Revenge Of The Popup

By | November 24, 2011
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TechDirt points to a new service that beats PopUp blockers. The Popstitial, according to marketing company webadvantage, “doesn’t defeat pop blockers, it instead determines whether a popup blocker is being used. If so, Popstitial then serves up a full-page advertisement that can either be a separate ad or the same style as the missed pop-up/pop-under”. In other words, it will work out whether you’ve tried to block the popup, and punish you with a popup you can’t block. As TechDirt points out, “The reason people install pop-up blockers is because they don’t want to be bothered with these intrusive ads.”

Sadly, this is just another salvo in the war between people who want to pump ads at you, and people who don’t want to have ads pumped to them. But, on closer inspection, it’s also a somewhat alarming escalation. The Popstitial is developed by the FPBA Group, a “California rich media company” (read ad software company). FPBA happens to stand for  “Full Page Banner Ad”, which was a product the company was touting in mid 2001 as “the killer app that the online advertising companies need in order to take this industry to the next level.” The FPBA, it went on

is a full-page advertisement that is displayed on the primary browser session in between page loads. It does not launch a new pop-up session and does not interfere with the main browsing session. The ad is loaded to the users computer after downloading of the main session page, and is cached prior to its being launched when the user transfers out of the main session page. This allows a seamless delivery of web-page — advertisement — web-page progression. The advertisement is not cluttered by surrounding web-page content, and is timed to appear when the consumer has nothing else to focus upon, so that the full attention of the consumer is focused on the advertisement. A multimedia version of the ad, incorporating audio and video flash components is also available where the ads play like a short commercial in a rich media environment.

In English, the FPBA would load in the background as you viewed a webpage, and then appear on your screen when you tried to go somewhere else. The idea is that you’re not looking at a specific web page so it will get your ‘full attention’. I have to confess I never saw any instances of this outside the pornographic world (according to my friend John) so, and I’m guessing here, the FPBA was not the killer app the company thought it would be.

So perhaps the Popstitial (I hate the name already) may do the trick. It’s certainly intrusive enough: According to Internet marketing mag iMedia Connection, Popstitial is a bit more sleazy (my words, not theirs) than simply replacing a pop-up which is blocked by a pop-up blocker. It will notice if a user closes a pop-up window ‘before actively viewing an ad’ and launch “a full-page advertisement to replace the lost pop-up impression. This insures advertisers’ messages are getting across to the intended target audience seamlessly.” These ads could be Flash, video, animated gifs, or static images; they are “fully trackable, geo-targeted, day-parted, and frequency capped” (OK I don’t know what that means but it sounds scary.)

In shorthand: if you don’t view the popup before closing it, or try to block it, you’ll get blasted with a Full Page Banner Ad. Call it Revenge of the Popup.

This is partly testimony to the success of popup blockers. iMedia quote the CEO of FBPA Group as saying that “Many sites, both large and small, have told us that at least 25 percent of all users have some sort of pop-up blocker activated.” Which is impressive. Expect the popup war to grind on.

Is The Era Of The Nigerian Scam Over?

By | November 24, 2011
1 Comment
The Register says that Nigerian scammers are getting run out of town by vigilant ISPs and greater user awareness. The article points to how scammers are having to use more obscure free email addresses — Elvis.com, Irangate.com, Handbag.com, for example — to avoid getting shut down before they can reach their target audience.
 
They’re also trying new angles, the article says: One recent one actually highlights the Nigerian Scam but says such scams are only giving the legitimate fund-looting business a bad name. “When they attempt and fail, the world hears in the news as Nigeria fraud/scam, but when they succeed, nobody or newspapers writes it,” the email says. I kinda like that approach: ‘There are legitimate scams out there, and you’re an idiot if you can’t tell the difference. Oh, and by the way, this one is legit.’
 
However, there’s an important aspect to this. I have no concrete evidence, but I believe that not a few of these ‘Nigerian’ scammers (not all are Nigeria-based, and some do not involve Africa at all) are linked to the more sophisticated scams we’re seeing nowadays, including phishing. In recent weeks I’ve received scams related to the latter sent to unique email addresses I’ve received only Nigerian scam emails from before (and never pure spam). I suspect this might indicate that, at the very least, these groups are sharing their email lists. But it could be more.
 
Nigerian scammers aren’t dying off. They’re mutating.

Zempt And Other Arts of Blogging

By | November 24, 2011
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For those readers already a-blogging, here’s some tools to help. Most bloggers update their website by visiting the website in question. Others do it by email (or even by SMS). But probably the best way to do it is via a blogging tool. Here are the three I know:

  • w.bloggar The oldest, and still my favourite. The tireless Marcelo Cabral who runs it has just this week released a new version to work with TypePad, my blog host of choice, but it also supports Blogger, metaWeblog, MovableType, b2, pMachine and YACS. It’s free, but he welcomes donations.
  • Zempt Has appeared in the past six months, and offers a lot of useful features, including assigning more than one category to a post. Zempt is also free but would be happy to get donations. Works with all Movable Type compatible sites. My only grumble: The version I’m using tends to crash somewhere in the category adding process.
  • BlogJet Just started playing with this one this morning. Works with b2, TypePad, Blogger, Movable Type, LiveJournal and DeadJournal. It’s free while it’s in (time limited) beta. It’ll probably cost about $20 when it’s fully ready. I’m posting this using BlogJet and so far it’s been a dream (neat touch: The first time you fire it up it’s prepared its own little posting on BlogJet ready for you to post. Sassy.)

These are great tools to have. I’m sure that once the big boys get in on the act they will fade away, but the folk behind these programs have done an amazing service to the blogging community, and I hope that if they do disappear it’s because someone bought their ware for zillions of dollars.

A Way To Stop The Keyloggers?

By | November 24, 2011
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Here’s a program that may help you if you worried about the recent spate of viruses and phishing tricks that focus on keylogging — small, often invisible, programs that secretly capture what you type, especially when you’re entering passwords .

System Mechanic 4, a collection of software tools from iolo technologies, includes parasite-fighting tool called SpyHunter(TM) which “seeks and destroys annoying and dangerous spyware, malware, adware, and other notorious malevolent applications, plug-ins and ActiveX controls that fly under the radar of antivirus solutions”.

SpyHunter also “protect users from keyloggers”, although the press release I got doesn’t say how. I will check out the software and get back to you.

System Mechanic 4 Professional includes Panda Antivirus Platinum 7.0 antivirus and firewall, System Shield, Search and Recover, and DriveScrubber. There’s also a Popup Stopper tool, a disk defragmenter and something called NetBooster, which claims to speed up Internet connections by up to 300%. The whole kaboodle costs $70.

Television By Air

By | November 24, 2011
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Is this the future of browsing? A gadget that will capture whatever you want to capture — whether it’s TV, websites, movies or other stuff — and then pump it to you, wherever you are, via its removable display?

AkibaLive say Sony Japan will release the Air Board (LF-X1) on March 12. The Air Board (sometimes called AirBoard) is a 800×600 TFT LCD color display, that comes with a Wi-Fi integrated base station. The television display panel can be used anywhere there’s a Wi-Fi connection to view whatever you’ve saved on the base station.

That does sound kinda neat. The trick seems to be in the speed: AkibaLive say the Sony Air Board utilizes a special version of Wi-Fi called Hi-Bit Wireless that uses up to seven channels simultaneously.

Sony appear to be about to launch the gadget in the U.S. too. But it raises some questions: This is definitely NOT a PC, so where, exactly, does it compete with the TabletPC and other portables? If it’s on price, that’ll be a first for Sony. Secondly, I’ve never been happy buying Sony because of the way they lock you in to proprietary stuff, such as the MemoryStick, software and cables.

Here’s some more on it from Sony and here.