NewsFlash: People Click on Banner Ads with Fake Dialog Boxes. (and also on Shimmying Dudes)

so i'm guessing most people won't be surprised by this "come-to-jesus" confession by Jakob Nielsen... which i came across because Jimmy Guterman's headline was a lot more interesting than the original.

however what's perhaps more interesting to discuss than the finding itself -- NEWSFLASH: people click on banner ads that are made to look like buttons / checkboxes / dialog boxes... who knew? -- is Nielsen's reason for withholding the data for ~10 years.  Basically, he believes (or believed) the information could be used unethically & successfully by morally ambivalent advertisers to the detriment of Joe Sixpack User.  SHOCKED, i tell you i'm SHOCKED!

In a change of heart, Nielsen more recently came clean & decided that making the truth known / disseminating information outweighed the potential damage that might be caused from black hats using it improperly.  i'm a bit surprised he took so long to come to this conclusion, as it's oft-quoted territory:

• "knowledge is power"
• "power corrupts", however...
• "the truth shall set you free"

and last but not least:

• dumbass users tend to click on shimmying motherfucker dudes

...which of course is what led to the downfall of the Roman Empire, why Faust sold out to Lucifer, and why Bill Clinton mistook Monica Lewinsky for a cigar holder.  and perhaps why you recently refinanced your home and why LowerMyBills got stinkin' rich off lead-gen revenue & got bought for a cool $330M samoleons.  but i digress.

so back to the interesting matters at hand here:

• mildly interesting: deceptive banner ads that use fake dialog boxes really work well
• lots more interesting: jakob nielsen, someone who makes a living as a usability expert and regularly dispenses information about online user behavior on his blog, has been holding out on his readers on this deep dark secret for a verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry loooooooooooooooong time.

now doesn't that make you go hmmmmm.

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btw, thought i'd conduct my own highly non-empirical sample survey about whether people find the fake dialog box thing annoying:

Comments

[Bob Warfield]

Aw come on. Is this really news to anyone?

Hasn't everyone at least "almost" (hey, I'm not admitting anything here) clicked on one of those?

And didn't this stuff go on way before the web was even graphical?

Specifically, weren't direct mail marketers sending envelopes designed to look like telegrams, IRS notices, and anything else they could think of just to get you to open their Spam?

Nielsen may have been revolted by it all, but hey, it wasn't news 10 years ago let alone now.

Or, as my son put it in an embarassing moment when someone asked him what marketing is:

"That's where you lie to people to get them to buy your stuff!"

Cheers,

BW

[Jason Shen]

Hey Dave,

I guess Jakob has just been trying to watch out for us poor and pathetic internet users from the big bad marketers. We should be grateful to have such a protector! (In all seriousness though, 10 years is a long time to hold off releasing info. Geez)

Jason