MUMBAI: While most of the times they are harmless and innocuous, the pop ups are nevertheless a constant irritant to net surfers. Yet the in-your-face ads have always worked well for the advertisers.

But looks like the advertising fraternity will soon have to look at an alternative and cheap mean to promote their fare. Microsoft, last week, confirmed that it intends to add pop-up blocking to Internet Explorer as part of its Service Pack 2 release, due the first half of 2004.

According to the media reports, Microsoft plans to include the IE pop-up blocking feature, and will gather user feedback before announcing further details. But the question is how effective will it be. The consumers already have plenty of access to pop-up blockers. Only if the company decides to turn it on by default that would effectively kill pop-up advertising on the Web.

The Nielsen//NetRatings found that the pop ups accounted for 7.4 per cent of all online ad impressions in Q3 2003, up from 3.0 per cent last year. The industry sources suggest that pop-ups share of the online media pie is more than double what it was a year ago.

Despite increased use, publishers and advertisers say they're unconcerned about the prospect of an end to pop-ups. According to the advertisers only few pop-ups are as effective as the half-page ads. Industry sources indicate that Rich media and search are the drivers of the future.

Its only time before they are replaced by something more effective and tech sound.