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30 seconds in I got a big "give me your email address" popup blocking the story...makes it difficult to read.

I barely notice those anymore. Something pops up, I hit ESC and it's gone.

I don't know who they're targeting with those things though. Do they really think that a lot of people will come to a site for the first time, then decide to hand over their email/sign up/whatever after a grand total of five seconds on the page?

Have there been any studies done on this?

Yes, their A/B testing likely shows it's effective over not showing a popup for harvesting email addresses.

I'd be surprised if they actually A/B tested it. Either way, the popup probably did increase the number of email address they got. However, this came at what cost to the bounce rate?

> I hit ESC and it's gone.

You're lucky that even works - you have to specially program that functionality, and I see too many websites that don't, forcing me to find the close button.

And for extra irritation have the close button only fade in after a few seconds....

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