__1994: __Wired.com, then known as HotWired, invents the web banner ad. Go ahead, blame us.

The Mosaic browser was just morphing into Netscape in 1994. And if you think ads slow down page loads now, readers had to download the first banner ads over thin dial-up connections.

Despite those handicaps, the gaudy banner ad took over the web, 468 pixels wide by 60 deep. HotWired launched with banner ads from 14 companies including MCI, Volvo, Club Med, 1-800-Collect and Zima, but legend has it that the first HotWired banner ad was from AT&T, prophetically asking "Have you ever clicked your mouse right here? You will."

The banner ad powered the web's first explosion. HotWired, a digital offshoot of Wired magazine, soon had more employees than the magazine, launched a search engine (HotBot) and was pulling in $20 million a year in revenue. The banner ad fueled the portal war, as startups ranging from Kozmo to Pets.com poured millions of venture capital dollars to lure net users and secure the elusive "early mover advantage."

Many users hate banner ads and try to block them, but they revolutionized advertising. For the first time, a marketer could actually know how many people saw an ad, and even further, know how many people interacted with it.

Despite the subsequent popping of the internet bubble and the re-evaluation of banner ads, online advertising is now a $24 billion business. Banner ads have mutated into pop-unders, pop-overs, and full-site takeovers. Car companies and smartphone makers still buy enough banner ads to keep web journalists in business.

But when HotWired launched its ads, some of the participants didn't even know they were joining the digital revolution. HotWired hired the ad agency Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer. The agency simply bypassed selling it to clients on the unknown web and just created ads for them, in the hopes they'd be happy with the results afterward.

The real problem for the ad agency was realizing that banner ads would be clickable, so it had to create websites for its clients, who weren't even sure that interacting online was a good idea – or that the ads were even legal.

Nowadays, those aren't problems for ad agencies any more. The advertising industry continues to build on the banner ad, and are now chasing the holy grail of targeting those ads to you, yes you, specifically.

And thanks to banner ads, you got to read this article, and hundreds of thousands like it across the web for more than a decade, without paying a penny.

And for that, this writer would like to wish the banner ad a Happy Sweet 16.

Source: Various

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