In case it is not clear, the ad that I am talking about is the lovely little stick figure bending over with a black fart cloud speeding out of his bottom, and the whole thing set against a ‘tasteful’ yellow background.
Why would you go to the trouble of designing themes that are visually elegant and attractive and then spit in the eye of the bloggers who use them?
I understand that WordPress.com is a free service. I also understand that there is a no-ads paid upgrade.
I also understand that you can do whatever you want up to and including stopping the WordPress service.
All of this I understand.
But why would you encourage bloggers to aim for elegance and then stick a fart in the middle of their efforts?
I saw this ad when I looked at this site on my iPhone.
The ad is for an iPhone app, so plainly WordPress is clever enough to recognise the device upon which the site is being viewed.
Let’s think for a moment.
With posts being tagged with appropriate words, couldn’t you use those tags to tailor advertisements to appropriate posts?
Surely your algorithms could tell it that such and such a site uses tags like joke, poor taste, crap, fart, rubbish.
Then you could take that as a signal that such a site would welcome – perhaps with open arms and legs in the air – ads like this one.
But when your algorithm sees – suave, elegant, wouldn’t touch a tacky ad like this with a barge pole – why don’t you take the hint and back off??!
What The Ad Is For – In Case You Were Wondering
It’s for an iPhone app – ‘Fart Machine Extreme’
Now with 12 FART APPS in 1! Get the best fart apps in 1 app!
The automatic “Fart Machine Extreme”:
A fart will play when a voice or a noise is too loud. You can set up the sensitivity with one simple slide.
Extremely funny when the iPhone/iPod is hidden somewhere 🙂The mega “Fart Sound Board”:
With this fart board you can play farts easily by pressing different buttons…etc.
Features:
– 12 fart apps in 1!!!
– Tons of different high quality farts
– Very cool high quality design
– Highly ergonomic (Easy to use)
– Extremely funny 🙂
– Play simultaneous farts
– Easy to use
– and most important – IT’S FUN !!!
Fart Machine Extreme – The ultimate fart experience Support
What Was The Article
In case you were wondering, the article here on Light Reading was about 100 shining eyes at Stonehenge…
What do you think? Was the advertisement a good match for the article?
Photograph Works 
Thanks for sharing David. Money makes the world go around. Not esthetics. We are not in control. A Fart Machine? Extreme??? Why?
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Yes, money makes the world go around. And stupidity makes it grind to a halt.
You mean, why does the iPhone app have that name? I would say the name is designed to capture unwary buyers who failed to read the comments of previous buyers who were not impressed with the app, extreme or not.
(And your blog is lovely, aesthetically)
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Thanks for compliment David. I licked it off the screen.
The world is full of farts. Why would anyone carry a fart plagiarizing app? Just seems superfluous.
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Maybe it’s a way to get you to pay for their service, so that you won’t have ads like that anymore.
Sigh
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There’s a thought. I prefer carrots to sticks, though, so it’s wasted on me.
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I feel your pain.
Is it only on the mobile site you see ads? I’ve never seen any ads in the regular WP pages…
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They are on ‘regular’ pages – on laptops etc. – as well.
You have to be logged out of WordPress in order to see them.
I just took a look at FluffyFlurries in Firefox (because I am not logged in to WordPress there) and I cannot see any ads on your site at present.
But they can pop into place at any time.
I looked at Light Reading in Firefox as well and I have ads for brain improvement at the moment…
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oh dear … I didn’t know that — must try. I guess it’s because most of the time, I’m logged in..
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I had no idea that WordPress had ads. I don’t think I ever seen one. But this really sound horrible!
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It’s crazy, isn’t it!
Ads like these, so tacky and rubbish – why ??!
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Apparently WordPress have no sense of style. Or manners. 😛
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Well said,
And WordPress appears to have no common sense.
If you take a look around the forums and you will see lots of complaints about it.
The last time (actually it was also the first time) I saw an ad, it was just the tackiness of the ad that I disliked. But with this latest ‘ad’ there is so much more to dislike.
I had my say. I am not going to let it bother me and I am going to keep on keeping on!
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