1994: __Wired.com, then known as HotWired, invents the web banner ad. Go ahead, blame us. The Mosaic browser was just morphing into Netscape in 1994. And if you think ads slow down page loads now ...

One reason the online brand advertising industry hasn't ... many ad-buyers are trained to believe that if Web users aren't clicking on their banner ads, then their banner ads are being ignored.