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Yeah, go ahead and opt-in - if you're cool with AT&T/Yahoo operating an illegal domestic spying program for the NSA, then this Yahoo/Adobe adware is small potatoes.
Yeah, go ahead and opt-in - if you're cool with AT&T/Yahoo operating an illegal domestic spying program for the NSA, then this Yahoo/Adobe adware is small potatoes.
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I guess that's my question too . . . if given the choice why would anyone opt for advertising. Does anyone really like advertising that much?
Also, the book could have used an good editor if he wanted to make it look even remotely professional. On a quick browse I noticed a number of typos and even some flat out factual mistakes (e.g., referring repeated to the main character of Grizzly Man as \"Trevor\" when (I believe) it's Timothy.
He did a nice job with the design but I suspect he didn't imbed fonts into the PDF (bad, bad, bad!) because the fonts I'm seeing are different and quite a bit uglier than the sample above.
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This'll work just fine for me. The people who don't know there are other PDF readers other than Adobe's bloated POS. They can subsidize these \"ad supported\" books for me and others who do know of better PDF reader programs, such as Foxit and Evince.
Cheers!
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Foxit (alternative to Adobe) doesn't work. It shows pictures and picture captions but no book text. Adobe v5 works (no ads) but whines \"won't you PLEASE upgrade me?\"
@artki:
I had just assumed that Foxit would work. Evince worked fine for me, but I don't think too many people know it exists since it's for Linux-based OSes.
I opened it with Apple's PDF (and other image) viewer \"Preview\"-no fuss, no muss, no ads.
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@MonkeyMonk: People who work at ad agencies think we do. \"Why, I bet all of these people are thrilled to hear about our amazing 2-for-1 offer for garden hoses! Even if we do call at 9 AM on a Sunday!\"
@rmz: Obvious difference between ad agencies and telemarketers, but same deal. Just substitute \"call\" for \"insert our ad into the beginning of their favorite DVD movie\" or whatnot.
Opens fine and ad-free using OSX's Preview, as well as Reader 7.0.8.
@Monkeymonk: yep, he's just wrong about \"Trevor.\"
Seriously, the article really needs to give us a better explanation as to why anyone would ever opt-in to these ads. Acrobat doesn't ask you to opt-in until after you've downloaded the PDF, so you get the book content regardless of whether you choose the ads or not. If the digital book was actually well produced, (i.e. with properly embedded fonts, and not all full of low-res jpg artifacts, etc.) and on a subject I was interested in, I'd be much happier to send the author $5.00 or something, rather than letting Adobe and Yahoo earn money by forcing yet more ad creep into the world.
Oh fantastic. Exactly what I was hoping for: ads in yet another aspect of my life. I would much prefer ads to stick to sites like MillionDollarHomepage.com or TrillionDollarBlog.com
I know they are looking to make a buck, but seriously? Do we need to be inundated with commercials and ads at every turn?
Just a thought.
@dancemonkey: The author receives compensation if you click, not just if you opt-in. He is experimenting to see if the increase in readers compensates for the decrease in revenue per reader, compared to selling ad-free PDFs.
Like Google, no money flows unless someone clicks on them. If a reader of the True Films PDF books clicks on an ad, the advertiser pays Yahoo, who in turns gives me some small percent, around 5 cents (I think).
@Kierst_thara: You might opt-in because you respect the author and appreciate his work, in the same way that you might drop a quarter into the violinist's case on the subway platform.
In the specific case of this book, you might want to know that following the publication of this book, the documentary you're reading about is back in production and available online for $5. Sometimes contextual advertising is a win-win. Usually it's irrelevant crap.
As for the fonts, they do look terrible in FoxIt, but look fine in Acrobat7. Are there still print fonts and screen fonts? Maybe he chose the former.
And as for the jpeg artifacts, the content seems to be more than 50% images. I suspect that was to get the size down from 30 MB to < 5MB, which is important if your per-download revenue is 1 cent.
I guess I want to know why I would opt-in at all? I assume the author of the PDF receives compensation, in which case I would opt-in.