New York Times - now with TV commercials

Man all-mighty! From what I can discern from their sample page, this is going to torque the hell out of a helluva lotta people who are just trying to read a news story and will probably have to wait for the ad clip to load before the story text appears (if they follow the same code structure that many sites use for current banner ads). But instead of a few seconds wait, we're talking minutes. And those who have slow connections, forget it! ...[sniff][sniff]... Do you smell fiasco?

Casual surfers who are interested in TV spots online download them voluntarily and willingly - that's the holy quirk that has obviously escaped a few folks. And I suspect that the bulk of TV ads they "accept" are not the ones that most would want to see. If they force me to wait for a Ovaltine or Baby Gold Bond Medicated Powder commercial to load before I can skim through one of their slanted newspaper stories, well... no more NYTimes online for me.

Precisly what I was thinking Clay - so I'm wondering - what the hell do the New York Times have up their sleeves? They *must* have thought of that. Also, while I might read at home when the telly is on (and showing commercials) - I always can hold my paper in the way of the telly - if the commercial shows up in the middle of an online article - I have no way of ignoring it. Gaah!

and remember - I love commercials. I would still hate this. Even animated flashing banners distract me from online text - which at best, is difficult on the eyes...

Damn the future, it just comes up behind you and changes everything.

Well, the way I figure it happened is the New York Times online checked its readership and saw they had mostly broadband connections and then figured out how much more money they could make by putting real commercials on the site - even if that causes non-broadband viewers to log out.

Now fortunately we have broadband here at work so the movie loaded surprisingly quickly, and I can't see this sort of advertising being more irritating than those flashing banners that now show up all over web pages.

And peeking into the future ... with the ad-zapping Tivo box making steady inroads, maybe websites will end up being the major medium for commercials.

Scary thought - but you may not be far off. TiVo hasn't caught on in europe yet but similar devices and digital TV is here.

WOnder how this, in the end, will change the brief for commercials? Instead of worrying if we may or may not get the message through to the viewers in the southern states who may not get a New York style joke - the commercials will now have viewers from all over the planet in one go!

And I agree - the difference between flashing commercials and flashing banners is minimal (the sound being the major point of difference). Too many banners on one site make me log off already.

Remember when it was easy to find a non-commercial page on the web?