What is "My Two Bits?"

My Two Bits is the official editorial page for the "editor" of Techtite.com. We also accept reader submissions, and will publish any editorials deemed well written and pertaining to a worthy current topic of interest.

---Is that Your SECOND Answer...?

---Phantom Menace : How Childish is CHILDISH?

---The Current State of Adventure Games, Part 1

---The Current State of Adventure Games, Part 2

---When Does Bending Rules Become Cheating?

---When I Was Your Age...

---2001: A DUH Odyssey!

---DEATH to pop-up window commercials!

---Off the "Daily Radar"...

---PG-13: An Asset, or a Curse?

---Sept. 11, 2001...

Is there a better solution...? Let's put it this way; if your web site is losing money, pop-up windows are not the answer. The effect is like the drunk jumping in front of you on the street, asking for one more beer. If you can't get profits the fair way, your site is toast, and no pop-up is going to save it. Accept it.

Do the "legitimate" ways to keep a web site afloat work...? Let's put it this way; if they don't, you need to restructure your web site until they do. Pop ups just don't work. Ever. Period. Got that? 

November/December's "Two Bits" are titled :

Down With Pop-ups: 

The Sequel!

I know I promised a follow-up editorial to "my two bits" about September 11th, around two months ago. However, I need to have the humility to realize there's nothing I could say that hasn't already been said --and far better-- by dozens of political commentators, all across cable TV. There's also that well said message by NYC Mayor Giuliani, asking us all to try to return to our normal lives, as much as possible (well, something like that; he said it much better). That said, on to entertainment editorials, as usual, which at Techtite.com seem more appropriate than political commentaries.

Once I made my decision to write an editorial about entertainment, the question was, what? Some topics seem too superficial compared to current events. Other topics seem too overly sensitive, and may seem a lot like "kicking someone when they're down." What to write, indeed. In a way, it might've been easier to have just written a controversial political editorial; it's just too hard to decide what type of entertainment-oriented editorial would sit well with the masses. I've been mulling over this question for weeks now.

So, how about an update to my earlier editorial, which deservedly panned the ongoing eyesore of pop-up window commercials? That seems like a topic everyone will agree on; this trend has got to END! I said my fair share on the matter, in my editorial for February (an intriguing read, if I do say so myself). So, what has happened since then, that is worth an addendum? Well, two things, actually. One is welcome news, I'm sure; the other is signs of a bad idea just getting worse.

I always tend to ask for the bad news first (it leaves you with the good news, to look forward to), so here goes: pop-up windows are getting more sinister! Newer pop ups are programmed into the web page itself; totally, uncontrollably covering the pages you were trying to read! These can be closed when they load up, yet not easily; they are animations integrated into the page's flash programming (or the like), and forcefully place themselves smack in the middle of anything (if not everything) important below them. In honesty, initial sites using this phenomenon were quite clever; 13 Ghosts had a ghost eerily go across the web page, only to reveal its ad to the lower right of the page. That was fun, because it was brief, amusing, and unobtrusive.

The same cannot be said for newer ads of this phenomenon. When recently checking my favorite TV synopsis page --Mighty Big TV-- a big whopper of a TV Guide subscription offer popped on screen, right in front of everything I was doing. To click it gone, you have to click daintily at this teeny weeny "X" to the lower right of the box. Otherwise, you're left with this commercial right in front of the whole left side of the web page. Did I mention how big this lame-o commercial was? Just check out the screen grab shown here. I rarely decide to facetiously tell a fellow entertainment site, how they should run their railroad. However, let's just say this is annoying over-commercialism, and, quite frankly, I'm against it.

At least this new-age popup is not half as annoying as the recurring popup I see everywhere lately, for that DUMB "miniature camera." You know the ad I'm talking about, attempting to sell a worthless, battery-powered pinhole-lens camera that isn't half as good as a plug-in camera connected directly to your PC. So, why is this camera so worthwhile? This is what bothers me; some gangly female model is shown in the popup ad --often behind a keyhole-- as if (hubba, hubba!) you could hide this camera (wink, wink!)...anywhere! Yeah, sure, nerdling; as if you could get within 100 yards of a cute woman, enter her home, and hide a camera there. Try it, kid, and get your backside kicked into next week. For that matter, any allegedly "wireless" connection must be within just a few feet away (no chance of mailing Cindy Crawford one of these cameras and "logging in" to the camera, geek!), so can we just get rid of all these DUMB wireless camera ads...please?

Let's be honest to the popup-commercial-happy web sites, though; keeping your web site afloat is tough, particularly if you're trying to sell a web site, and not a product on the web. Selling a product on the web is a nice way to increase sales, from local to national proportions. Selling a web site is often...well, dumb. There are 1,000,000 other sites out there that will offer exactly what you do, for free. So, how do you make a buck, as a web site? Pop-up commercials are used by some of the more myopic (and desperate) web masters, hoping that enough people will (accidentally) click on the pop-up and give you that extra 39 cents per click. It adds up...though by then, the people that now avoid your site like the plague have added up as well. Just look at how people jumped ship from Daily Radar in mere weeks; it had pop-ups in February, and was closed down in April. Coincidence...? Compare this story to the one for Adrenaline Vault, which has never had a pop-up window, and as such, has me as a loyal viewer every single weekday.

So, allow me to once again cut and paste my message to all webmasters from my prior editorial on the matter: pop-up window ads never sell. NEVER. Period. If they're clicked on, it's only because someone was trying to click on the window below them, when you threw an unexpected second window in front of their face. Aside from that, they don't sell. They NEVER sell. They never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever sell. Got that?

So, here's where the good news comes in...finally. I feel the need, to all my loyal readership (both of them, actually!), to make this pledge to you; Techtite.com is now, officially, a NO-pop-up-commercial zone. That sounds sort of  cool, doesn't it? I may even create little icons and banners to herald this feature of the site. Maybe others will even join in. In time, this could begin the end of pop-up windows altogether. Please?

Once again, I'm Techtite, and these are My Two Bits...