My thought is: If you can't afford me blocking ads then do one of two things:
1) No flashing ads. No flash ads (cpu time is mine!) No ads that blur content with ads. And I will turn off ad blocking on your site. If ads have sound and I can't block it I will never visit the site. This is why arstechnica has ads turned off for me, autoplaying video and sound.
BTW I will not turn off blocking of the +1 button or Like or whatever. I just don't wanna be tracked.
2) Don't give free content. Make me pay for it. If I like it I would.
1) The industry is finally realizing that a massive amount of people got pissed by flashing display ads. Up to 14% of the online population uses an ad blocker (much more on HN :).
Last month, the IAB published their new guidelines, including max CPU usage for Flash banners: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676...
I'm working on a product that helps publishers verify that CPU usage from ads served on their site does not exceed their specs, http://www.clarityad.com
Adobe is also investing in this, with their project Adthenticate http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/adthenticate/
"Up to 14% of the online population uses an ad blocker"
I would bet you anything that far more of the general population would use ad blockers if they knew ad blockers existed, and if installation and use of an ad blocker could be made very simple and understandable to them.
My suspicion as well. I was talking to my boss yesterday about the results of this poll, and he had no idea there were addons for blocking advertising.
And, being the contrarian he is, he didn't install one after I told him how to find them on the intertubes. Go figure. :-)
1) No flashing ads. No flash ads (cpu time is mine!) No ads that blur content with ads. And I will turn off ad blocking on your site. If ads have sound and I can't block it I will never visit the site. This is why arstechnica has ads turned off for me, autoplaying video and sound.
BTW I will not turn off blocking of the +1 button or Like or whatever. I just don't wanna be tracked.
2) Don't give free content. Make me pay for it. If I like it I would.