Who Clicks On Those Online Ads, Anyway?

Ever watch TV when those 'info-mercial' style commercials come on TV? Ever sit there and think 'Who the heck buys these things?'. Yeah, me too, only I ask myself the same question about online advertising. Like Google AdSense links and other 'sponsored' links that you read at websites. Who clicks those things?

I guess I really ask that since I don't do too much frivolous purchasing (if my wife's reading this, my new server wasn't a frivolous buy) and maybe that's where I fail to connect with advertising like that. I never buy things at the check-out stands at stores, I never get the 'suggested' additional purchases, like at Amazon.com or anything. I know what I want and I don't want anything else.

One of my favorite blogs to read every now and again, Dooce.com, is totally plastered with advertising. That's how she makes her money (I wish I could pay for my mortgage with blogging--'course I need a mortgage first), but again I ask, who clicks on these things??? I mean, I see an ad for Bush's Baked Beans and ask 'Who in the heck is thinking about eating baked beans while at her blog?'.

But no more. I've recently gotten a new Firefox extension that basically blocks advertising. Anything that comes from a known ad server gets automagically banned, and when other Flash items are displayed, there's a convenient block tab attached to it to zap it if it annoys. if you're interested in it, make sure that you have Firefox installed, and then jump over to https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1865/ to install this neat extension.

Be warned that it can cause problems with sites. At my banking site I can't logon with it enabled, so if some safe sites aren't working properly, consider adding the site to this extension's 'safe list'.