I’ve always been fan of online advertising and in both points of view. As a online publisher, advertising is indeed important as a income for online business. Or wouldn’t Goggle CEO being flying jets right now. As a customer I also find it useful, specially when it’s site-targeted, since I usually find interesting products. It’s as important to me, as receiving FNAC’s catalogue.
Although Google Adsense doesn’t have any problem and I even use it in some of my websites, I find small niche publishers a more interesting business. Take the example of The Deck: they have their market, they select where they want to place ad, and they get advertising clients that know where they money is being invested, and are willing to pay more than the usual Adsense. I somehow wish more of these indie advertising agencies existed. But they will, in time.
This is why I’m sad about having installed Adblock (the Safari Version) but I had no other choice. For some weeks now, I’ve been getting a lot of “MSN sounds” and “Horrifying Death Laughing” ads, with mouseover sounds. Today when using Slideshare I accidently activated one and it got me nuts.
Mr. Webmaster, if you own a website, and there is a sonorous ad, please remove it. I’m willing to see your advertising, but please respect me.