I like ads. They provide a mild distraction (sometimes even relevant) and add some oomph to dry text on web pages. The layout, if well designed makes the text easier to scan/read. The problem with the ad industry is that they crossed a threshold some years ago where the use of pop-ups/unders, animations and ad-sizes got to a point where I invested in a commercial ad-filter to ban ads all together (AdSubtract and AdMuncher).
In the good old days, I was actually happy to have the ads and even clicked through on some of them until the pop-us and animation started. I have a particular distaste for things moving around on a page that I’m trying to read. I have therefore been running ad-free for a few years now and noticed something odd – My ad-free pages have been getting "harder" to read.
This is because the ads that are clipped out leave large amounts of vacat space that still distracts but without the reward (I have been using Ad-Subtract Pro & AdMuncher to filter pop-ups, moving ads and other assorted vermin).
As an experiment, I tweaked the ad-filter to allow ads but banish animation but I’m afraid to say that the results weren’t very good. The production quality on the ads and the size at which they are delivered makes them the centerpiece of the page instead of the poorly produced text that I’m trying to read. Is there hope?
A recent ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) issue had an interesting article on automated layout systems. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an intelligent personal layout agent that sucks in the poorly designed pages you’re cruising and reformat them into your reading format of choice (a nice 3 column layout, newspaper like and efficient). Startup anyone?
MANORATHA 