Shockwave, Cartman & PowerPuff (Argos banners)

Member Name: fluffypup

Product:	Argos banners
Date:	27/10/00 (98 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It earns Dooyoo revenue, its orange and a welcomed pause button for the shockwave anitmation of what seem all 8,000 items on-line

Disadvantages: Makes Dooyoo a tad slower, the play button and seeing all 8,000 articles for sale

It’s very orange!

I was reading and rating opinions late last night, as yoo doo, and my little shockwave icon on the bottom Windows toolbar started going ballistic! The little bars in the decaying sine wave started to light up!

What was going on?

I’m on Dooyoo for heaven sake!

Where’s the Shockwave animation?

I stopped for a moment and noticed that the now intrusive Argos Banner was displaying photos of most of its advertised 8,000 items on-line, hooray (sarcastic hooray at that I might add)! Why move the banners below the navigator toolbar? Ok, I know the reason so that Dooyoo can get more revenue by Dooyooers clicking and signing up and using Argos on-line. Dooyoo deserves a Not Useful by this Dooyooer for the strategic banner manoeuvre. Banners should be like children, they should be seen, not heard and hopefully out of away when you’re trying to concentrate on Dooyoo! I was happy with it at the top keeping the Dooyoo icon happy.

Going back to the Argos banner, I was quick to spot Cartman that horrible big-boned kid from South Park and the equally grotesque big-eyed Powerpuff girl from the Cartoon Network. After about a minute my opinion on the Argos banner hadn’t changed it was still very orange and instructive.

We all know that Dooyoo isn’t the quickest website in the world to navigate. Having a shockwave banner will certainly make it a bit slower. Just as I about to fire off an email of complaint, I noticed very tiny ‘play’ and ‘pause’ buttons on the Argos banner! Hooray, for the pause button I shouted! As I shouted, my fiancée shouted “What? It’s late turn that blasted (well not really it was a wee bit stronger than blasted) computer off, it’s late!” She quickly rolled over and went back to giving it zzz’s! After about 3 minutes of seeing every subliminal article for sale on Argos I was bored and very tired.
I not only still hated the Argos banner for being moved down further down the Dooyoo page, I’d woken my fiancée, it was making Dooyoo a tad slower and it was displaying articles for sale – not even stuff that I would want!

Love it or hate it? I think banners spoil websites. It increases download time per page and most advertise stuff that we are simply not interested in. The Argos banner was no exception, although it did have a welcomed pause button. My previous opinion on Dooyoo banners stated that I would be happy to put up with the banners and I would click on them at least once to increase Dooyoo’s revenue, because we enjoy using Dooyoo so much and wish to continue offering support. The strategic placement of the Argos banner (it’s used the majority of time over the other banners) has become more and more intrusive. It was welcome when it was at the top of the page. Those who wanted to use it would use it, and those who didn’t, didn’t! The colour is catchy. We all know that Argos is a very handy retailer, it frequents most towns and cities, but most of all it frequents most pages of Dooyoo, now with the added pleasure/displeasure of photos of 8,000 articles for sale. Oh and it teases your Shockwave icon into action!

UPDATE 28/10/00: The pause button might be great but if you use access another page the banner re-activates! Therefore you have to hit pause everytime you access a new page.

Summary: