Interactive Banner: Web Ads

As you will see from the prototype examples in the previous post, the banners remain fixed upon opening or refreshing of the browser. The interaction only begins when the user initiates its functions. I would like to now explain this desision.
As a frequent internet visitor I believe it is important not to upstage the content of a site with crude advertisements. Although some flash pieces are worthy of recognition and prominent display, many make painfully hard work out of simple transitions between sites and pages. You are bombarded with colours, shapes, sounds, text and speech which is usually completely unrelated to the site you are visiting. Many take different lengths of time to load and preload and without Macromedia plugins, Flash banners are rendered completely useless. That's without even beginning to mention the products themselves. The latest socio-technologially 'trendy' artefacts such as Apple's 'i' devices or the latest 'intelligent' beard trimmer seem to be haphazardly slapped anywhere that will take the commission. Where in television you can escape the ads by changing a channel or waiting for the break to end, nowhere seems to be safe ground within the net. With ever greater price-tags for this virtual real estate, soon we'll have no space for content and without control, browsing will become a fully interactive Yellow Pages rather than a tool for communication, publishing and information retrieval.

There are several kinds of web ads. Variations on these continue to appear:

Banner ads: standard horizontal 468x65 pixels.

Sidebar ads (aka skyscraper ads): vertical and scrollable, two to three times higher click-through rate than banners.

Pop-up and pop-under ads: annoying to close, but far higher click-through; higher cost for advertiser.

Floating ads: even more intrusive than pop-ups—they have sound and motion, and produce still-higher click-through numbers.

Unicast ads: a television-like 'commercial' with the advantage of clickability to the sponsor’s site.