This very subject, by the way, is one of the main problems I encounter as a web designer having to work with print-based designers. The Internet isn't a magazine. They're two very different mediums, with very different dynamics. It's true that you can have a magazine on the Internet, but you can't have the Internet in a magazine.

You need to take the Internet for what it is, and stop comparing it to other mediums. Do you compare television to magazines? No. So why compare the Internet? The sooner people start trying to understand the Internet, and the way we use it, the sooner topics like this one will fade.

The simple fact is, internet advertising is here to stay, and if anything it's just going to get more intrusive. Hopefully in time we'll see things settle a little more, and all this experimentation will cease, but for the time being it's just something you have to live with.

"Magazine adverts on the other hand usually aim to push a brand or concept into your subconscious, so that you will act on the impulse it hopes to generate at a later date."

Citizen grayhaze

Yes, I would agree that avertising in different mediams have different aims. I just strongly feel that it should not be the only aim for website advertizing to be a click through to another site. If that reality was true, then a person whould never stay on one site longer than 5 minutes (or less). That actually should make the owner of the site angry because the user is being lured away by an ad (that only pays between .50 cents and 2 dollars.. please!!)

My point is that it should be allot like (like as in similar; almost the same) magazines, newspapers, or billboards such that just the fact that having like over 200,000 people seeing your ad is the way into there subconscious. At a later date, buy into the material or go to the site.

Actually I think internet advertising does not work because its sole perpose is to aim at taking you away from the site your on. If I am reading the New York Times online, I am not going to just go to another site because of an ad, but I do look at them from time to time. It gets into my head and the next thing you know I click on it (it was a real estate ad by the way). It also helps if the ad, once clicked on, opens another page as oppossed to clearing out the page you were on. Then again if the ad was actually thought about there would be a dicussion as to wether or not to do that. (Some ads take you away but show you where you came from on the top of the web page)

The bottom line is that if internet ads got anywhere near as much thought in design, placement, age group, and other factors as magazines, newpapers, or even billboards it would be a far better internet.


Internet advertising has its pluses and minuses much like any other mediam. The magor problem with internet ads is the focus of immediate gratification (or as we call it click - through). That immetiate gratification is not the focus (or for the most part should not be) of internet ads. Just because I can click on it to go to your wonderfully designed and user friendly website, doesn't mean I will. Just because I didn't click on your ad does not mean I did not see it. Just becaue I am on the internet and have the ability to just "drop what I'm doing" and go to your site does not mean I will or that you failed because I didn't go to the site.

Hell, I would love to see an ad that DOESN'T have a click through. That would peak my interest more. You see, design is the key. There are so many ways to advertise on the net, so for crying out loud use them.

I agree that in an ideal world adverts on the net wouldn't only be about click-throughs, but this isn't an ideal world. It's a world, and a medium, that is driven by money and measured in literal terms. Sure, it would be nice to be able to just have adverts which don't intrude on your browsing experience, but the very nature of the medium as a fast-paced interactive experience means that such a thing just wouldn't work.