Interstitual Angst

I sometimes read a humour site called somethingawful.com. I clicked on a link today and was sent to an interstitual. An interstitual is advertiser speak for a bait and switch advertising method used on more annoying web sites. You go to catsRus.com and click on “view cute kittens” and instead of sending you to their cute kitten page, they send you to an advertiser’s web site with ads for something you don’t want and a link that takes you back to the actual cute kitten page.

After some initial confusion, I decided to email the owner of the site, Rich Kyanka, to let him know, as sometimes advertisers have been known to slip in popups and extra content without notifying their publishers. Here are the emails, for your ad free amusement.

From:mooche
To: lowtax
Subject: interfuckingstituals???!!!!

I assume you aren’t aware of this… or you really are bonkers, like everyone says.

“This full-screen Active Interstitial is an actual website from one of Something Awful’s premier sponsors. It will appear no more than once per day. To go directly to Something Awful, click on the ‘Skip This Ad’ link. Thanks for supporting Something Awful! Powered by AdBrite”

Lowtax tries to sell me a $9.95 account to his forums.

Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka wrote:

Yeah, they don’t show up for people with forum accounts.

From: Mooche
To: Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka
Subject: Re: interfuckingstituals???!!!!

My eyes are still stinging from that vulgar display, I thought my computer had been taken over by the Russian hackers again. I’d threaten legal action but I guess that wouldn’t do much good. I guess I will have to find another way to waste my employer’s time. :-P I’ll probably end up reading foxnews.com. I think you should apologize to my employer, for the added waste that will entail.

(ed: SomethingAwful has a section about legal threats on their site.)

Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka wrote:
Yeah god forbid you see an ad and actually support a site which gives you free entertainment. Fox News is a good alternative to SA though, I’m pretty sure they’re ad-free.

From: mooche
To: Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka
Subject: Re: interfuckingstituals???!!!!

Oooh! You’re all prickly in real life too!

I don’t have any experience with running a popular internet site, so I guess if you have to periodically replace your entire site with someone else’s to make ends meet, who am I to argue. I think its a matter of degrees, how many pages of ads would you view before being forwarded to an ad encrusted free entertainment page? 2? 10?

Personally. I draw the line at the ad encrusted entertainment page itself. I mean, basically, with an interstitual, you aren’t providing me with any entertainment at all are you? Except maybe the dark humour of how an entertainment web site operator must prostitute himself to continue to make a living in a bleak comedy mining town in Iowa (or wherever you are). All you are providing me is a page of ads, where’s the entertainment? Its like sitting down to watch Survivor: Beverly Hills one night and all they show you are commercials. Then, when you call to complain, they say, “god forbid you watch a few commercials to support the free program Survivor: Beverly Hills” and “don’t worry, we’ll probably have some actual content to show you next time you click”.

I hate you Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka you have destroyed my life with your interstitual!

warmest regards,

Mooche

Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka wrote:

It’s programmed so each user should only see one interstitial per day, so I’m not really sure where the outrage is here. Regardless, if you’re so hellbent against it, continue with your original plan of not reading SA.

From: Mooche
To: Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka

I was going to just stop reading SA, but then I thought, why do that, when I can get ad-free entertainment from Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka via email. The only thing I misjudged was the possibility that you are less humourous via email than via web site. I guess you get what you pay for…

Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka wrote:
I don’t think there’s any way I could possibly be less funny than I am on the website.

From: Mooche
To: Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka

I guess you could send me an ad for viagra as your email reply.

There you have it, my one and only iterview with Internet royalty. Still not sure if I burned him or he burned me, but think it works either way.

7 December 2006 | The Net | Comments

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