It must be late, and I must be easily irritated, because I just wrote a short (100-word) complaint to USAToday.com. Of course, it was ridiculous! Of course, they'll probably laugh at me! Oh well.Situation: I enjoy the USAToday.com web site. I like it quite a bit actually, as it's among my top bookmarks, and I hop on it frequently throughout my day. I even have the application for the web site on my iPhone. Tonight, I thought to check out the "Celebrities" photo gallery as well as the headlines. I clicked on it and the gallery window popped up, with its ad. It used to be that the gallery would just load and one could view the images unmolested. Lately, the gallery will only load completely after the window shows a 15-second commercial. The advertiser could be anyone, from Geico to Dove. You know, whatever. Tonight though, the ad was for Best Buy ... and would air for 30 seconds before the gallery would appear. Now, I'm all for a constant stream of advertising revenue, but 30 seconds is a ridiculously long amount of time to expect someone to sit in front of an ad ... ON THE INTERNET ... before showing them something.
I navigated away from the page before the ad was even 10 seconds through. Then, I went to the web site's "Contact Us" page and filed my complaint. I basically told them exactly what I just told you: That I would rather forego the gallery, and deny the advertiser the click-through, then sit at my computer for 30 seconds being forcefed an advertisement of this kind. I simply asked them to re-think their position on 30-second ads. Fifteen, I can sit through. Thirty is just too painful.
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