If those popups hitting you every time you surf the Internet are driving you to drink or worse, you may have a very powerful new ally who thinks as low of them as you. Google's new, remade toolbar, includes popup- and pop-under advertisement blocking. And InternetNews.com said August 22 that a growing community in cyberspace is companies offering popup-blocking programs to consumers who've had it.
Even some companies who customarily swear by popups as effective for business are beginning to inch back, InternetNews.com said. "I believe from the very bottom of my heart that pop-us, while a very wonderfully ingenious idea, are not the most effective way to reach consumers," said Weather.com chief revenue officer Paul Iaffaldano to InternetNews. "I think the industry will move beyond pop-ups in the next year or so."
And for now the popups continue to rule, with 7.3 million popup ads offered in July according to Nielsen/NetRatings and revenue generated from them going from 3 to 7 percent in the same month. But it doesn't mean Nielsen/NetRatings expects the popups to survive in the end. "When all is said and done," said analyst Charles Buchwalter to InternetNews, "the consumer always wins. It's only a matter of time that advertisers begin to look to other forms from pop-ups."
EarthLink and America Online offer popup blocking to subscribers, with EarthLink saying 13 percent of their subscribers have downloaded it since the service began last year, while AOL offered no numbers for how many have downloaded their popup blocking since it came online in March. And AOL itself still sends forth popups for AOL Time Warner properties, InternetNews said.
Google told InternetNews all its toolbar users will have the popup blocker in their updated versions "soon."
