Into the frenzy of companies paying eye popping money for internet advertising companies in their 6 BILLION Dollar purchase of eQuantive announced today I am wondering is Microsoft now no longer a software company but is now also a online advertising business? I mean, with all these dominant companies like Google and Yahoo and now Microsoft spending BILLIONS to get into the online advertising business, is the internet for us, the users, going to become a real drag to navigate due to all the upcoming ads we will be hit with? Couldn't some of these billions be used to make the internet more enjoyable to use or has everyone now, including Microsoft, eyeing just making more money off of ads and flashing annoying ads then providing more better content on web pages? Please discuss.
flashing annoying ads will be phasing out eventually, check out the cutting edge ads on ET, the ad is blending into the page, looked very natural isn't it.
I don't know about you guys, but I remove all ads from the pages I visit often. Firefox users - check out Remove It Permanently (RIP) extension.
You mean to tell me that these co's have such inroads and infrastrusture and patents and foxy chicks at the water cooler, that they are worth BILLIONS??? And MSFT cant figure out how to do the same thing for 1/10 the cost? I don't get it.
Adds can easily be removed from many sites by using very very simple tools like the one above. Thus your experience of internet can be "more enjoyable". Side note: If Firefox cared, they could ship "customize Google" (similar to RIP but custom made for Google) extension as part of product. Then, you would NEVER see any Google adds on Google cites.
I thought MSFT was already an advertising company. Log into hotmail, and you'll see all kinds of crapware. Isn't it already a drag to deal with all this crap? Where does all the spam we get in the email come from? The same nigerian guys over and over? One of the most successful websites is craigslist.org, which has no ads whatsoever, allowing great speed for searching. In my opinion, a critical factor in Google's success is due to the fact that the interface is uncluttered. No ads, nothing. After the search results, you get some ads, but very inobtrusive, giving you freedom to choose them or not. This setup is brilliant, but some people still don't get it. Is it possible that Mr. Gates is running out of ideas?