Annoying Online Ads - a new usability report

I'm not a big fan of Jakob Nielsen. I think while some of his ideas may be sound he seems more interested in self promotion and being recognized as "the usability guy" than he is in actually improving the web. His own site at useit.com may be easy to use but it's also one of the most bland, amateurish looking sites that I have seen. It's almost like we're stuck back in the days of Netscape 1.0. Then again, the guy is selling reports to corporations for $248.00 a piece so whatever he's doing seems to be working for him.

One of his latest reports is on annoying advertising techniques, and just how bad they are. It's something to think about when planning your next online advertising campaign. The number one annoying method is the pop-up ad. I think this will go away as more and more people use pop-up blockers. My personal biggest gripe is against ads that make any type of noise, whether it's a voice, music or sound effects. Sites that use this technique have me running away just as quickly as I can click the close button.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20041206.html