While a study from the Interactive Advertising Bureau claims online ads are up 7% for each of the first two quarters marking a sea change, see Online Advertising Showing Signs of Recovery… and the Motley fool cites a WSJ article claiming similar good news for web advertising in Web Ads Cycle Up… Some attribute context sensitive search engine ads for at least part of the upswing. But don’t get too excited. A Reuters article, Web Search Content Ads Seen Falling Short shows the search engine ads to be serving up ads that people treat like banners.
This all seems to correlate with eye-tracking studies of people’s viewing habits that show that they stare at the “content well” waiting for the content of a page to appear, and don’t pay attention to banners, images, and navigation, unless they don’t find what they are looking for. Which only portends a future where content and advertising are likely to become (more) blurred.
