Banner Ads, a blast from the past

Virtual Economics:

Some people seem surprised today that Facebook, a radical disruption in digital media if ever we saw one, isn't a very good platform for the old model of monetisation via banner ads.

Banner ads! Scott Karp swiftly debunks the notion that banner ads could ever have been the solution here. Banner ads are what media first came up with when we still thought in terms of things "moving online" and tried to replicate the old print/TV/etc model of surrounding (or - for a while back there - even interrupting) content with marginally relevant commercial messages. Nice idea if you think attention is still abundant - if you haven't already see Umair here on why it's not (ppt). That banners don't work on Facebook shouldn't make us worry about Facebook but it should make us worry about banners.

Read the whole thing, it's quite good.