Spam banner on Technorati
Yes Technorati is a free service so I'm not a "customer" in the traditional sense but I am a member, they have my information and I'm one of countless users who constitute their business. Upon logging into my account and clicking around I was presented with this "lovely" advert in the header.
While I am normally banner-blind this one was not only using contrasting colours but it was animated too (the white stars on the red background were rotating - lovely!!). So while I can normally ignore adverts, animated ones become invasive and suddenly my mood is punted towards "grumpy". If I were a customer on a retail site, things like this make me as likely to buy a product as bite my foot off. here's an image of the offending item:
While this may seem slightly facetious a thing to bring up, given I'm interested in making money online, SEO and marketing (therefore aware of the invasiveness required to see a decent ROI) it's hurrendous adverts like this that give online marketing a bad name. I wouldn't mind if it was a Google Adsense unit, or a sensible affiliate banner - but I really don't like these fake "you've won a prize" banners that seem to permiate the Internet.
All they do is try to con innocent users into clicking
Telling me I "may" be the owner of a new Audi A3 and that I'm special because I'm visitor number 999.999 is clearly a lie. I know this because I know the Internet. It's like being told to "ZAP THE FLY AND WIN AN IPOD" and carries as much weight as those popular spammy, noisy atrocities.
So thanks Technorati, this may have annoyed me but it's entertained me in equal measures. If my website EVER displays something that awful please screenshot it and let me know, I can deal with invasive text links and Adsense units but flashing spam-banners only upset people.
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