At any given time, I've usually got at least half a dozen browser windows open with different sets of content open in a multitude of tabs in each window.  I usually leave these windows open at all times, even when I leave the computer for the day/night.  It's easier to just leave things open than to have to relaunch everything every morning.  I use USA Today as my homepage and it's always open in one of the browser windows I leave running on my computer.

But here's what bugs me:  When I sit down at my computer in the morning, USA Today has opened anywhere from 3 - 12 popup windows with advertisements on them.  Who's looking at those ads?  No one.

I realize USA Today is a news site.  It reloads every X number of minutes.  Each time it reloads, another popup is spawned.  That's why, depending on the amount of time I leave the window open, there are sometimes a dozen unviewed advertisements sitting on my desktop in the morning.

It's good that USA Today reloads every so often.  That makes it a great homepage and they know that.  But the problem is two-fold.  For one, the constant refreshing inflates the company's page view numbers.  When my browser is open to USAToday.com and refreshing on its own, I should still count as one page view.

The second problem is that no one is even going to see the advertisements that are popping up on my computer screen.  Those companies are paying for advertising that is falling on blind eyes, so to say.  When I come in and start my day, do you think I look at those ads?  Of course not.  I, like most people, close them all out to get them out of the way.

So who's footing the bill for all of these unviewed ads?  I know I can't be the only person in the world using USA Today as their homepage.  I know other people are doing the exact same thing that I'm doing.  If I was one of the companies paying for advertising in popups on USA Today, I'd be upset that my advertisements were being shown to empty computer screens and displayed on automatic popups that might never been seen.

The lesson here:  be careful where you advertise.  Do your homework and find out exactly how, when, and where your ads are going to be shown.  If Gannett told you that your ads would appear in popups that spawn regardless of user interaction, would you be interested?