This cracks me up – Web 2.0. It’s interesting how a catch phrase gets started. If anything, the burst of the dotcom bubble should signify the change of version, but it wasn’t until recently this term has become so ubiquitous. There are many things that folks equate to Web 2.0: Web Standards, blogs, broadband, and AJAX, but these have all been around for a while. I don’t like the distinction of versioning. The web wasn’t re-installed with upgrades overnight, but I digress. Let’s focus on web advertising, or better yet, the evolution of web advertising and I’ll use the 1.0, 2.0 vernacular.

Web 1.0 Ad Types

In the beginning there was the banner ad, one size, 468px by 60px, dictated by Yahoo!. Now there are a zillion sizes and little standardization. This really needs to be cleaned up a bit.  The banner ad is annoying, yet rather passive and easily ignored, but here to stay. Also in this category are interstitials, which are ads place in line with actual content rather in the header, footer, or margins of a page as banners usually are.

Then, in a moment of inspiration the pop-up ad was born - I believe from use in porn sites. This has spread like an STD and plagued the web for years, but I haven’t seen one in at least 2 years due to the ingenious pop-up blocker. I use the Google variety. It’s fun seeing how many ads you didn’t see. This form of advertisement is almost completely ineffective and very obtrusive.

The next generation of pop-ups was floating, or overlay ads. These monsters are contained in the same browser window as the page being viewed, but display on top of the content. To this day I cannot believe this is acceptable. It's bad web. 

2.0 Ad Types

The most interesting form of web 2.0 advertising is viral marketing. This wasn’t created; it just happened and was adopted by ad agencies. In its natural form it’s peer-to-peer, honest sharing of information, but what has happened companies create fake interest in a product or brand by using email, portals, ezines and blogs. Many times the advertiser’s efforts are wasted because they are exposed, or cannot emulate true interest that is generated by real people.

Advertisers are creating video and audio commercials specifically for the web or at least with the web in mind as a secondary medium. This is a recent phenomenon because of the effectiveness of viral marketing. These messages can reach a target audience for a fraction of the cost of conventional broadcast media. It also allows companies to produce outrageous ads that could never exist anywhere but the web. Sites like YouTube and Kontraband provide the forum to display this content.

Blogs and the blogsphere have become the fertile ground of viral marketing. Usually containing text, blogs can also include images, audio and video content. Bloggers publish to their sites daily supplying the web with a constant stream of collective consciousness. I call it reality web. People tend to believe what they read on blogs, although there’s no guarantee of authenticity on the web.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention podcasts. Podcasts are audio and sometimes video downloadable files that can be played on one’s computer, or portable mp3/video player like the iPod, from which they get their name. This content can be audio books, recorded presentations, or carefully produced pieces and each could have ads placed within the content.

It's hard to predict what ad types the Web 3.0 will bring us. I hope they will be clever and interesting. Maybe if we're lucky we'll stop getting spammed, but I’ll save email for another post.