To be filed
Fossilize pop-ups please!
Cluttered websites are the first kinds to lose their readers and their customers. Sulekha is officially on my BANNED-LIST of websites. It is not only dirty and messy to look at, but every time you click on a link, an annoying advertisement pops up.
Pop-up advertisements are ancient. Pre-historic. How can India’s premier web-portal not know that?
I was looking for apartments, housing, roommate. whatever around NY/NJ. I am in a sorta desperate situation. And I assume most people who are looking for a place to live are slightly restless and needy. Such people do not want to deal with the added burden of hitting close to the pop-ups that invariably appear every single time you click a link. I remembered why I had stopped using Sulekha.com.
Clean web-sites have become so rare. It is an imagined notion that the more you have, the more readers will flock to your site. If your site is not presentable and easy to navigate, you’ll lose your audience quicker than you can close your pop-ups.
For subtle yet persuasive advertising check out Salon or NYT These ads don’t assault your senses and muddle you. That is tasteful advertising.
Sulekha’s advertisements aren’t even pretty to look at. Honestly, would you click a repulsive brown box that declares the best deals for money transfers? It baffles me how they can be so oblivious to these little bugs. For that matter, even the Rediff website can be a pain to navigate sometimes. I lose my patience quick.
Sigh. But the good news, we’ll only have to put up with these web-sites until a young whizkid steps in to give these sites some serious competition.
Discussion
10 comments for “Fossilize pop-ups please!”
Post a comment
Totally agree ! In similar lines to sulekha and rediff is another giant news company of India, TOI. I really wonder how can they ignore the fact about making thier website an attractive proposition for people away from india. Well, there is something fundamentally wrong with it, an ugly structure of information and over advertising ! I’m sure they receive tons of traffic from US itself to their website, which would certainly decrease if they do not catch up with latest advertising trend.
Google has certainly understood the irritation and pain caused by these junkie pop-ups and set a trend to keep all your ads at one corner of your webpage.
And as we see the other web2.0 startups following the trend.
The only way i see this could be antiquated would be to fix it down in the operating system itself.
I can’t stand Rediff and TOI. I will go to TOI if need be - I grew up on TOI - yester years.
I never read Sulekha.
I read India Today, Indian Express, HT.
maybe u should pass this on to Kiruba - http://www.kiruba.com/2005/11/new-job.html
The TOI pop-ups are the worst among Indian sites. I read NY times and for Indian news I like to read TOI, everytime I type in TOI URL, it is slow and tons of pop-ups that clog the download speed and makes it the ugliest effort to read news.
I am sure the TOI folks are quite aware about it, either they are making lots of money from the ads (then, it is such a lousy policy of running a website). If not the above, they are too outdated in the technology and do not have techs working on improving the website to avoid such annoying and third rate pop-ups.
whatever the case may be, I like TOI but grumble a lot whenever I have to go thro’ the popups…..!!! Hello TOI, hope you are listening!!??.
muni
I hate pop-ups. just cant stand them. Most common ones are from smashits.com, icici. I even hate the embedded animated advts. I stopped reading ToI long time ago. countless popups. Besides their main page always has to have britney spears or look-alike in scanty clothes. And each of their article will have a BOLD in-the-face animated advt. distracting me from reading.
Nowadays popups are smart enough to even override google toolbar’s built-in popup killer.
hey, I came here thru SepiaMutiny > KushTandon’s Blog
You could use Firefox with adblock (https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=10&application=firefox)
There are more useful extensions for similar tasks. Someone should have told you this already.
TOI is a lost case. I don’t even bother with that website - not with its credibility or its presentation. But sites like Sulekha have potential, atleast I think so!
Chugs - I took your suggestion and told Kiruba about it. Maybe he’ll do something about it.
Mitesh - I had it installed and it didn’t override anything. :S a
Met - Hello! Y’know, I could install all that on my own computer but the my computer at work doesn’t allow me to install anything. Any ideas how I can change that or override that?
Dipesh, Kush, Muni — WOW. We have a real band of TOI haters here. Kush, I feel the same way as you. I grew up with TOI, and it’s just sad to see it in such a derelict state :S
haha! you’re a mighty impatient woman, aren’t ye?
Can’t say I’m an expert on this but I’ve managed to find a way around these really annoying pop-ups…I’ve downloaded the Mozilla Firefox, which, heavens be praised, blocks these unwanted pests. Try it…it works!
Try desihub.com, no advertisements, and clean website. I bumped into desihub when I was buying a Bay area telugu association event ticket!!