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The World's First Banner Ad

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the it-didn't-need-to-blink dept.

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.

15 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Gotcha! by toofast · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  2. Buffer overflow! by caluml · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!!

    --
    Get your own free personal location tracker
    1. Re:Buffer overflow! by ndansmith · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  3. Re:um by tpgp · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's genuine.

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

    The comments on this adblog post 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....

    --
    My pics.
  4. 10 years later... by wombatmobile · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    Secret sauce: relevance

    Result: Profits and a market cap of $130B

    Compare this with the fate of the company that paid for that first banner ad...

  5. First spam email in 1978? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

  6. LOL, I can't believe I licked on thelink! by photovoltaics · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  7. Museum of Internet Atrocities? by Caspian · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Perhaps, some day, stuff like this will be presented in a Museum of Internet Atrocities, collecting the history of spam, banner ads, pop-unders, Flash ads, DDoS attacks, tubgirl and goatse?

    --
    With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
  8. Re:In CBG's voice... by netfool · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --
    Left 4 Dead Gaming Group - http://www.l4dgg.com
  9. Screw this by dada21 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!

  10. Nostalgic indeed by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  11. AT&T's "You Will" campaign by zsazsa · · Score: 4, Informative

    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 -- but you have to pay €2 for the privilege. :(

  12. Dammit, firefox! by lilmouse · · Score: 4, Funny

    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...

  13. Not the first banner ad by koltrane · · Score: 4, Informative
    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

  14. Re:Previously covered by "ClickZ" in 2004 by oliana · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    --
    In Soviet Russia, asses suck this joke.