Billboards on the Infobahn

They can sing, they can dance, and they're always in your face. Welcome to the latest trend in online advertising.

They go well beyond the usual "banner" ads--those ribbons of information that sit atop your screen, begging you to click on them while you go about your business.

See how Web advertising is evolving

Instead, these new inventions come to your screen quite uninvited and unannounced and they take over. For the most part, they either sit there in the middle of your screen long enough for you to read their message, or they perform a little jig to a digitized tune. In the advertising trade, they're called "interstitials."

At Women's Wire, for example, an interstitial "cover page" that bears advertising pops up before the official home page loads onto the screen. The interstitial page stays up long enough for it to be read, then automatically turns to the site's index page. No additional click is needed.

Word also makes liberal use of this kind of "forced advertising," as many in the industry call it. The interstitial pops up as the user is navigating from one page to the next within the site.

"They're more interruptive, more intrusive," said Rich LeFurgy, vice president of sales and marketing for Starwave, an information provider for online services.

And that's the point, explained Steven Drace, vice president of advertising sales for Berkeley Systems. "Ad agencies are the only place where 'intrusive' is not a bad word," he said, adding quickly: "I say intrusive, but not 'offensive.'"

As the Internet continues booming into the consciousness and computers of the world, Web developers who were once content to put up their pages gratis, now are turning to advertisers to pay the bills. In turn, advertisers are looking for new ways to get their message across as static banners become increasingly forgettable.

Traditional banner ads aren't going away, industry experts say; they just aren't bringing in enough money. So advertisers are trying to get Netizens to sit up in their ergonomically correct chairs and take notice of their work without crossing that fateful line from intrusive to offensive.

"Advertisers are looking for a way to get more emotional, multimedia-rich ads as opposed to just banners," said David Carlick, executive vice president at Poppe Tyson. But he added, interstitials probably won't be replacing banner ads. "I think banner ads are here to stay. Banner ads have their own terrific role."

It's a delicate balancing act. "Something's going to have to change in Web advertising. I can tell you that," said Jason Pontin, managing editor of The Red Herring, a magazine for venture capitalists. "We're finally getting figures from advertising revenues. They're very, very low."

Although the industry is growing, ad revenues on the Internet are low compared with those of traditional media, such as television, radio, and newspapers.

While Forrester Research put ad revenues at less than $30 million last year, the company is projecting ad revenues to reach $80 million this year, according to analyst Mary Modahl. I/Pro, which provides Web measurement and analysis services, put the figure for this year at $110 million.

That may sound like a lot, but it's still a small portion of the money being spent on advertising overall. "I would suggest that $110 million really isn't very much compared to the billions spent by broadcast and print advertisers every year," Pontin said.

"Consider the thousands of Web companies, whose operating expenses are theoretically based on Web ad revenues who have to feed from that very trough," he added. "It's not enough. The very smallness of the amount suggests just how nervous advertisers are about advertising on the Web."

Advertising experts also point out that an ad's mere presence doesn't mean that people will click on it. In fact, click-through rates are estimated at an average of 1-1/2 percent to 4 percent, LeFurgy said.

That's why, Carlick says, "People will use any tool, trick, resource, or gimmick they can to get the attention and commerce of their target customers." That's where interstitials come in.