Monday, July 09, 2007

How to Force Pop Ups

It's interesting how 2 properties like the nytimes.com and boston.com (Boston Globe) both are owned by the same parent, yet one makes more off of me than the other. Due to the quality of the writing, the nytimes.com gets a lot of more of my viewing time, yet I see more of boston.com. Here's why, I allow pop-ups from boston.com because they have cool slide shows and polls of the Red Sox and Patriots. It's not video, but I get to interact with the content, I enjoy seeing how Ortiz gets a 'B' for a .321 average vs. Pedroia an 'A' for a .315 average (it's all because Ortiz doesn't have 20 home runs). With the NY Times, there's no compelling reason. With Boston.com, they have in-depth coverage of my favorite teams, so I'm willing to put up with those ridiculous expanding ads and fly-ins. I actually don't mind it as long as they keep giving me detail about Youk and Pedroia.

I have all the necessary ad blocking software in Firefox, Norton, and a spyware package.

So there's the lesson of the day: you too can push your way into the users face if your publication can produce compelling content in a useful format.

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