I was just catching up on my daily news fix and one of the sites I visit every day in News24 as it seems to be one of South Africa’s most up-to-date-up-to-the-minute news portals…
Sadly however I found myself getting more and more irritated with News24 and can see myself looking for news elsewhere in future…
The problem is this little advert/info window that pops up on the bottom of every page. Yes, it’s been there for some time I know and it does allow you the option of minimising it “for today”.
The problem is this…
a) Why can we not disable this irritant permanently…?
b) Why, if I disable the irritating thing “for today” does it reappear when I click on another section of News24 and have to disable it again “for today” for that section too and each section thereafter…?
Surely by clicking the disable button I’m telling Media24 I don’t want the damn thing appearing on my screen!!
Yes, I know it’s all about hits and revenue but Media24 need to balance this with the user experience. They may think that the only thing that counts is the business side of things… but they need to be reminded that it is their users that drive the clicks/hits/visits etc.
By forcing readers to hit the same minimize link several times each day is falsely inflating News24’s statistics which in turn is misleading their advertisers. Surely a ‘mature’ internet business like Media24 knows that unique visitors are what count. Unless they’re going for clicks and fraudulently presenting them to advertisers as meaningful figures…?
I have no problem with ‘ordinary’ online advertising but these little pop-ups are like junkmail forcing you to dispose of something you never wanted or asked for in the first place and even after having said you don’t want it you still get it.
Time to up your game Media24… dismiss your readers/visitors user-experience at your peril. You may be the Gulliver of South African media but piss off enough little people and yes, even the gigantic Media24 will be brought down.
Don’t be so arrogant and dismissive of your readers.
Fix it…!
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