Posted by lindac "Obviously you have no idea how internet advertising works. ------There are ads to the right of the page that don't impinge on the content.... My son is a senior account director with a very large digital marketing company...." Yes obviously. Here I go again, talking about something I have no knowledge and showing off my ignorance as usual. What is blatantly shameful, and inexcusable, let me admit also, notwithstanding the fact that I have a great deal of business relationship with the media world, yet I have not the faintest idea as to how that environment operates. What I mean is, I have done a lot of business with J. Walter Thompson, WPP, The Dilenschneider Group, KCS & A, Hill & Knowlton, The Ricochet Group, TNS Media Intelligence, AMF Market Research ------ etc. I just had dinner with the former C.E.O of TNS, and his wife. I should have asked them some business questions so that I would not be as uninformed ------ but mostly we ended up talking about her operation. Wouldn't it be funny if your son works for one of those companies? ---------------------- Let me be clear, I don't like any kind of advertisement, whether they are on the vertical side or on the horizontal bottom. But they are a fact of life. Angie's List didn't upset me because it didn't restrict my abilities to view the materials here. With my Windows Internet Explorer, I just use the Ctrl key and the center scroll knob and I can minimize the ad to very small size. dcarch

Kateskouros, I think I've got a list somewhere that has them all. However, eventually it turned out that as I finessed my ad blocking system that I was missing a bunch of them so could no longer keep track. BUT the ones I could see? I never remember who they are until I see their name somewhere else. For the rest of my life I won't be able to tell you who had the most annoying GW ad... but for that same life every time someone mentions AngiesList I'll think OMG that was the most annoying ad. Somewhat like the groupon superbowl ads...

Clinresga, you have a weird idea about the purpose of advertising. Advertising is a way for providers of goods and services to inform the public about what they offer, thereby encouraging them to become customers. Some products (e.g. Spanx) require no advertising. For the rest, getting the word out to the people who are most likely to become customers is really important. The best ads are appealing and interesting and have elements that draw attention to themselves, while providing information about what they're selling. Poor ads are obtrusive rather than interesting, or leave the potential customer unaware of what was being offered. The worst ads annoy the customer enough that while the message--what is being offered and/or by whom--may be clear, they so annoying that those who see them actively avoid doing business with the advertiser. It is these worst ads that we complain about, and install ad-blockers to eliminate. They make the site unusable. For me, it was the full screen dancing baby. I don't even know what that was selling, but would certainly avoid it if I did. It is ridiculous for the webmasters to design new advertising products that are so annoying that they drive away the very eyeballs that they're supposed to be selling. NBC/iVillage/Gardenweb has known for many years that people are installing ad blockers to avoid seeing the annoying ads. They allow threads where we help each other to do so. They're not hurting from it. While it's true that we're not looking at their ads, it's also true that we probably don't pay attention to the regular ads anyway. They're probably using us as an experiment lab to see just how annoying their new advertising products are and testing how many complaints are generated. One thing you've left out of your business side thoughts is that we are providing free content for NBC/iVillage/Gardenweb. Kitchens Forum, especially, is very highly ranked in the search engines nowadays, and GW in general is, as well. There are a LOT of lurkers and click throughs who are the real targets of the advertising. Without the free content created by the members of the forums, there would be no eyeballs for the Powers That Be to sell. It's just a shame for all of the smaller sites that are trying to stay afloat with a little third party advertising, that we can't see their ads once we've blocked the really egregious ones. Instead of complaining to us that blocking ads is bad for your business, you should be complaining to NBC/iVillage/Gardenweb, and the other big sites full of obtrusively annoying ads, that they are the ones who are hurting your ability to support your site through advertising. With Ad-Block, there isn't even a link to accidentally click on with which to pay you.

Though as I posted above, I find AL very useful, doesn't mean I am thrilled with everything. I have been with them since they first came to our city. One example of problems that happen is that I had a wonderful experience with a tree-trimming company and I was the one responsible for adding them to the AL database. They probably didn't even know what it was when I did that. I gave them a glowing report. A couple of years later, I was going to hire them again for another job and find they are about three times more expensive at least according to their bid. Success often spoils company. That is why I never use the ones that have the most reviews even if good reviews. Sort of like the stock market, you want to buy when they are low (and new). If you wait too late, then you are not getting that great of a deal. As they grow, they often have to totally reorganize their business, hire new people and buy new equipment. This means it is basically another company than that which you originally hired. Because business sense is not that easy to come by, most of the time, the new company they have become is not as good as the old one (and I don't judge just by price). And like some of those new tech companies in Silicon Valley, the original company you gave a glowing review for got tons of business, made some nice money and has sold the company to someone else - no longer the same company at all though has the same name. Success can definitely spoil a company. So let the buyer beware. AL is good but in some ways has caused a new problem that people need to watch out for. But I don't plan to terminate my membership anytime soon. I just know that there is no substitute for doing homework, getting references, getting multiple bids (this last one I hate the most).