Basically, using this technique you can trick users into clicking PPC ads like adwords. It is a method to get around the fact that in JavaScript, for security reasons, you can't set the mouse position.
The idea is to make a silverlight control (here, a fake video player), where I have put code to hide the user's mouse cursor and replace it with a bitmap of a cursor. When he tries to play the fake video by moving his mouse towards the play button, the fake cursor moves towards the play button but his real cursor moves towards the ads (see the example below). He doesn't see the real cursor move because it is hidden by the script. When he hovers the button with the fake cursor, it lights up like a jack-o-lantern and he clicks it, but what he doesn't notice is that his real cursor was actually over an ad, and that the video player lighting up was just a diversion.
To see the technique in action, go to
hxxp://extremeupdates.1stfreehosting.com/Videos.htm
and try to view the (fake) video.
It doesn't work everytime (there are a few bugs I have to fix too). But it is certainly MUCH better than standard clickthrough rates.
Obviously, you don't have to use Silverlight to get this to work. Flash would do as well, and I'm sure you could even adapt it to work only using JavaScript. I used Silverlight because I am very familiar with the technology and it offers more flexibility.
Bhavya :tee:
The idea is to make a silverlight control (here, a fake video player), where I have put code to hide the user's mouse cursor and replace it with a bitmap of a cursor. When he tries to play the fake video by moving his mouse towards the play button, the fake cursor moves towards the play button but his real cursor moves towards the ads (see the example below). He doesn't see the real cursor move because it is hidden by the script. When he hovers the button with the fake cursor, it lights up like a jack-o-lantern and he clicks it, but what he doesn't notice is that his real cursor was actually over an ad, and that the video player lighting up was just a diversion.
To see the technique in action, go to
hxxp://extremeupdates.1stfreehosting.com/Videos.htm
and try to view the (fake) video.
It doesn't work everytime (there are a few bugs I have to fix too). But it is certainly MUCH better than standard clickthrough rates.
Obviously, you don't have to use Silverlight to get this to work. Flash would do as well, and I'm sure you could even adapt it to work only using JavaScript. I used Silverlight because I am very familiar with the technology and it offers more flexibility.
Bhavya :tee:
