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May 18, 2007

A Spade Is a Spade, An Ad Is an Ad

I don't know about you, but I feel vaguely insulted every time I click on a Forbes.com link and land on their full-page rich media ad.

It's not that they're serving the ad, mind you, even if the format is intrusive. It's the message in the upper right hand corner providing users with the option to "skip this welcome screen."

Forbes appeals to an educated and sophisticated business audience. The overwhelming majority of Forbes readers are certainly smart enough to recognize an ad when they see one. What Forbes is serving up here is an ad. Nothing remotely "welcoming" about it.

Forbes is not only doing their readers a disservice by running this message, but their advertisers as well.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at May 18, 2007 12:10 PM

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