Taking a POP! (dooyoo banners)

Member Name: Whitehorse

Product:	dooyoo banners
Date:	25/10/01 (45 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I guess money for Dooyoo

Disadvantages: Irritating and irritating!

Okay I never thought I could get motivated enough to ever write an opinion in this category. However - my visit to Dooyoo this evening has engendered such feelings I must express them - before I POP!

I can see how advertising companies thought pop-up advertising might work. Afterall, they appear when you least expect them, often have enticing or obscure messages that catch the attention of the user, often proclaim you can win this or that (after signing up for some site or other of course). They may offer you the biggest saving of all time, smooth your ego into buying the product of the century or just simply slide under your cursor just as you were about to click to your profile...Grrrr.

So someone, somewhere is smiling gleefully at their multi-million pound idea and meanwhile the Internet user at large is wondering whether the inventor is human or they an evil alien getting ready to take over the world as pop-up's drive the normally sane and spiritual web surfer (such as moi) stark raving mad.

Not long ago I would have said that I refuse to click on any advertising banner whatsoever. However, after reading a few opinions about this issue I did begin to realise that Dooyoo get a lot of funding from these and that me not clicking is rather like cutting my nose off to spite my face. So now and again I’d make a point of clicking on the banners – hoping that Dooyoo got a penny or something from my click. Yes even the occasional pop-up I clicked in the end to redeem myself.

However NOKIA!

For goodness sake! There are now 4 of the darn things sitting at the bottom of my screen and they rear their ugly little heads every time I so much as look at the screen. I’ve clicked them into oblivion and there they are leaping out the screen at me over and over again. It doesn’t matter what I do or what I click to, Nokia has a head start and throws up its message about some game and some woman filing her nails.
I don’t know what it is, I don’t want it and even if I did I wouldn’t click on it simply because it’s so damned annoying.

Did nobody think that this excessive use of pop-ups is counter productive? Does someone think I have the memory of a goldfish and I have to be reminded of NOKIA every five NOKIA seconds?
And I’ve already done the prize draw survey Dooyoo – take it away. Please take it away!

ARE YOU READY?

Sure I’m ready, ready to knock your little pop-up box to hell…ooops CLICK

Okay well I’m there now (grumble, grumble) so I might as well tell you what all the fuss is about. There’s a page with lots of flags, click yours and you get taken to a page that says: -

“Welcome to the all-media gaming adventure: Nokia Game 2001 - where the boundaries between fact and fancy, truth and fiction, merge, blur… and vanish. As from 4th November, you’ll find game clues where you least expect them. So stay alert. And stay connected. The adventure begins again... “

Oooh I’m sooooooo excited (please imagine sarcastic tone).

“Over a total of 20 gaming days, players will be called upon to collect, and act on a series of clues, delivered via a host of channels – including the Internet, press, radio, e-mail, telephone and TV. Those that successfully put all the pieces of the puzzle together will be rewarded with a chance to participate in the grand final. “

Uh huh, but I have a life…

And the prize?

You could win a brand spanking new Nokia phone.

Does it really spank? No? Right STILL not interested.

I can cope with the paycuts – sure I had a little moan but things change and grow and move on. However these pop-ups are the most annoying I’ve ever experienced. Come-on you advertising/sales people – no one likes to have things pushed on them –
; this is just like one of those pushy sales people that try to sell you hoovers that cost the same price as a small car. They never work on me either – I instantly disbelieve everything they say and shut the door in their face before they even get to the third word of their patter.

Little banners that sit quietly on the corner of the page, flashing banners that make me squint, huge red banners that appear between the end of an opinion and the rating button – all these I can put up with and occasionally click on just to fund Dooyoo. However these pop-up’s are simply irritating and when you are irritated you’re hardly likely to want to try or buy are you?

A curious thing too – Dooyoo is a consumer site where we as members write our own experience of products and read up on the real user experience to make up our minds about what we are going to spend our hard earned cash on. Doesn’t that mean that we will be even more wary about advertising?

This Nokia ad makes me think of someone trying too hard to be my friend – an instant turn off!

POP! Grrrrrr.

Summary: