This post on Friction-Free Collaboration is interesting and all, but I’m left with such a bad taste in my mouth that I’m inspired to blog about it. (For me that’s a pretty high bar.)
Take a look:
Even before reading the title of the post, the first thing I noticed is the “Ads by Google” module smack in the middle of the first graph. (This wouldn’t be such an issue if they hadn’t also jammed that Yammer logo in there as well.) Such a blatant call for ad clicks bothers me — they’re making their content take a back seat.
The next thing I notice is that the Google ads have been designed in such a way that they deliberately match the callouts farther down the page. Combine this with the fact that they’ve decided to let Google show lists of “related links” instead of the standard text ads in those spots, and I can infer that they’re trying to make the ads look less like ads, and more like content. They are trying to trick me into clicking the ads.
The last thing I notice, now that I’ve been completely distracted, is how many ads are on the page in general:
There are four Google ad placements on the page, all of them designed to “blend in” with the design, attempting to lure readers who aren’t quite paying attention into clicking them.
I know this is all kind of Not News and bla bla bla, but for me this site goes over the line. They managed to distract me enough from their content that reading the post itself was an afterthought, and I have no interest in reading anything else on the site.
I miss the days when Google only allowed you to place one Adsense block on your site. And, yes, apparently my lawn is full of children I must now shoo away.