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I remember way-back (more than 10 years ago) when banner ads on webpages were really something of a novelty and nobody really cared much that a tiny percentage of sites carried these commercial promotions.

Then came the "dot-com boom" and banner ads were *everywhere*.

People still didn't mind too much because by that stage banner-blindness had already set in so most people's brains simply suppressed the content of that 476x60 rectangle at the top of every page.

But then publishers and advertisers got a little more bold and began to deviate from the industry-standard banner ad format. Soon we had skyscraper ads that ran the full height of a page, quarter-screen display ads and (*grrr*) pop-up/over/unders.

It was at this point that I began to reconsider my opinion that advertising was a necessary evil.

And now Flash has become the delivery mechanism de jour for those advertisers wanting to hijack your eyeballs and lighten your wallet.

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Well I'm sorry but things have now gone just a little too far and I'm finding myself increasingly frustrated when I log on.

I've finally broken down and am installing a Flash-blocker add-on for FireFox and tweaking my hosts file to eliminate a whole heap of the most offending adservers -- because I can no longer stand to have my browsing experience destroyed by pages that contain ads which constantly distract and assault my senses.

One of the worst offenders are those ads which change size -- such as the ones often found on the ZDNet Australia website.

How the hell am I supposed to read the content I came to view when it's being moved around the screen by some lame ad that can't make up its mind what size it is?

Likewise (perhaps because I visit a lot) the NZ Herald's website has already had its Flash ads sin-binned so I'll never even know what's being advertised there.

A big "sorry" to those publishers; I know how important advertising is to your business model but you've stepped too far over the "value-exchange" mark and leave me (and a lot of others) with no option but to restore the balance.

But just where does the right balance lie?

Well here's what I reckon...

1. Advertising should *not* be excessively distracting. Let's face it, newspaper ads don't flash, animate or make a noise but they seem to work just fine -- so why annoy webpage visitors by accosting their senses the moment they walk through the virtual door of a website?

By all means allow Flash -- but limit it to interaction -- not visually noisy/irritating "look at me, look at me" type displays. Likewise, animated GIFs should be single-cycle or repeat just once per minute or so.

2. Advertising media files should be *small* and not impede the loading of the rest of the page. Even though broadband is becoming more widely available, lots and lots of people are still stuck on dial-up connections and don't appreciate having to download a 50Kbyte Flash file which simply contains an irritating ad.

3. Advertising should not interfere with access to the site content. That means no pop-up/under/overs, no clever size-changing banners, no overlay ads and no audio!

4. But most importantly of all -- ads should be interesting!

When I pick up a magazine or newspaper I often read the ads, despite the fact they're not animated, they don't jump off the page and they don't play music or make noises.

Why do I read those ads?

Because they're relevant, they contain *information* and they're just downright interesting. This is where most internet ads fall flat on their face.

Your average web-based ad carries no real information, often bears no relevance to the context in which it's displayed and is nothing but an irritation.

Finally, here's something that *all* ad-funded publishers should be doing -- and it astonishes me that they're not: Keep the ads on your content pages but also put copies of all your ads on an "advertising" page where people can go and browse to see what's being promoted.

It would cost virtually nothing to do this yet it would provide advertisers with a good deal of extra exposures/clicks and sometimes, just sometimes, people really want to look at ads!

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