DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

I opened AOL’s latest junkmail piece because for a change it contains a useful freebie. The freebie used to be the media; reformatted AOL floppies fed several Linux installs over the course of my career (“insert disk 17 of 30…”). Now, the freebie isn’t the media; it’s a neat CD/DVD case that I’ve named … wait for it … Steve.

Inside the case appears a rather hostile advertisement. It’s a pop-up ad about pop-up ads.

When I opened the case, a small loose piece of paper flew up. Being colorful and mobile, it caught my eye. It claims AOL’s new software blocks pop-up ads.

Popup-blocking is a great feature in web-browsing software. Everybody hates pop-up ads; they’re the spam of the web. Blocking pop-up ads is a noble goal and it’s likely to gain AOL some customers.

But to advertise this feature, AOL has used what is essentially a pop-up ad! When I opened the case, this little ad flew up in the air. See this re-enactment. It’s an analog pop-up.