Kevin asked a while back if Blogads had jumped the shark. If they had not then, I think they might have by now.

I found them highly annoying when they first appeared. I'm no designer but for years I've worked with designers as I taught them how to do migrate their jobs to a digital world. I'm also married to one of the best designers I've ever known. (and I know plenty) As such, while I have the artistic ability of a turtle, I have developed an eye and I can at least tell you if it is right or wrong. Blogads are just ugly. -Or they were.- Now they have passed ugly and are just annoying.

James has one of the most readable blogs out there. Forget for a minute the guy knows his stuff and writes well, it is well designed and easy to read. That and the clean way his "HOT" blogroll works makes me gravitate there first. That was until this morning.

While I'm trying to read his site, there were animated ads spinning, flipping and gyrating on either side of the screen. To make matters worse, the one on the left refreshed about every 3 seconds and the one on the right about every 2 seconds. It was like reading in a disco. Maybe I'm overly sensitive but I had to leave. One animated ad was annoying enough, having them on both sides drove me batty. (yeah, I know... short trip)

So here is my two cents for what it is worth...

Since I'm a guest poster here, I don't know much about blogads. I don't know if you can tell them you don't want animated ads on your site. But I urge all of you who own blogs and run blogads to find a way to eliminate those annoying animated ads. Trust me, in the long run, your readers will thank you.

Update in the extended entry.

I mailed James a heads up and he replied with some interesting points.

They give the site owner approval authority over the design of the ad but once the ad is running, the advertiser can change it to whatever they want within the rather broad technical parameters of BlogAds—even advertising for a completely different product.

Unfortunately, the ads are getting uglier over time. Until a month or so ago, most of them used a smallish logo and very spare text, putting the main advertising message on the click-through page. ... Now, many advertisers are taking advantage of flaws in the ad limitations (which are based on displayed characters rather than actual ad dimension) and putting more junk in there in an attempt to stand out.

I'd guess BlogAds will makes some changes to prevent people from gaming the system. Let's hope.