It seems porn is responsible for pop ads

[Klen]

Saw some random meme about father of pop-ads, so i was curious about it and checked wikipedia entry about dude: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Zuckerman

I find this part particularly interesting:

The business model of this website was exclusively based on advertising. After one of the website's major advertisers complained that one of their banner advertisements had appeared on a page that celebrated anal sex, Zuckerman imagined a way to associate an ad with a user's page without putting it directly on the page.

Anyone knows which paysite could be on that page? Tripod era was quite long time ago so i dont really remember which paysites were relevant then.

[sarettah]

Well porn has always been credited with inventing the popup ad by some folks.

Robin Nixon has been the name I have most often heard as the inventor of the popup but back in 2005, on Oprano, he clarified that he was not actually the inventor but indicated that he first saw it being used by microsoft in 1994.

This is a post he made on Oprano regarding that:

Originally Posted by Robin

Sadly I can't lay claim to inventing pop-ups...

What happened was that in 1994 I got involved with Microsoft in the UK because I was running the UK's first Internet radio station Cyberville Radio. BBC2 came and did a big piece on us and so Microsoft contacted me because they wanted to push their Explorer browser they said "would I like to come and see some cool new stuff you could do with IE" - so off I went to MS HQ in the UK and they showed me a load of stuff without NDA!

One of these was a way to make a radio station pop-up off the page so that the audio remained playing when you changed web pages. They had only just come up with this but it was part of the spec for html and worked with Netscape too - MS just happened to be the first to use this facility.

So - off I went and created ABC-web - Active Banner Consoles - hence the name Consoles as now used. My 'invention' was to tie the pop-up in with traffic sharing programs. And Consoles were cool then - they just became so over-used it was horrible - we stopped using Consoles as soon as we saw this and moved onto the Eureka newsletter (but that's another story).

And I believe it *was* Timon that did the one thing I wish I had thought of - he beat me to the concept of the Exit Console. That was a brilliant development of the Console and we actually copied him by giving all our webmasters the option to make their ABC-web Consoles Entrance or Exit and about 80% went to Exit.

So, if Jim did that pop-up of his before 1994 then he was first - otherwise I reckon it was Microsoft & me

The Jim he is referring to is Jim from greenguyandjim. He claimed to invent the popup in 1996

This is a post from him:

Originally Posted by JimB

Too Late
Back in early 96, when I wanted to learn how to do everything, I wrote a little script that when you clicked on a button, a picture would pop up. My partner then, Doug from Dougsden...decided to take my script and use it for a Cybererotica ad when you entered one of their sites. Hence, the advent of the popup

I don't know who Etan Zuckerman is, I had not heard of him before you posted that.

I worked for a company in 1999 that laid claim to (and I cannot remember what they called it) inventing the endless chain of popups where you closed one and it opened another and on and on. Only way out of it was to click into the join page and then you could usually close from there.

Also, interestingly, the first popups i remember encountering were actually for a non adult product, some spycam thingie. They were popping that from mainstream sites all over the place.

Lastly, Klen, were you aware that:

For advertising inquiries you can email marketing at gfy.com

I read that somewhere, thought I would pass it on.

[sarettah]

Just found this:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e...n%20the%20site.

In there it says that Zuckerburg is credited with creating it in 1996, if that is true then based on what Robin said, Microsoft would be the actual inventor and Robin woudl be one of the original implementers.

I go with Robin on this.

Edited in: I believe after Robin posted his story he corrected himself and moved the date to 1995, not 100% sure on that. The data I am looking at is cut off on the particular post.

[sarettah]

I managed to get the full post.

I stand corrected - it was 1995 when MS contacted us. Initially Microsoft were showing me their new ActiveX technology they were developing. We worked with them for about a year building a version of the radio station site that worked beautifully with ActiveX (rotating 3D logos and stuff too). And then when they released their new browser we were in the favorites of the UK edition for a while. When Netscape 2 came out in about March 1996 with Javascript & plugins we started letting our radio programs pop-up in that browser too (previously I believe we had to build a frameset to keep the player in) that's when ABC-web was formed. Initially we used the Consoles across all our Freesites seeing tremendous increases in traffic - we only brought the collective consoles out in approx January 1997 - FM was the first to sign up and had button #1.

So, in the adult arena there's no way of knowing whether Jim's implementation was before or after our Freesite consoles. But in non-adult...

[money biz]

Originally Posted by Klen

Saw some random meme about father of pop-ads, so i was curious about it and checked wikipedia entry about dude: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Zuckerman

I find this part particularly interesting:


Anyone knows which paysite could be on that page? Tripod era was quite long time ago so i dont really remember which paysites were relevant then.

First popups I seen was on terra.es. Dhtml that could extend off browser. My guess 2002. Obviously the innovators was torrent sites because that's who always had the best code :x

[plsureking]

Originally Posted by Klen

appeared on a page that celebrated anal sex

were there decorations and gift bags? sounds like a fun celebration

good infos sarettah and klen

#

[$5 submissions]

Adult is responsible for tons of innovations in online marketing and video content distribution

[CaptainHowdy]

Originally Posted by $5 submissions

Adult is responsible for tons of innovations in online marketing and video content distribution

#fatfoo . . .

[ravo]

Originally Posted by money biz

First popups I seen was on terra.es. Dhtml that could extend off browser. My guess 2002. Obviously the innovators was torrent sites because that's who always had the best code :x

Not even close. We ran exitforcash.com (exit console affiliate program) in 1998. Now defunct, of course.