upset over ads. Here’s a thought, can you do the ones that
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float down the page like on Netscape? Those are sick. You could have
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dragons and clouds and jet fighters floating all over the page.
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Anyway, I vote for more ads. Cram as many of those suckers as you can
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on a page. I don’t like to read the content as much as I like to look at the
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cool ads.
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