Push is online information that downloads automatically on a regular basis after an initial user request. Those who have already signed on include American Online, which will implement CDF in the broadcasting of Internet pages and programs for its subscribers, and Pointcast, the first company to publish Push content. And according to a company spokesperson, Microsoft plans to incorporate CDF in the next version of its Internet Explorer browser. But there will always be mavericks, and perhaps Microsoft is missing the point.
Standardization is important, but so is convincing users to bother looking at what's being pushed.
Yoyodyne Entertainment, which has produced over 100 advertising-sponsored games for online clients, is banking on greed. The gaming area, which disguises advertising as entertainment, contains a slot machine where three windows constantly spin and then line up to either match or not. Meanwhile, integrated advertising is being displayed using animated sequences that can be clicked to bring up their corresponding Web page in the user's main browser. If the slots stop spinning on a match, the user clicks on a button to register the win and be entered into a contest. If there is no match, the slots begin spinning again, and waiting to see what happens makes this game as seductive as its Las Vegas counterpart.