Banner advertisers on the Internet don't know diddly.

The Internet is not television.  Die-hard surfers want speed.  That should be obvious by the ever-increasing push for faster and faster Net connections.  There's no quicker way to alienate a web surfer than to make him wait on a 50K flash ad to load before he can see what he came to see.  Isn't that counter-intuitive to the purpose of advertising?

Is some dork sitting in a big office on Park Avenue thinking, "Let's see how big I can make this ad so I can alienate everyone who sees it.  Then let's saturate the market with this ad until the average Net surfer has seen it ten jillion times.  Our product name will be a household word (of what to avoid)."

No, I don't think the ad people are thinking that.  That's the problem I don't think the ad people are thinking at all.

Advertising is to sell things:  Ideas or products, it doesn't matter.  I think text ads on the Net are the direction that advertisers should take.

Metafilter and Blogger both use small text ads that:

• Display within the page.
• The ads are inexpensive.
• Anyone can purchase them.
• They load fast and change with every load of the page.

I've sat and reloaded a page a dozen times to check out the ads. Now I've never done that for a banner or popup advertisement. No-sireeeee.

Now RedRival is going to offer a similar service.  I surely hope netizens jumps on the bandwagon.

As I sit at my computer in my nightgown, I feel a diddly coming on.  In the world scheme of things, this is an insignificant ripple.  On the other hand, it continually bugs me.  So it's time to let off a little steam about it.

The last time I was in the states, I bought a blue flannel nightgown.  It's very pretty with blue lace, pink ribbons and flowers, and crocheted trim.  The bodice has three pearl buttons.  The designer must have decided that these buttons are rare and might be needed immediately if one of them popped off because an extra pearl button is sewn into the hem of the gown.

Everytime I sit down while wearing this nightgown, this spare pearl button stabs me in the leg.  When I roll over on the button in the middle of the night, I feel like the princess sleeping on the pea --which feels more like a boulder when I'm sound asleep.

Now for the diddly... why in the world would a nightgown manufacturer reason that I would need an extra pearl button for a nightgown?  In what circumstance would it be imperative to have an extra matching button for a garment that is only worn in the privacy of my own bedroom?  It isn't like I'd be at an important business meeting in my nightgown, and say, "Oh drats!  I've lost a button.  I must have a matching one immediately to sew back on."

I didn't buy this nightgown at an exclusive boutique.  If I could afford to buy anything at an expensive boutique, I'm sure I could afford to pay someone to mend my nightgowns.  I bought this gown at K-Mart.  Are K-Mart shoppers really all that worried about missing buttons or that all their buttons match on what they wear to bed at night?  Really!

Ouch!  And for that I have to keep getting poked in the rear.  Now why didn't he include a pair of scissors to cut the annoying thing off?