Of course, you could always argue (as I have seen some do) that Banner Ads are "Old New Media", "Web 1.0" and therefore as obsolete as the Old Old Media they were supposed to replace. But with declining returns on all manner of advertising as the target audience becomes more (a) wise (b) cynical (c) broke (d) all of the above, the failings of banner ads aren't standing out that badly.

And who is using banner ads these days? For a while, half of the banner ads I saw on the Web had those annoying pictures of Flat vs. Fat Bellies on them (One Simple Rule to Lose Belly Fat! - was that a John Ritter reference? Sorry.) [/blathering]

The avatar is actually based on the new logo for Jack in the Box fast food restaurants http://www.jackinthebox.com in case you (or your massive readership) didn't know. I always appreciated their cheeky commercials (with the plastic-clown-headed CEO) and have a genuine weakness for their barely-edible 2-for-99-cents tacos. Jack wouldn't hurt a fly (although he has picked fights with other fast food mascots), and neither would I... but a flyswatter shaped like that logo... hmmm...

It never Wendells. But I don't use an adblocker; unless they shove a video commercial before you can see the content, I have no trouble working around ads on the web, and the placement, content and identity of sponsors tell me a lot about the people behind the site that they might not really want me to know. That's why I went nuclear and kicked Google Adsense off MY site for 6 months after they placed Pro-Proposition-Hate ads on my very tolerant blog. But the ads are back now, with disclaimers: "Google believes these are relevant to my content and your interests. Please humor them."

O..... K.....