2004mar06. I used to read Salon.com a lot. Now you have to sit through a full-page flash advertisement (once a day) to get any actual article you’d like to read. First you click on a splash screen, then you watch the ad for a “gaydar"-themed television series created by a rabid right-wing television station, and then you can “enter Salon premium.” Then you are released unto Salon.com proper (or maybe not – the last time I tried to do this, the flash ad kept repeating before it would get to the end), where among the five ads wrapped around the “content,” at least three of them are for the aforementioned Gaydar reality show (I’m just assuming it’s a reality show. That’s all there is now, really). And really, it’s not like I sat around and watched the ad while it was playing. This is a computer I’m on here, and I’ve got nine kabillion windows open. You, my pathetic little flash advertisement, can sit in the background grinding away with whatever memecrap you think you’re cramming into my headspace, but you’re just little numbers spinning lazily in my taskbar. I only see the first frame of the ad, and the last, which, typically, are the exact same things that appear as static ads on the Salon.com content page. Your little robot talkie shill is completely ineffective and redundant. I don’t go to Salon.com anymore, so now even the non-moving advertisements are no longer penetrating my soft, delicate/innocent eyeballs.
Salon.com is like the RealPlayer of media websites.