New York Post weighs IntelliTxt
Two months after Forbes.com stopping using IntelliTxt to link words in news stories to ads, The New York Post is experimenting with the technology on its news site. The Post hasn't decided whether to use it yet, but the experiment with the technology became public after a test accidentally showed up on the site.
Vibrant Media's controversial IntelliTxt technology puts double blue underlines on paid hyperlinks and pops up ad text when users hover over them. The company says about 400 online publishers now use the technology, but major publishers have avoided it.
Feb 24, 2005 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(2)
Discussion
2 comments about 'New York Post weighs IntelliTxt'I feel this IntelliTXT garbage is "hypertext content spam": it tricks users into viewing an unsolicited ad and directs users to vaguely contextual or totally irrelevant commercial web sites.
This IntelliTXT is an alarming deviation from the fundamental philosophy of hypertext linking.
A hypertext link in the midst of editorial content is expected by users to lead to a destination containing support material, and not to a sales pitch.
This IntelliTXT disruption of user expectations and online etiquette is as disturbing as blog comment spam or email spam.
I consider it the spamming of editiorial content, and completely beneath the dignity of reputable web sites and publications.
My article explains this idea further:
http://vaspersthegrate.blogspot.com/
2004/11/content-hypertext-spam.html
Posted by Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate at February 25, 2005 6:00 PM
On the sites that I have seen that use IntelliTxt, the words that are linked are double-underlined to clearly differentiate the ads from normal hyperlinks.
If they haven't already, most web users should quickly learn that these links are not traditional hyperlinks. This education will occur as more sites use this type of approach for contextual advertising.
I don’t necessarily think that this is “spamming of editorial content.” Publishers control the number of advertisements that appear within editorial content, not Vibrant Media. According to their website, Vibrant Media recommends between 2 or 3 links per page and their technology allows for 1 word per paragraph. While there is definitely controversy regarding this advertising technique, the fact is this solution brings search dollars to publishers. These publishers are in need of an unobtrusive advertising solution to help monetize their site. Ultimately, it’s the publishers decision on how to handle advertising on their site and eventually readers will find the in-text ads useful.
Posted by AdGuy at November 9, 2005 10:12 AM
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