Tuesday, January 15, 2013

2013: The Year of Autoplay

 
I’ve already been moaning about this phenomenon of websites automatically playing videos as soon as your browser hits the page – often before what you really want is even loaded. 
 
Here are three more sites hitting the blacklist as far as I’m concerned, because they’re doing this heinous thing:
  1. CNN*
  2. The Weather Channel
  3. Idaho State Journal
  4. (Late entry) Local News 8 
Admittedly, the latter is not a great loss as I am not often interested in Pocatello news. But still, I don’t want to hear from the ISJ publisher about some new car-selling service they’re offering. At all.
 
For TWC, at least their autoplay videos aren’t in-house ads (for the moment) but I still want the option to play the video only if I want it played. TWC is launching into them automatically. Bad, bad website. 
 
As for CNN, they don’t have autoplay everywhere, but I note it’s creeping in more and more. 
 
How annoying is autoplay? Go here. 
 
(So it’s not that bad; I just put that together for effect. But it’s that bad in my ears. I don’t want to hear it, folks, so please stop.)

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