The World's First Banner Ad

An anonymous reader submitted a link to what they claim is the the internet's first banner ad. It comes from 1994 HotWired, paid for by AT&T. It's ugly, but no animation, no popups. It makes me a little nostalgic.

Can't see it

[adrianbaugh]

I went to have a look, out of curiosity, but privoxy killed it by size... Ho hum :-)

Re:Can't see it

[LehiNephi]

I also couldn't see it at first--I apparently have an Adblock rule that kills it. Good to know that new technology works on old problems, too.

Re:Can't see it

[suwain_2]

I don't use privoxy or AdBlock, and couldn't see it.

Re:Can't see it

[WebCrapper]

Don't worry, my eyes almost got burned out of my skull looking at this thing...

Re:Can't see it

[LDoggg_]

Same here. Apparently privoxy doesn't like "banner.jpg"

mirror [cox.net]

Dammit, firefox!

[lilmouse]

My installation of Firefox isn't blocking it :-(

Stupid firefox, I'm gonna get a *real* web browser, like Lynx - Lynx wouldn't show me the banner ad!!

--LWM

PS My god, it's ugly! We've come a long way! Not sure if that's good or bad...

Gotcha!

[toofast]

I AdBlocked it just before I was tempted to click on it. Bastards won't get me that easily.

Re:Gotcha!

[Potor]

proxomitron wiped it too. i thought the banner at the top of the site was the banner in question. god, is it awful!

Re:Gotcha!

[Malicious]

Adblock.. right.. that's why I can't see it :D

Re:Gotcha!

[Guppy06]

"Adblock.. right.. that's why I can't see it :D"

You were warned that if you did that too much you'd go blind!

um

[theCat]

it goes to a joke site. Can we get some verification of the authenticity of this? Anyone from the old HotWired days want to comment?

Re:um

[tpgp]

It's genuine.

Was a bit in the news last year on the 10th anniversary.

The comments on this adblog post [blogs.com] have a little more info.

And its bloody depressing that this image is linking to crap you don't want to look at 10+ years on....

Re:um

[macadamia_harold]

Is Hotwired still around?

In CBG's voice...

[truthsearch]

Could this domain name BEEEE more annoying?

Re:In CBG's voice...

[yotto]

Yeah, as a poor text-only user, a domain name that almost takes up the entire 80-column display is an insta-skip.

No kidding!

[DigitalJeremy]

that's just silly, and kinda hard to take seriously

Re:In CBG's voice...

[netfool]

I'm thinking of registering theevenlongerlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdoma innameatlonglast.com, just out of spite.

IMP

[dotpavan]

dont forget to use tinyurl for people to get there

Re:In CBG's voice...

[prockcore]

You can't. The limit is 63 characters, and they're at 63 characters exactly.

Re:In CBG's voice...

[leabre]

I wonder how many buffer overflows a domain like that can expose in IE?

Re:In CBG's voice...

[FidelCatsro]

It could be in 1337
http://tehl0ng35tl1st0vtehl0ng35t5tuffattehl0ngest zorzd0ma1nn4mea7l0nglast.com/PWNZORZ [tehl0ng35t...nglast.com]
Much more annoying

Click Through Rate?

[mikesmind]

I wonder what percentage of people who click from Slashdot will buy today?

Hey Taco

[Anonymous Coward]

If animation bothers you so much, why do you allow it on your own site?

Anyone else remember when Hemos and CmdrTaco violently swore Slashdot would never have Flash ads?

Re:Hey Taco

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else remember when Hemos and Taco swore that Slashdot would never have a subscription level?

Money makes everyone compromise their values.

Re:Hey Taco

[PriceIke]

.. which happens at the point you realize that [enough] money CAN buy pretty much anything in the world.

Re:Hey Taco

[jonwil]

When it came down to a choice of allowing flash ads vs not having enough advertisers to pay the bills, the choice was clear.

Unfortunatly, advertisers want flash ads (which isnt surprising, a flash ads is easier to create and potentially a smaller file than the same ad as an animated gif due to the vector nature of flash files) and slashdot has to comply to get the advertisers.

Buffer overflow!

[caluml]

Hmm! That domain name overflowed a buffer in Firefox, and now I have teams of Hungarian hackers fighting Russian hackers for control of my Linux box. Don't click it!!

Re:Buffer overflow!

[ndansmith]

How do you type "pwn3d" in Cyrillic? I've always wondered.

Re:Buffer overflow!

[Stradenko]

Since /. seems to strip non-ascii junk, see my transcription [cowsgomoo.org].

Re:Buffer overflow!

[AzureWrathHal]

Best website ever.

Re:Buffer overflow!

[caluml]

What really freaks me out is people that try to type in Cyrillic, but without using Cyrillic characters. Let me try with the Russian word for Russia: POCCNR. How did I do?

Re:Buffer overflow!

[Stradenko]

I looked at that and saw "Rossner" ... your last two letters are too backwards to make any sense (to me) ;)

Re:Buffer overflow!

[OneOver137]

0+7334H0! (excellent) "aht-leech-na"

Re:Buffer overflow!

[lilmouse]

What character encoding are you using? <mind boggles> You're not ...using the Windows character encoding are you? This is /.!!!

--LWM
PS - any russian haxor is gonna be able to type "p0wnd" juuuust fine.

Re:Buffer overflow!

[Stradenko]

$ file pwned.txt
pwned.txt: UTF-8 Unicode English text

Which makes sense, since my locale is en_US.UTF-8. I didn't think about using any specific encoding. (I assume it was readable)

PS: As for your PS ... the original question wasn't how does a russian hacker type p0wnd, it was how would it be written in cyrillic. (an alphabet used by more than just russians [wikipedia.org])

Re:Buffer overflow!

[lilmouse]

Ok, now that I can read it ( :-p ), I must say, the 2nd one you've got there isn't exactly pronouncable. FWIW. Considering we're transcribing a badly typed bit of l33t-spe4k to cyrillic, I guess that's rather minor... :)

--LWM

Re:Buffer overflow!

[Stradenko]

My cyrillic comprehension is rusty, but I thought it was pronouncable...like "pooned" (like the animation from pwned.nl [pwned.nl]).

Re:Buffer overflow!

[lilmouse]

It's got a silent "y" not a "u".

--LWM

Re:Buffer overflow!

[Stradenko]

Touché.... Revised. Is the revision more correct? ... Not that anyone cares anymore :)

Re:Buffer overflow!

[lilmouse]

Yes, but...yes, no one cares anymore ;-)

--LWM

I think...

[blorg]

How do you type "pwn3d" in Cyrillic? I've always wondered.

...you just did

Re:Buffer overflow!

[Joe Random]

How do you type "pwn3d" in Cyrillic? I've always wondered.

In Soviet Russia, Cyrillic pwn3z you!

Previously covered by "ClickZ" in 2004

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

http://www.clickz.com/experts/media/media_buy/arti cle.php/3430381 [clickz.com]

Re:Previously covered by "ClickZ" in 2004

[oliana]

It's TEN YEARS OLD. Of course it's been covered before.

Re:Previously covered by "ClickZ" in 2004

[chris_eineke]

Yeah. We'll get the dupe in another ten years... this time around with a Google TextAd image. :P

And just think....

[beyond_the_blue]

...they've gotten MORE obnoxious since that.

10 years later...

[wombatmobile]

Google honed the concept of relevance in advertizing with unobtrusive text ads.

Secret sauce: relevance

Result: Profits and a market cap of $130B [yahoo.com]

Compare this with the fate of the company that paid for that first banner ad [yahoo.com]...

Re:10 years later...

[protohiro1]

I remember those "you will" ads AT&T ran. They were really cool if I recall. I have tried to find them on the web, or at least a list of what att said we would be doing and check the score...

Re:10 years later...

[jackbird]

I definitely remember "Pay a toll without slowing down" was one of them. I think of it every time I go through the 45 MPH EZ Pass express lanes.

Re:10 years later...

[TubeSteak]

Unfortunately, where I live, we don't have 45mph EZ Pass lanes.

That didn't stop me from trying, after one of my friends told me that they'll still work at a healthy speed.

Did it a few times... until I started getting pissed off letters in the mail telling me to slow the F down.

Moral of the story: Just because they work at 35mph, doesn't mean you can ignore the 10mph posted limit.

Kind like flashing banners: Just because you can make them, doesn't mean you should.

Re:10 years later...

[Fenris Ulf]

Here in Denver we have ExpressToll arches over our tollways, and don't even have to slow down at all (posted speed limit is 70MPH).

Re:10 years later...

[jackbird]

On some highway-to-highway interchanges (like the NJ to PA turnpike interchange), they have Express EZPass lanes with posted 45 MPH speed limits. Given how many poeple walk around toll plazas, I'd never want to blow through the slow lanes.

Re:10 years later...

[Per Abrahamsen]

The "you will" was followed by "and the company that will bring it to you: AT&T".

The fun thing is that while most of their predictions was true, and they actually had all this great technology working in the labs and even as products, they were copmpletely unable to market it. The AT&T commercials were about brand, not products. So all the incredible cool stuff the brilliant people at Bell Labs cooked up, never reached the consumers. A huge waste.

Re:10 years later...

[ceoyoyo]

Secret sauce... unobtrusive so I don't hate them, relevant so I actually might think about looking at them.

As opposed to the standard, irrelevant so there's no way I'd ever look at them on my own but obtrusive so maybe I'll accidentally do it.

Re:10 years later...

[Per Abrahamsen]

Doen't look that bad. [yahoo.com]

Worth slightly more than 10 years ago.

First spam email in 1978?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

First spam email in 1978?
http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamreact.html [templetons.com]

Re:First spam email in 1978?

[fishdan]

great link. Amazing to see RMS at it even way back then.

Re:First spam email in 1978?

[Intron]

Interesting claim. See RFC 706 [faqs.org] entitled, "On the junk mail problem", by Jon Postel, dated Nov 1975. There were less than 100 systems on the net when this RFC was written. This may also be the first mention of "denial of service" attacks.

Re:First spam email in 1978?

[CrazyTalk]

Old post. No digg.

LOL, I can't believe I licked on thelink!

[photovoltaics]

I can't believe I clicked on the link... to a banner ad!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I find this...

[Billosaur]

...more interesting. The World's First Patent [thelongest...nglast.com]

More Retarded Links

[31415926535897]

Since we're posting stupid stuff from stupid websites, here are a few more from that website:

A Slashdotter Can Dream [thelongest...nglast.com]

Stuff You Already Know (but is likely wrong now) [thelongest...nglast.com]

Hey, This one actually has a [thelongest...nglast.com] computer reference [norvig.com]

You Have Them All Memorized, Right? [thelongest...nglast.com]

Yes, The Creators of This Website Are Morons [thelongest...nglast.com]

Funny

[Back Slider 1969]

The world's first banner ad links to the world's worse joke. Interesting.

Screw this

[dada21]

If I can't punch a monkey, shoot a duck or try to slash the ninja, I'm not clicking!

How far we've come in 12 years!

Re:Screw this

[timster121]

Unforunatly, you can't find good mortgage rates, either :(

Nostalgic indeed

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Ah, those were the days. It doesn't flash, or Flash, or move, or make noise, or anything. It just... sits there.

/me wipes away a tear.

Re:Nostalgic indeed

[redheaded_stepchild]

And yet somehow the choice of colors still made me want to rip my now-pulsating eyes out of my skull with a ragged spoon. Why, oh why would you want psychedelic swirl for your font color?

Re:Nostalgic indeed

[russellh]

Yes... although half the web at that point was <BLINK>ing...

First audio ad

[Patrick_Seaman]

I believe that the following is the first audio ad. In the early days of AudioNet (Broadcast.com), we began to have problems with other sites deep linking and hijacking our content, passing it off as their own. So, I decided to create an ad that would identify the source "Thank you for listening to AudioNet!" -- which would preceed all our content. I recorded the clip on my perlcorder in my car, in back of AudioNet's home on Elm Street, in the Deep Ellum part of Downtown Dallas. First audio ad [patrickseaman.com]

Which word are you supposed to click on?

[digitaldc]

Are you supposed to click on HERE? or are you supposed to click on YOU WILL?

I mean if you click one word or the other they will take you to different internets.

Banner Ads are dead

[EVil Lawyer]

At least, non-dynamically created banner ads. In The Future, all ads will be dynamically targeted, based on one metric or another. Banner ads will have to adapt or die.

I wonder . . .

[cashman73]

if some poor schmuck has saved the very first piece of spam email sent,. . . EVER!

Re:I wonder . . .

[giant_toaster]

First ever spam email sent. It was in 1978!

DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T. THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY OF COMPUTERS HAS EVOLVED FROM THE TENEX OPERATING SYSTEM
AND THE DECSYSTEM-10 COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE. BOTH THE DECSYSTEM-2060T
AND 2020T OFFER FULL ARPANET SUPPORT UNDER THE TOPS-20 OPERATING SYSTEM.
THE DECSYSTEM-2060 IS AN UPWARD EXTENSION OF THE CURRENT DECSYSTEM 2040
AND 2050 FAMILY. THE DECSYS

Re:I wonder . . .

[nsayer]

But of course [templetons.com].

In the real world

[CrackedButter]

If you reused another persons advert from 10 years ago, what would the implication be? This just got me thinking about old adverts being recycled by other companies.

AT&T's "You Will" campaign

[zsazsa]

This was a part of AT&T's "futuristic" "You Will" campaign. Anyone else remember the commercials 12 years ago? A lot of the things they promised, like attending meetings in your bare feet, checking out at the super market a shopping cart at a time, are now possible -- just not with AT&T's technology. Sorry, guys.

ad-rag.com has the old TV commercials [ad-rag.com] -- but you have to pay €2 for the privilege. :(

Re:AT&T's "You Will" campaign

[Ariane 6]

I remember them. I was in 6th grade and thought they were the coolest ads ever. The motif was copied by Smith Barney several years later, IIRC.

Re:AT&T's "You Will" campaign

[the chao goes mu]

You just made me feel very old. Those ads are all over VHS tapes I still watch from time to time. 12 years? God, I am old.

Re:AT&T's "You Will" campaign

[RobertB-DC]

or the O-S-C-A-R M-A-Y-E-R commercials teaching me how to spell my first word B-O-L-O-N-G-A.

In an early variation of targeted advertising, possibly by region, my Oscar Mayer ads taught me B-O-L-O-G-N-A.

Re:AT&T's "You Will" campaign

[narcc]

Which beats the wikipedia version, which taught us B-O-L-O-G-N-A-A...

Re:AT&T's "You Will" campaign

[the chao goes mu]

I doubt I taped much tv when I was 3, though consumer VCR's didn't exist when I was 3 either,
The point I was making was that I tend to think of those tapes as recent, and they're already 12 years old.
I mean, there are worse things. I have a tape with part of an episode of Miami Vice, and another with half of the premier of Werewolf on Fox.
And, since you asked, I saw Star Wars multiple times during its original theater run.
Satisfied I am old enough?

Too bad it wasn't patented...

[One Louder]

It's a real shame that somebody didn't take out a business patent on this - this is an area where stifling of innovation might have been a good thing!

First Slashdot Banner Ad

[AlabamaMike]

Does Rob still have the first /. banner ad? That would be some cool nostalgia ...

Slow news day?

[mmell]

Then again, why do I have this strange urge to switch to AT&T?

fnord

AdBlock

[BiDi]

AdBlock is effective even against such banners. I couldn't see the banner until I disabled my filtering.

468x60

[Bender Unit 22]

So they defined 468x60?

Re:468x60

[Puggs]

Took me a while to figure out you meant dimensions - I thought you were talking about some bastardisation of Intel and Motorola processors... ;-)

Phooey. Prodigy used 'em circa 1987.

[dpbsmith]

Nonsense. In the late 1980s, Prodigy was using ads that were banner ads in every sense of the word. For all you young whippersnappers, this was before the days of the Internet and HTML. Prodigy used a protocol called, um, NAPHTHA? NABPLANALP? NAMBLA? NAFTA? Anyway, it used a highly compressed format to deliver graphics that looked like Tangrams over the blazing-fast 1200 bps modems that had recently become available.

It was a joint venture of IBM and Sears, and was marketed as being a highly family-friendly

Re:Phooey. Prodigy used 'em circa 1987.

[marco.antonio.costa]

Ok grandpa... sure.. time for your medicine. :)

Re:Phooey. Prodigy used 'em circa 1987.

[tgd]

Crap. I was reading that thinking how silly all that point and click stuff seemed to me at the time. CompuServe, GEnie and services like that were far more useful for national networks, and local systems were better still. So that, and my birthday looming in a couple days, makes me really feel like a grandpa.

On a similar note, I'm racking my brain and can't remember what the name of the software in the late 80's that became trendy for doing graphics over a BBS was. It was sort of like the graphics language

Re:Phooey. Prodigy used 'em circa 1987.

[John Courtland]

Hell yeah I remember Prodigy. My dad and I would sit on there for hours playing MadMaze. In fact, you can still play MadMaze [prodigy.net]. Those horrid graphics...

We were on there once during a lightning storm and our modem caught some extra juice and it melted the buzzer. Thank god it didn't waste the PC. That 286 was like $2400. I must have been about 7 years old at that time.

Doesn't look so old to me...

[measure]

It was pretty savy of them back in 1994 to think of this:
"Thousands of technical jobs online now.. added daily.. (Click to find your perfect job)! "

Hmm, did Yahoo hot jobs exists back then? Oh, right I need to RTFA!

Not the first banner ad

[koltrane]

This may be the first WEB banner ad, but Prodigy was running advertising banners along the bottom of their EGA screens back in 1991 (and probably earlier). If you think this looks primitive, check out the ZEOS banner on this ZD Prodigy page (Date Unknown)

http://www.styla.com/images/port_prodigy_full.gif [styla.com]

One big ad

[MikeTheMan]

An article about a site with a banner ad on it?

If this isn't a Slashvertisement, I don't know what is ;-)

Pot meet Kettle

[Wizworm]

Funny how TFA wines about Banner adds but is hosted on a page with a HUGE banner

Am I the only one...

[Anonymous Coward]

who has Slashdot's RSS feed at the top of their Gmail inbox, and thus saw this as:

Slashdot - The World's First Banner Ad - 3 hours ago

The more things change....

[SomeOtherGuy]

"It's ugly"

Oh yea, banner ads are much more sexy and pleasant today.

Re:tads.biz

[liveinthemix]

I like this idea.

Well better than the milliondollar homepage idea anyway.

Re:tads.biz

[trollable]

You're right. This ad has probably the lowest CPC.