image: opindian.com (click for link)
Remember our earlier conversation about ad-supported sites suffering from increasing use of ad-blockers?
Well, a new round of quelle horreur!! has been prompted by the very recent release of Safari 5.0 with a Reader mode (which, it turns out, uses the open source code of the arc90 Readability java bookmarklet I’ve been happily using to improve my web-reading experience for ages now — who knew?)
Anyway, with Safari 5.0, this is the very useful adblock list (css stylesheet) I’m using at present.
Combined with Click2flash (which allows you to whitelist sites that don’t overdo the flash-bling-thing) … it’s working great.
And here is some wailing and gnashing of teeth about adblockers, prompted up by Apple’s new ‘Reader’ feature in the just-released version of Safari (although Jim Lynch has my sympathy):
http://jimlynch.com/index.php/2010/06/07/safari-reader-apples-weapon-of-mass-destruction/
and here’s his argument for NOT blocking the ads on his site:
http://jimlynch.com/index.php/about-ads-ad-blockers/
Like I said, sympathy, but not convinced I should eschew the idea altogether. I blame the histrionics of some of the ads on newspaper sites. Desperate for revenue? Then don’t annoy the hell out of your readers.
As for ArsTechnica — well, they don’t expect anyone to take this seriously, do they? Oh dear.
Apple’s “evil/genius” plan to punk the Web and gild the iPad
By Ken Fisher |
….So how bizarre is it, then, when leaving Apple’s rosy App Store garden and entering the public square of the Web to find the following phrase on Safari 5’s “new features” page:
“Safari Reader removes annoying ads and other visual distractions from online articles.”
So the company that has made an advertising platform a major part of its iOS strategy is also hawking an ad-blocking technology for its Web browser, where it has no stake in ads. App Store: use our unblockable ads, developers! They help you get paid for your hard work! Web: hey, block some ads, readers! They’re annoying!
This is a link to a recent update to the Readability bookmarklet that allows you to treat all hyperlinks in the ‘text’ from the webpage as footnotes (i.e. at the end of the text — although still in the text and marked by a superscript ref # [1] … useful? I haven’t made that change to my preferences. but it shows they’re always thinking …
http://blog.arc90.com/2010/06/03/readability-updated-an-end-to-the-yank-of-the-hyperlink/
And here’s Nick Carr’s blogpost on the ‘issue’:
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2010/05/experiments_in.php
Interesting. As someone accused of ‘cross-threading’ to ‘disparage’ excitable people, I feel I’m in the camp of the linkers. (“Don’t like it? Don’t click!” as I think I said to one complainant.)
There’s an efficiency/power to links-as-you-go which I find attractive, so long as you don’t say simply >here< but use the form: >insert meaningful term of your argument here<. If you know what I mean.
Oh dear. Revelling in the new found attention (and web traffic?) Jim Lynch has turned into a plonker.
http://jimlynch.com/index.php/2010/06/14/the-safari-reader-arms-race-begins/all/1/
There’a good reason people flame Apple — it draws attention from the zealots… flame bait they call it. Kinda sad. (And here I am rewarding him again…)
Of course he’s (anyone’s) entitled to his opinion, but he’s getting the stuffing kicked out of his argument by some very thoughtful comments in the comments thread.
Oh, ho ho ho … here’s how John Gruber (http://daringfireball.net) sees it (echoing my “Don’t annoy the hell out of your readers”):
[…] discussed the pros and cons of ad-blockers here and here coming up with the golden rule (quoting myself, sorry): Desperate for revenue? Then don’t annoy […]
[…] discuss web browser ad-blockers like Safari Adblock here from time to time, and since I use it routinely I […]
[…] of web browsers (people not software) — including me — have installed ad-blocking software. In my case, I was driven to it by feverishly animated Air NZ ads on the NZ Herald website and whirling dervish […]