In-Line Text Ads from Kontera

[Jason Dunn]

<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/kontera-contextlink.gif" /><br /><br />I'm a bit over a week late with this announcement, so please forgive the tardiness: recently we switched from using Vibrant Media's IntelliTXT in-line product to using a similar product from Kontera. I know that some of you, specifically those of you who read by moving the mouse cursor across the text, don't like seeing these things pop up. I wanted to explain how to disable them: hover over one of the double-green underlined words, then click on the question mark that's inside that window. You'll be taken to a "What is ContentLink™?" page, and down at the very bottom of that page you'll see a link that you can click on to disable it from appearing again on this domain. It does this by placing a cookie on your machine, so if you use multiple computers or if you routinely purge the cookies on your system, you'll need to re-visit that page.<br /><br />If you're not bothered by the Kontera ads, I'd certainly appreciate if it you could let them appear - you don't need to click on them to support us (though that's appreciated of course), just let them load. The funds from Kontera go toward paying for our two servers, bandwidth costs, and of course my bills so I can continue to run Thoughts Media as my full-time job. Thanks as always for your support - I couldn't do this without you, our community, supporting this site.

[servoisgod]

OR...

Even better is to just do this below, so that crap(*see below) doesn't leave anything on your system, AND will speed things up a little for other sites.

In Internet Explorer go to:
Tools\Internet Options

Go to:
Security\Restricted Sites

Click the "Sites" button and enter in the following information:

*.kontera.com

Click Add then close and refresh your browser.

DONE!

The best thing is that you can do this for any site, not just here. It's affective on all sites that use Kontera. I have a list that I add to my restricted sites on my systems. Seems to speed IE up.

Now any site that uses that crap will not have them dispayed, thus stopping that crap that is "In-Line Text" or what I like to refer to as more crap that you don't need on the internet.

*replace crap with the S word.

:)

Later,
Aaron

[smileyguy]

That cr@p is how many sites such as this one pay the bills. I'm going to leave it alone. I'm willing to put up with a couple of green lines here and there for free content.

[servoisgod]

And that perfectly ok because that is your choice to make.

However, I am offering people a way to stop it from happening on ALL sites that use it, not just on the domain in question.

Later,
Aaron

[PPCRules]

This has got to be one of the dumbest forms of internet advertising - I can't believe anyone buys the ads.

At best, if one has time to kill, it is amusing to take a look at the ads and see how totally out of context they usually are - the system grabs a key word, but not the context, so the ad often relates to a completely different use of the word.

And think a moment about the readers - the "audience" for the advertiser: Sure, like when I am in the middle of reading an article, I am so totally ready to drop my focus on the article and go buy someone's [probably totally unrelated] product. Actually, the only "views" (rather "displays") that are received are accidental mouse-overs. And if you're banking on your advertising effectiveness being from people's accidents, I can't imagine you'll have good long term prospects.

But, in the end, I support the free market. Some type of person must be drawn into these ads or they wouldn't still exist. And that balances against how willing the web site is to risk annoying/alienating the reader. I commend Jason for always working out the 'turn-off' option*. Other sites have gotten clicks from me looking for such an option on their site's ads, but I have not found that option anyplace else.

* though it's hasn't been working yet with this vendor - I get a "not authorized to view" page. I'll have to try aaron's approach.