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Popup ad blockers may no longer be able to screen out the offensive little buggers. Media Daily News reports that this week a California company will unveil a new way to serve an ad impression to Internet users who have pop-up blockers on their computers. They’ll take over the site you’re on with a full-page ad or show you the pop-up in another format. Oh joy.
This is not the answer to advertisers’ dilemna! Sponsored content, live events, being clever rather than obnoxious will win in the end. But we’ll keep being annoyed to death in the meantime.


The so-called “Popstitial’ has been developed by FPBA Group, a rich-media technology company whose primary product is COMMFLASH. Popstitial doesn’t defeat pop blockers. Instead, a code in the ad determines whether a pop-up or pop-under is being thwarted. Then Popstitial serves up a full-page advertisement that can either be a separate ad – using Flash, video, animation or static images – or the same style as the missed pop-up/pop-under.
The developers say that the program attempts to steer a middle ground between a Web users’ stated displeasure over pop-unders and pop-ups and the publishers’ need to pay for content.