Wednesday, June 20, 2007

No More Banners?

Pity the poor banner ad. Cutting-edge just a few years ago, this pioneer of Web advertising is now scorned as hopelessly out-of-date, a neglected stepchild in an era of Web video, widgets, mash-ups and social networking.

But Web sites don't want to give up this key revenue source: Basic display ads still accounted for $3.4 billion in U.S. online ad spending in 2006, or 21% of the total U.S. online ad market, according to research firm eMarketer. So many marketers are furiously trying to jazz them up. [More]