Cockroaches and Pop-Up Ads

The Atlantic published recently some great historical (as of this writing) essays about two staples of the Internet: pop-up ads and email (aka “cockroach”).

They’ve come with some great quotes as well.

The first, on the beloved pop-up ad:

Along the way, we ended up creating one of the most hated tools in the advertiser’s toolkit: the pop-up ad…Specifically, we came up with it when a major car company freaked out that they’d bought a banner ad on a page that celebrated anal sex.

Read the rest