ABCNews.com, please stop with the video ad autoplays
It’s early. Very early. Scary early. For me, anyway. And it’s Friday to boot.
But I’m up, I’ve got my coffee, I’m into the interwebs, and my dog is eyeing me suspiciously yet ever hopefully.
I head to ABCNews.com as I do most mornings to check out The Note, an indispensible daily guide to what’s going on in the political scene. (I talk about the strange ways in which ABC News buries The Note here.)
As soon as the webpage loads, jarring noises emit from my laptop’s speakers. And it’s LOUD. There’s background music too. Because I (and everyone) have heard about four billion of these types of transmissions, my brain quickly translated to advertisement which then led my fingers to find some way to shut the thing down quickly and ruthlessly.
At the least, my dog did not seem to be amused in the slightest.
Indeed, it was one of those video ads that play automatically. You see a lot of these now, except in most instances, there’s no audio playing unless you take action by clicking the ad or unclicking a mute button.
To put it bluntly, forcing audio on a website visitor is poor form. It’s jarring and frankly unnecessary. I don’t know what the ad was and I don’t care. I just wanted the sound OFF.
There are a few possible exceptions to this. Salon.com’s use of interstitials come to mind. Even in that case, hearing audio that I’ve not opted in to hear isn’t thrilling, but at least they’re wiping the page content clean and presenting a site-wide commercial of sorts.
ABCNews.com, I say this out of love for you and The Note: please stop with the video ad autoplays. Thank you.
