Last week, the New York Times profiled floating ads as the latest consumer annoyance -- while serving up floating ads on their own site!

If an ad floats by while you're reading an article about floating ads, would it annoy you? In last Thursday's New York Times' Circuits section, a piece by Jonathan Miller ran that was headlined: "Floater Ads, the Cousins to Pop-Ups, Evade the Blockers." It seemed designed to make news of the rise in this segment of rich media.

If you did read this piece and you're like me, then you read it on NYTimes.com, and you probably saw numerous rich media applications while you were reading -- from a so-called "floating" ad to an animated IBM Flash ad in their main in-page unit.

So, here was the New York Times, the Great Gray Lady of all print media, giving prominence within its Circuits section to how these otherwise very intrusive ads somehow skirt most pop up blockers -- and in the tenth paragraph of a 13 paragraph story they finally got around to mentioning that they frequency cap their own floating ads to one per user session.

What's going on here? Is this just a bad case of noblesse oblige? Is this more about some real rich-media bashing? Or, is it something else?

The New York Times has long been one of the most creative traditional media branded sites on the web, in terms of its use of rich media as well as its innovation in surround sessions and other units -- such as the in-page Flash unit I mentioned before. Could it be possible that their own editors were unaware that this story would appear on their pages and make them seem so un-self-aware?

In the 24 hours between when that piece hit the web and the newsstands and when I filed this story with iMedia, I have learned that the Times' answer to that question is a resounding, "who wants to know?"

The editor of the Circuits section, Kevin McKenna, replied to my emailed questions with no recognition that there might be even a hint of irony to this situation, pointedly asking me if any of the rich media companies were my clients. Surely, that must be why I would be writing him, no? (The answer, by the way, is no.)

This seems to me such a bizarre situation. Rich Media of all kinds is on the rise, and the New York Times Digital is a big part of its success. I don't know anyone who considers pop-ups to belong in the category of rich media, and I also don't know anyone in the interactive business who is sad to see pop-ups decline.

Why would the same newspapers that profit from rich media then turn around and write about what an annoyance it is to users? Is it just me, or does this seems a bit hypocritical, especially since the mention of the Times in this piece is only about its practices regarding frequency capping? It is not my intention to criticize or antagonize anyone in this commentary.

But, the more I think about it, the more I think that just maybe this piece demonstrates an even stronger firewall between the people responsible for the content at the Times, and the people responsible for monetizing that content.

I asked Gal Trifon, Eyeblaster's CEO, if he could offer any insight. I thought to call him because the images in the piece that ran last week were provided by Eyeblaster, and the URL above the images -- which were screenshots -- had the Eyeblaster name appearing clearly above one of them. But, no mention was made of any of the major rich media companies in the piece itself. Even the reference to DoubleClick in the piece -- which was from one of their recent studies -- made no mention of the increasing role that company plays in Rich Media.

"It's a somewhat awkward situation," said Trifon. "We worked extensively with the author of the piece, and provided all kinds of data to support their story. But, they seem to have wanted to keep a certain distance from it."

Why treat the company that provided elements of the story -- and their industry -- this poorly when this technology and their services not only make you money, but also enable you to write the piece in the first place? While that's perhaps a very rigorous exercising of the aforementioned firewall, it seems more like a prickly barbed wire fence to me.

The New York Times just made a big splash in our industry last week with its purchase of About.com from Primedia for $410 million in cash. The combination of About.com's 22 million monthly users with the 13 million users of the NY Times website will make it the world's 12th biggest company on the internet. As the Times cross-promotes NYTimes.com products to About.com readers, while improving the content and visibility of About.com through its own best-of-breed content, I wonder if we can expect to read stories about how artificial inflation of paid search terms is creating a bubble that will surely burst soon enough.

I love the New York Times and have read it every day online, and in print before online, for more than 20 years. I have nothing but respect for its writers, editors, and tradition. However, I have no idea what to think of its un-self-aware sense of noblesse oblige. Is anyone else wondering what's up with this?

Mark Naples is Managing Partner for WIT Strategy. WIT Strategy is a strategic communications consultancy that serves clients who do business on the web in the US, Europe, and Latin America. WIT Strategy helps these organizations identify and leverage marketplace opportunities, developing and executing strategies that enable them to meet their sales and marketing and/or corporate public affairs objectives in the most cost-effective manner. Formerly the Vice President of Marketing, Investor Relations, and Privacy Officer for 24/7 Real Media (NASDAQ:TFSM), Mark's experience in media, marketing and public affairs with firms such as Ogilvy & Mather and Kearns & West has ranged from lobbying for the "Baby Bells" as part of the Telecom Reform Act of 1994 to the summer 1996 re-launch of AOL.com.