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Advertising is a part of our everyday life. TV, newspapers, magazines and websites all have some type of advertising. For the most part I am ok with it as long is it is not over the top and intrusive. Fortunately there are several apps that help you read articles without ads like Instapaper.
I use a Reeder on my Mac to subscribe to a number of blogs. Some RSS feeds have ads within them. Its not my favorite thing but it is certainly something that does not bother me.
Recently I was going through some feeds and came across an article from Cult of Mac that really interested me. Cult of Mac does not have ads within their feeds which makes it even better.
Cult of Mac
I clicked on the preview in Reeder and the full page came up.The few normal static ads are there and I was expecting them. So far so good.
Wanting more information I clicked on the link that allows you top open the full page in Safari.
This is where I got shocked. When I opened the page I was greeted with a video ad that is in the middle of the page. During the 30 seconds that ad is playing you can not scroll on the page, read the page at all or bounce out of the ad altogether (there is no option to skip this ad). I found this to be a horrible and jarring experience. If you go directly to the website you do not see the video at all so why it was forced for users coming from RSS Readers makes no sense at all and puts a bad taste in my mouth. If you are going to advertise, you should try and do it in the most thoughtful and consistent manner possible. This fails.
