Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

To the sadness of absolutely no Web surfers, pop-ads—and other forms of disruptive media—dropped this year by 9 percent, to the point where it’s worth barely 0.7 percent of all online advertising dollars, according to an Interactive Advertising Bureau report released in London. “The random scattergun approach is dying out,” said IAB chief executive in the U.K., Guy Phillipson, according to a story in The Guardian newspaper.

Here in the U.S., “pop-ups are irritating advertisers” and it’s not even something that the U.S. chapter even looks at, said IAB’s U.S.-based Senior VP Sheryl Draizen. “We don’t even think about it anymore. It’s not what online is all about anymore. Popups were an issue for us four years ago.” Draizen was pushing stats that show online ad purchases—for the first six months of 2006 compared with the first six months of 2005—increasing by 37 percent. That compares to the same period ending 2005 of 26 percent, 39.7 percent for 2004 and 10.5 percent for 2003.