Web Shorts

IVillage puts the kibosh on pop-ups
Women’s portal iVillage has killed off the intrusive pop-up advertising unit across its network. Such an action raises obvious questions of why an internet publisher would do this amid a still-laggardly advertising market. The answer: iVillage users overwhelmingly express dislike for the pop-up, thus negating much of their value. IVillage polled its users and determined that 92.5 percent of them consider pop-ups to rank among the internet’s most irritating attributes. IVillage did conclude that pop-up advertising can boost brand awareness but not in a positive way. As a result, iVillage says it plans to introduce new, subtler ad formats. "We have built iVillage by listening to what women want, and our move to eliminate pop-up advertising is a direct example of this. It's not news that women consume media differently than men, yet many leading web sites haven't done anything to adapt to this fact,” says Nancy Evans, co-founder and editor-in-chief of iVillage.

WSJ sets up online health section
The Wall Street Journal has added another specialty channel to its online offerings. The publisher has set up a section covering health industry issues. The Health Industry Edition is aimed mainly at health industry professionals. It offers coverage of the health industry, featuring news about pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, insurance and health-care companies, health-related policy and legislation, medical products and research and science. The Health Industry Edition is available to paying online subscribers, or readers can pay $79 a year or $39 for people who take a print subscription of the Wall Street Journal.

Ask Jeeves rolls out a toolbar
Ask Jeeves has introduced a new toolbar utility for downloading by consumers. The toolbar, which is free, gives users the ability to access Ask Jeeves from any web site they happen to be visiting, saving them the trouble of leaving the page or opening up a new browser window. The toolbar pops up alongside the Internet Explorer browser. In addition to letting people carry out Ask Jeeves search queries from anywhere, the toolbar features links to updates on news, weather and finance and lets people look up unfamiliar words with a dictionary function. The bar can be customized. The thinking behind the Ask Jeeves toolbar is that it will reinforce the Ask Jeeves brand and make it easier and more accessible to use.

Rich-media ad companies out with enhancements
Web advertising is about to get even more obtrusive. Two leading rich media makers, those being Eyeblaster and Unicast, have announced expansions of their offerings. Superstitial maker Unicast says it will offer as part of a new Online Format Suite, takeover-style ads in “in-between,” “over-page” and “in-page” formats--takeover ads being the type of internet ad, that, even more than a pop-up ad, obscures a web site’s content. Additionally, Unicast has a partnership with AdForever to offer AdForever’s TopLayer takeover ad unit. As for Eyeblaster, it is offering a new ad campaign management platform for rich media.

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