Blogger, Google Reader, Gmail, now Google Homepage.
It seems that Google is taking over what I do on the internet more and more. I am surprised that it ended up this way, as I was never really a Google fan or a fan of monopolies. But these aren't services that I am paying for. To be honest, I don't understand it. I don't understand why Google Reader was made... for fun? All I know is that I like it. What I am not comprehending here is in this day and age of everything being about profits and money, is that there is not anything on Google Reader that leads me to believe that there is any profit for Google in it. There's no ads.
Sure, many other Google services have ads of some sort, like how Gmail has text ads way off to the side (of which I have found a way around, more on that later), and there is even a service of Google centered on supplying (right word?) ads.
However, the ads in Gmail did not bother me when they were there, and it is probably due to the existince of more annoying ads like those with animations, and "Throw the strudel at the can with the red dot to win an iPod", or worse, Pop-ups! I don't visit websites with Pop-ups and I don't support businesses that use Pop-ups to advertise themselves. Actually, I'm not sure which I detest more, Pop-ups or the mini-game ads... I'm torn. Of course now, whenever I visit a site that has lots of ads, I simply refresh the page and then click the stop function (the browser button that is a red X) as soon as the text loads and before the ads load.
Of course, that can be a bit of a challenge, some sites are more complicated than others. It can be a bit of a game, really, to try to click the stop button in that millisecond window where the text is loaded and the ads load. When a site has ads down the right margin, like on the stories of the Wiire, I simply click "Restore" in the upper-right of the browser, then I move the right edge of the browser window to the left so that I don't see the ads. If a site has ads down the left margin, I don't bother with the site.
What I used to do with annoying ad sites that I wanted to read a story from, was that I would subscribe to the site with Google Reader so that I could read without ads. Then, I started "sharing items" on REPriiSENT, and because I didn't want to mistakenly link REPriiSENT readers to a site with annoying ads, I stopped following those website's stories altogether.
It is a shame really, seeing as a lot of those sites with the annoying ads are "professional journalism sites" like New York Times or MSN. Nothing screams "professional journalism" to me or spurs me to read a story like being assaulted and distracted by shiny ads, even ones within the text of the story, "story continues below." Like reading a story turns into some sort of early Easter Egg hunt with lasers and blinding strobe lights.
I guess it is these things that make the Google Ads on Gmail seem so much more acceptable. Now, I don't even have to deal with Google Ads on Gmail. If you add a Gmail Inbox Preview "Gadget" to your personalized Google Homepage, you can see the latest 5 to 15 items, and if you click on the title of the Email, the email message will pop up with no ads on the side or nothin'. Yeah, that's beating the system.
Awhile ago, long before I started blogging, free Blogger blogs used to have required banner ads on the sites to support Blogger. Now, with the advent of Google purchasing Blogger, and those ads going bye-bye, (here it comes) some bloggers have chosen to pepper their blogs with text-based ads!
In a post I made some time ago, I talked about how I was glad that those people chose to put Google Ads on their blogs, because now, with all the revenue Google is getting from having people choose to put those ads on their blogs for a profit, I do not think they will ever go back to the old system!
I don't want there to be ads all over the internet, so I don't visit/support websites with annoying ads. I like shiny and flashy lights at concerts, but not while reading an article.
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