How do most people feel about audio playing Automatically On Your Websites?

[Cliff Ravenscraft]

Can I just say that I love Social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter?

Today, I was on the phone with a client who had a video with audio embedded on his home page that started playing automatically.

The first piece of advice that I gave him was to turn off the auto play of the video or, at the very least, to have it so that the audio is muted unless the web visitor does something to request the audio.

I decided to demonstrate why I would suggest that this be the first thing he do to improve his web presence by simply posting a question out there in the social networking world.

I simply posted this question....

Please help me help a client by answering this ?... How do you feel about sites that automatically play audio when you load them?

Well, I knew I would get a response.. However, I didn't think I'd get this much of a response.  In fact, since grabbing these screen shots, I've received a WHOLE LOT MORE responses that pretty much all sound like what you can read below....

[Amanda from Michigan]

Awesome! I missed that party....but it's cool to see such great conversations going on.

[stephencross]

Safe to say you hit a nerve.

[davedufour]

I'm with the crowd, too.  I advise my web clients not to do have any video or audio play automatically, but I have one that insists on it. 

The problem is that very often I browse the web sitting someplace where things would be quiet otherwise: in bed with a sleeping spouse, in a library or quiet coffee shop, etc.  When the sound blasts unexpectedly, I get dirty looks and the offending site is thereafter avoided. 

Cliff, you run your video stream when you're podcasting, but I've come to expect it, and it's one of the things I come to the site for.  I turn down the volume if any of the above situations apply.  But generally, I say leave it OFF.

[Cliff Ravenscraft]

Cliff, you run your video stream when you're podcasting, but I've come to expect it, and it's one of the things I come to the site for.  I turn down the volume if any of the above situations apply.  But generally, I say leave it OFF.

I figured that.... Though I can see those who are coming to my site for other reasons could be upset by it.   I run that risk since having them notice that we are live and available for direct interaction is more important to me.

However, I'm totally against pre-recorded content being made automatic.

It's something I stupidly tried within the past few weeks and I thought about it after the fact... Don't know what I was thinking!