Agreed that this is a much better alternative than the one in the OP. I don't quite see why the OP is getting so many upvotes when the UX really isn't very nice.
I think this depends on your use case. For the technically savvy, growl-style notifications are great. For a less technical audience, "more intrusive" notifications may be exactly what you need to make sure that the users actually see them.
I have to disagree that they are not suitable for the "non technically savvy".
Programs like ICQ, Zone Alarm, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, Windows Update, etc. have been doing bottom right "pop up, on top" notifications since Windows 95. Top right pop down isn't a very far removal from this.
I do agree that sometimes more intrusive notifications may be what you require, but don't think that the "top of page/app banner" is often the right use case. The best use case I can think of are control systems, where the screen starts turning red, with the main warning message at the top or the bottom. But this is done to allow the operator to see the entire screen to assess the state of the plant/system, with minimal screen estate taken away, and to allow immediate remedy (which of itself will probably remove the alarm condition, rather than the operator manually dismissing).
"I have to disagree that they are not suitable for the 'non technically savvy'."
I agree. That's why I said "may." It depends both on the nature of the notification, as well as on the sophistication of the user.
The sort of system you described sounds interesting. I'm trying to imagine how turning the whole web page reddish would work for common error/warning notifications. I've got a feeling that it wouldn't work well for the web, but it might be worth experimenting with.
Its a carbon copy of the Ubuntu notification system, (the regular notification which fades after timeout)
I think a system of notifications like this integrated into the chrome browser would be a real addition, as the popups now aren't all that nice to look at!
