Is anyone else out there as angry with Mashable as I now am, thanks to their ultra-intrusive online video ads? As soon as I click on an email link, I start hearing a commercial that’s playing on the Mashable site. Often, I cannot even easily find the commercial that’s playing so I can pause or stop it.

As a media psychologist I have trouble understanding what Mashable thinks it is gaining by alienating its viewership for the sake of paid ads no one wants to view or hear. Their paying customers, sooner or later, are going to abandon Mashable once they find out that their intended audience is being turned off by this particular application of advertising technology. As P&G’s A.G. Lafley has said, “The customer is in charge.”

So, Mashable, why are you trying to stop customer control?  Mashable needs to think more about what engagement means and how it works. Consultation services are available….