They're everywhere! Part 2

(please read part 1, below, first)

In the last post, I kind of went off onto a tangent of galactic proportions, so let's get back to the original issue. The real point was that ads in TV are becoming longer and more numerous. But it's not just TV where this is happening.

Anyone who spends any amount of time on the Internet knows that web sites simply do not run without some amount of advertisement. Web space costs money, so those who run sites put ads in order to make money, or at the very least, recoup the costs of the web space. With the advent of flash-based advertisement and other fancy-schmancy ads that feature motion and sound and general, annoying in-your-faceness, it's become a big distraction to say the very least. I realize advertisement is necessary, but from the point of view of someone who doesn't use the web to make money, the magnitude and nature of the ads just presents a gargantuan annoyance.

Sure, there are adblock programs, and very good ones at that, which savvy users can activate to avoid seeing those ads, but not everyone has 'em. And my point is the fact that these ads exist and annoy hundreds of millions of people each day.

Recently, ads have even made their way into web-based video. On the popular YouTube, little text boxes sometimes appear at the bottom on your video while it's playing, forcing you to click a little X button to get rid of it. On other sites, such as cbs2.com and espn.go.com, an actual commercial will play before your video, which the video player does not allow you to skip. This can be exceedingly annoying if you happen to be watching many short clips. Each one will be preceded by an unskippable (yes, that's a word) commercial, often the same one over and over. These vid-ads cannot be blocked by adblock programs, to my knowledge.

People think product placement in movies and TV shows is a big deal... a sign of selling out. But I've never seen any endorsements in movies or TV that are as annoying as these web-video ads. I just wish someone would think of another way. If I think of something, I'll let you know.