Things are getting to be pretty annoying.... I upgraded to the new Instant Messenger, and now when I do a video cam session with someone I have to watch an ad in the video box before it connects. WTF? Isn't that like the phone company playing an audio commercial before connecting my call? On ESPN I sometimes watch their videos, and they have an ad before each one, plus the connection time while it starts up and after it's done playing, it makes watching a 30-second video a 2-minute experience. And if I choose to watch the same exact video again I have to watch the same commercial again. The new thing with web pages is that a pop up all will appear if you click anywhere on the web page. So if you click somewhere on the text to select the page so you can scroll down, you'll see an ad. Another MSN annoyance... If you run the mouse over any part of the advertisement on the bottom of the box, it will expand the ad to a much larger size and it won't return to normal size until you click on the close button. Since I have the control panel in the middle of my dual screen set up, just running my mouse between screens will trip over that. (I nornally use Trillian, but I use MSN when I have to do file transfers or video). Now half of the stories on CNN's front page are video stories, so you basically have to watch an ad before being able to read the top stories. What if I don't want video stories? I just want to scan the article text. And have you ever tried to watch a video from the internet, gotten through the ad, then the video failed to load? You try it again and the same thing happens. Net result? You've just watched 2 commercials. Anyway, just wanted to vent...
Sorry, I meant to post this in the "off topic" area....must have been in the Japan section and didn't realize it...
Companies still have no clue that forced advertising HURTS their image, not helps it. Take those commercials where the sound is twice as loud as the shows: people don't listen more intently because it's louder, they mute the damn thing.
