Lately we’ve been hearing a lot of chatter about the future or death of the banner ad. From our ad sales spies who tell us their clients want something new to the designers who keep telling us that if they have to make one more 300×400 they’re going to kill a baby, we’re hearing about your hate.
The Online Publisher’s Association is right there with you — er, so they say. They’re all excited about the next great thing for the Web. They don’t know where it is or what it looks like or how it’s going to happen, but it is out there and it will save us all. Oh goodie, don’t worry — the OPA is on the job.
No seriously, you’re the ones who are on the job. We have no more faith that the OPA will figure it out than we do in President Bush getting elected for a third term.
It’s laughable that the entire industry is waiting for this saving grace, some application or tool or formula to pop out of nowhere and save the business. But have we considered that maybe we’re experiencing the second phase of a series of volcanic eruptions? Who’s to say that the Web won’t cool off into black hard, volcano rock? leaving us all S.O.L. while we futilely pick at the hard skin that’s forming over online advertising. What do you think; are banners effective, should we expect them to disappear?
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