Ad problems fixed -- game on!
By Ryan Block 
posted November 21st 2007 2:33PM
posted November 21st 2007 2:33PM
Just a quick word to our readers: we're sorry for the trouble caused, but thanks and much love for being good sports. We got a ton of really interesting and useful feedback, and we know you wouldn't care if you didn't love Engadget and have high standards for our site. (Of course, we'd also like to give a shout out to everyone on the business side who jumped in to help out and fix this thing.) So, you know, feel free to disengage your ad blockers, the coast is clear.
Ryan, long time reader (and podcast listener) here. I would love to turn my ad-blocker off (just started it a few weeks ago), since I completely accept your business model as a concept. But, to tell you the truth, it was Engadget that caused me to get the ad-blocker in the first place. I had stopped reading Engadget altogether when the ads got so bad that it was painful to visit the site. Then, during a discussion on BOL, I heard about how ad-blockers could help (they were not advocating it, of course). Now, I can visit Engadget and enjoy the content again.
If the ads were scaled back to a point where the site was workable for me, I would not need ad-blocker, so it may just be a matter of "greed is not good" in your advertising department. You realize that there is a tipping-point when it comes to ads on a web-site, and I think Engadget has gone way past that point. My ad-blocking software says that there are 18 items that it is blocking, which is dramatically more than any other site I have visited and tested (if the number is low, I actually turn off ad-blocker for that site, in an attempt to play by the rules).
You are right about the "honor system", but that goes for the site as well. In the unspoken rules of engagement for ad-supported sites, if the site goes too far with their ads, then all is fair, I think. I say this as a big Engadget fan, so please take it as constructive criticism.
Oh, and btw, if you do decide to scale back the ads, please let us know. I, for one, would be happy to then turn off the ad-blocker and give it a test run.
And, I wanted to add that you do get credit for communicating with your readership on this issue.
Funny story.
My 360 is set up so that it routes audio through my computer, so the same set of speakers outputs both my computer and 360's sound. Often I'll browse the Internet and play 360 at the same time. So yesterday, I was playing Oblivion when all the sudden I heard this cacophony of voices. I've gotten the rare audio bug with that game, specifically with the lockpicking mini-game, so I thought nothing of it. The voices didn't sound like the normal voices you hear in Oblivion, but I thought nothing of it. You get used to finding minor bugs when playing a game for literally hundreds of hours. Figured I'd just finish my business about the Imperial City then go back to the main menu and reload, like I usually do. Then I starting hearing the word "upgrade" and thought, "Hm, why would the people in Cyrodill talk about upgrades? Armor upgrades, I guess." Kept running around. Then I heard someone say XP, and not the leveling experience kind. I stopped and started listening. Then I heard XP again. I started to freak out a little. At this point, I was wondering, "What the hell is going on? Have I stumbled on some secret audio track?" I was so into the game at that point that the breaking of the fourth wall momentarily frightened me. Then it hits me. I've had the Engadget page open for the last hour, and the buggy Apple ad that I was reading about just suddenly decided to activate itself three minutes ago.
This might get me banned, but it's my pet peeve. If you can't take constructive criticism, then I don't want to be here, anyway. "We follow the same editorial standards as the New York Times, and the Wall St. Journal." You are a blog. A member of Weblogs, Inc. Please do not compare yourself to the two bastions of American professional journalism (at least until Murdoch finishes the takeover of the Journal.) If you want to be a news site, make one. You serve a different function than a news site. The Wall Street Journal, in all my years of reading it, has never posted a picture of the Terminator as the article picture. They have not come up with witty sayings like, "I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords." I'm not saying you guys aren't journalists. Despite the amount of time I've read this blog, I don't know enough about your backgrounds to make that call. You do fall under freedom of press, but that's another issue. But, the only thing that really distinguishes your blog from some guy in his basement in his underwear writing about his favorite comic books is popularity. There are other differences, but that is the core difference. Just because you get lots of advertising and interviews with famous people does not make you better than the comic book guy. He is not a loser blogger, and you are not "teh awesomez" just because more people read your blog. You both perform the same task, just in different spheres of influence with different levels of success.
I do like your site. Really, I do. I'm not trying to sound mean or condesending. But please don't forget the point of sites like these. They are different from professional news sources for a reason. There are professional tech news sources. We choose to come to Engadget, rather than those sites, for a reason.
You are misinterpreting his comment. He isn't saying "Engadget is as good as the New York Times," he is saying "We have the same policy as the New York Times."
That policy is: Group A sells ads, Group B writes stories. They don't influence each other.
Am I the only one, or is it still making things lag like shit.
It's definately NOT fixed.
Definitely not fixed, I opened an article in another tab, and was graced an infinite-sound-abortion-of-justice, thanks. Fix it or get rid of it please.
It reappeared for an hour or so, the people handling the ad systems are all out of the office for the holiday and their emergency fill-ins didn't quite get the job done right. Should be all better now.
It was gone. Now it's back and as broken as ever. Never used an ad blocker on engadget before but I'm getting the plugin now. Bye bye, mac ad.
Oddly enough, I had no problems with the original ad (really coincidental prior to hearing the issue, and once I heard about it, I didn't go looking for it), but there's some stupid-ass radio-shack ad that pops up whenever I'm looking at the Samsung Flipshot gallery that prevents me from clicking on links until I roll over the stupid thing. Not only is it annoying, but it's also an ad for what has to be what has turned out to be the most useless electronics store ever. At least the brick & mortar ones are useless for me.
The ad doesn't play for me. Strange...
So just for fun, I deleted all entries from adblock. I forgot about the number one most annoying thing about the ads on Engadget and other sites, and came across this while looking for a fix (other than just blocking):
http://publicobject.com/2007/05/some-flash-ads-break-mousewheel.html
Seriously, fix that and you'll see a lot less adblock usage.
I'm on a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo with 3GB of RAM... And the ad KILLED my browser.
That's not hard to do when it starts looping the audio track over and over, even to the point of it looping over itself.
This wasn't about computer power. It was about bad implementation of an ad.
Huh...
Seems the ad is back, and is slow as ever.
I never bothered with things like AdBlock before (since I just ignore the ads to the point that I don't even notice them at all), but this ad is definitely tempting me to do so. The thing is huge, slow, and only amusing the first time.
Agreed, and it's gone in ten minutes. As I explained above, it's been on and off throuhg the afternoon, the people at the ad delivery firm messed this one up, we were supposed to get the correct ads at about noon ET. Sigh.
Why block ads? Support your publishers!
ads? what ads? oh joys of living in an ad free world
Ryan, your original post made it pretty clear that some people at your end were aware the ad was going to cause technical issues. Why did anyone even consider putting it live BEFORE these were fixed?
I don't mind advertising on sites in principle, but things like this make me more and more likely to put AdBlock on this machine.
In the comments of the OTHER article on the outrageous ad I mentioned that I had installed that large HOSTS file (from mvps.com?) and would keep it in place if there weren't undesired side-effects.
The HOSTS-file-based adblocking unfortunately DOES break certain websites - my daughter was trying to surf down into http://www.neopets.com and certain features - like video playing - were broken by that method of adblocking. Since that HOSTS file is massive it would be essentially WAY too time-consuming to find the blocked site that neopets needs.
So, I'm back to no HOSTS file and excruciatingly-long load times for Engadget et al...
that damn "i am a mac ad" almost got me fired. started playing when my boss walked in. loud. I was like wtf?