Intrusive pop up advert on accountingweb

Intrusive pop up advert on accountingweb

Didn't find your answer?

Just a complaint that if your mouse strays from the confines of the answer boxes on accountingweb and you give the merest hint of a touch on it you get shunted off to an advert for ixbrl compliant software.

Is everyone else a) getting the same?

and b) as fed up with it?

as me.

Happy April

Replies (19)

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By User deleted
01st Apr 2011 12:26

Sage

I've just been taken twice to the sage website! I didn't mind so much with Taxcalc as I do use them but Sage.....

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By cathygrimmer
01st Apr 2011 13:04

Not me!

Never happens to me - I must be lucky. Or maybe it's because my computer and software are a bit aged!

Cathy

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Euan's picture
By Euan MacLennan
01st Apr 2011 13:28

Is it the same problem

... as How much did Taxcalc Pro pay?

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By cymraeg_draig
01st Apr 2011 14:46

I hate pushy salemen online and offline.

When will sales types realise that annoying pop ups and the like simply make you less likely to buy whatever it is they are pushing?  Or is it just me that takes that attitude ?

 

 

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John Stokdyk, AccountingWEB head of insight
By John Stokdyk
01st Apr 2011 18:34

We need to make a living somehow

Sorry everybody, but as I noted elsewhere, today is a big day in the world of Corporation Tax and iXBRL and a lot of software suppliers want to assure you that they are equipped to handle the situation.

I don't think the Sage ad is equivalent to high pressure phone calls and sales people sticking their feet in your door. They merely asked to occupy some of the screenspace that normally goes untouched. I've fallen prey to a stray click, I have to admit, but it was my mistake and I know how to click "back" to get where I started. And actually, on iXBRL day, I was quite interested in what both advertisers had to say.

We don't charge people to joint and use our site, so like ITV we have to rely on the patronage of people who want to sell you stuff. If the iXBRL "takeovers" offend you, please bear with us - I'm sure they go away pretty soon, even if the CT efiling compliance requirement will not.

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Euan's picture
By Euan MacLennan
02nd Apr 2011 09:42

John - We all need to make a living

You get paid for what you do.  All of us who contribute to Any Answers do it for free and without us, Any Answers would not exist.

"We don't charge people to joint and use our site."

Too damn right.  If you did, you would not only not have Any Answers, but you would not have a site or a job.

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By Steve Holloway
02nd Apr 2011 10:00

A bit harsh Euan

 I am sure, like me, you don't come to AWEB (or any other forum) purely to dispense your knowledge. There is a give and take for all of us and what the providor does is provide the 'forum' in which we can do that. That has a cost and must be paid for --- unless someone comes up with a better idea advertsing would seem the only answer. It is the same with the classic car club clubs I belong to ... they run a forum, we contribute expertise for nothing and insurance companies get to adverstise to us. Personally, I think this is all a good thing ... where else would you get to me someone like CD?!

 

The quid pro quo John is that the ad's do not become so intrusive that they put people off from using the site and that is your domain I think. Pop ups and animated graphics definietely fall in to that category although I can't say I have really noticed the recent ones particularly.

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By cymraeg_draig
02nd Apr 2011 10:00

.

No problem with adverts John - but I do think advertisers need to realise that sometimes "less is more".  If an advert becomes annoying by constantly popping up on screen it does reach the stage of being counter productive and actually puts people off that particular brand / product.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who reacts like that ....... am I ?

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By cymraeg_draig
02nd Apr 2011 10:03

Steve

I think this is all a good thing ... where else would you get to me someone like CD?!

 

Posted by Steve Holloway on Sat, 02/04/2011 - 09:00

 

 

Is that a compliment - or an insult ?????????????

By the way, one mans "classic car" is another mans pile of old junk. :)

 

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By User deleted
02nd Apr 2011 13:47

Counter productive ...

Putting such an 'in your face' advertisement up is actually counter productive because all it does is alienate users and encourage them to take on products such as Adblock https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/

So actually it has done the whole advertising system a great dis-service and reduced the available market - after all once someone has taken on Adblocker they are not really going to uninstall the product - therefore every online advertiser is a loser

Personally I run FireFox with Adblocker and IE without - although having just installed IE9 will probably dump IE. What a pile of rubbish as a browser - it breaks existing sites, siezes up, keeps providing all manner of warnings on things it doesn't like

Frankly M$ need to wake up to the fact that the browser is simply a tool and not an end in itself & stop trying to boss everyone around with their c**p IE9 offering. It does have some quite nice features (tracking protection under tools-->Security) but all for nothing if the basics fail & you cannot browse sites without a constant stream of complaints by IE9.

Of course the next thing is for everyone to block Google Analytics so that you are not being tracked - http://techie-buzz.com/how-to/how-to-disable-google-analytics.html

Finally, whilst not diplomatically put, Euan is quite right. Don't forget that on the internet the zero cost option is a perfectly valid business model because it allows the users themselves to build your brand which in turn has value and increases the worth of AccountingWeb - ergo, AWeb current market value is almost entirely attributable to it's members
 

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By Steve Holloway
04th Apr 2011 08:29

@ CD

 Ha ha .... well sometimes you are quite profound, occasionally barking .... but rarely dull!

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By Becky Midgley
04th Apr 2011 10:21

Must be because it is Monday morning...

But I'm slightly offended by this.

It goes without saying that if we had no visitors to the site then there would be no need for the site or any of us, but I think it's been quite rudely put.  John, me, the rest of team, all work really hard here getting you content, trying to solve any technical issues, and generally trying to be there for you, we get paid for that, that is our job and I find it a little disrespectful to our skills and service to be so flippant and rude towards Accountingweb - you are not attacking the site, you are attacking the team.

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By andypartridge
04th Apr 2011 10:48

Bottom line

The bottom line is that Aweb needs to earn money and if it doesn't come from paid membership it will have to come from advertising.

However, there is eye-catching advertising that you can 'admire' and there is damned-annoying advertising that wastes your time when your mouse accidentally strays into its territory and takes you on a journey you never intended.

It's entirely reasonable to complain about the latter and very odd that 'the team' should complain about complaints from their members. That is not in the customer service handbook. If you can't think of anything positive to say, learn to ignore it like you tell us to when someone writes something we don't approve of.

-- Kind regards Andy

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By Steve Holloway
04th Apr 2011 10:49

I would have been offended too ..... once

 but then I've heard the 'if it wasn't for me you wouldn't have a job' argument so many times that it kind of slips by un-noticed nowadays! I never worked harder than when head of HR but was anyone every happy .... were they ####! Its the old rule in that people never value what they get for free until someone takes it away. 

I think 99% of people here think that this is a very well run site and value your work but it is far more important that you think that.

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By Becky Midgley
04th Apr 2011 11:45

Happy to receive complaints

I wasn't complaining about you complaining, I think past experience should prove that I try and respond to every complaint and criticism, and where possible get a solution.  I welcome complaints; I think it is the only way to find out how and what we are doing well and how we can improve. But what I would ask for is a little professional courtesy, that was the basis of my complaint.  I don't think it was very considerately or constructively written.

You will be happy to know that we are talking about those ads here in the office this morning, and I have alerted the campaign team to this feedback (we also had 2 complaints via email on Friday).  I work hard to get your message back to the 'powers that be', and I guess I took Euan's post in particular to heart.  I did say that I probably did so as it was Monday morning!

I am hoping that the takeover ads will be better designed in future and restricted to certain zones and areas on any given page rather than the entire page.  I hope this will happen and I hope it is a suitable solution for you.

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By User deleted
04th Apr 2011 12:59

Adverts

I don't mind advertising as such, the sage one only annoyed me because it kidnapped me and spirited me off to another planet (and I've had bad experiences as you all know from being taken from Earth against my will!)

I will admit that the Taxcalc one was actually useful as it told me that they were definately ixbrl-compliant, a fact which I could not find anywhere on their website when I looked! I certainly wouldn't expect A-Web to not accept advertising, if they didn't then we'd certainly have to pay to post questions & answers (although maybe A-Web should consider that - think of the fortune you'd make when CD & Bob start having a 'discussion'!!).

It's the stuff that jumps under your clicking (yes I know, there's a far better term but its still Monday) that gets to me. Santander is a prime example. I try logging onto my account but have to be so careful as it tries to fool me to accept its mobile phone feature and then its security software. I wouldn't mind if I had the option of saying 'you've asked me once, I've said no and if I want it in future tough its too late' but every single time it throws it at me. Grrr!

Becky you should say that you're happy to receive 'constructive criticism' rather than complaints - you don't want to make Mondays any worse! And maybe even add 'and compliments' to it so that you get nice posts to read as well :-)

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By nogammonsinanundoubledgame
04th Apr 2011 14:00

Not sure that I agree with Euan's projection anyway.

There is a "competing" site that has been running for a while now, which is a pay-to-join site, and I have not heard of its recent demise.  It has even advertised on AccountingWeb!

I think that there are other successful business models that allow for the option of paying a subscription to remove the ads.

If there were no free site available then perhaps one would naturally emerge to fill that gap, but if it did not I have no doubt that we would end up paying one pay-site or another.

With kind regards

Clint Westwood

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By cymraeg_draig
04th Apr 2011 15:12

ONE OFF

This was a "one off" complaint I think, because the ad concerned was spread over the whole page, rather than the banner area at the top.

Right now to the left & right of the scree are grey areas which you can click on accidently and - nothing happens.   On that particular ad these areas were pale blue (if memory serves) and any accidental click meant - poof - a screen full of advertising.  Very annoying.

Having ads we can click on if we are interested in what they are offering is fine - having ads that constantly ram themselves down our throats is offputting. 

 

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By the_fishmonger
05th Apr 2011 10:09

Most pop up ads can be avoided
by using Opera. It has a facility for blocking unwanted content. Just right click and choose the 'block content' option, click what you don't like and hit 'done'. Ok, so you have to do it, but for that ad, it's permanent.

I find those sort of ads take up inordinate CPU time, slowing the whole PC operation down. Very useful.

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