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A L S O__T O D A Y 21st Log Word redivivus - - - - - - - - - - T A B L E__T A L K Stock options: Is the honeymoon over? Discuss worthless options and great expectations in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Network to Tabloid: drop ads By Brooke Shelby Biggs Outrageous tale of "Subway Whale" prompts protests to site's advertisers (10/05/98) I, robot? My robot! By Janelle Brown With Lego's new kit, you, too, can play God with a mechanical creature of your own design (10/02/98) The 21st Challenge No. 14: High-tech designer drugs By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau Design your own and win a prize (10/02/98) Play money By Andrew Leonard Is Silicon Valley talent souring on stock options? (09/30/98) Let's Get This Straight By Scott Rosenberg Story time -- can narrative save us from information overload? (09/29/98) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE 21ST REVIEW ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.

U N D E R__T H E__M I C R O S C O P E AD-REVIEW SITE SHINES A BRIGHT LIGHT ON THE MYSTERIES OF WEB BANNERS. BY ANDREW LEONARD | Each week, at a new Web site called Microscope, three online advertising agency executives review a different Web ad. No holds are barred. Last week, for example, all three critics slammed a Barnes & Noble banner. But while some ads are being dissected, the site is also serving its own ads targeted at online marketers and ad geeks. In some ways, it's a self-referential hall of mirrors celebrating online advertising -- which might be the average Web surfer's idea of some hitherto undiscovered 10th circle of hell. But the orgy of self-absorption is clever and addictive. Even if you don't really care about the limitations imposed by skimpy Web browser color palettes or Web site rules against looping animations, it's still hard not to be riveted by Microscope's ever-so-late-'90s devotion to advertising deconstruction. Indeed, one of the site's best features is its promotion of plain-spoken negative feedback. Especially in the ad world, any publicity is good publicity. "We've got agencies falling all over each other submitting ads to us right now and trying to get their banners reviewed," says Microscope publisher Andrew Bourland. "It's a good showcase, even if they get a bad review." Bourland also says Microscope -- part of the ClickZ network, a group of five sites all devoted to online marketing -- has no problem selling real advertising space. At Microscope, unlike elsewhere on the Web, there is zero backlash against commercial intrusion. There's nothing more honest, or appropriate, than targeting ads to an audience that has gathered together to watch ad execs rip apart each other's ads. Bourland says Microscope isn't selling the showcased ad spot. The editors of Microscope, he says, choose from the submissions each week based on such criteria as whether the ad will provoke interesting commentary. Microscope doesn't even track the "clickthrough" rate on the featured ad -- the percentage of viewers who actually click on an ad. Which makes for the kind of amusing irony that postmodern advertising aficionados are wont to delight in. For there can be no doubt, even in the absence of actual measurement, that the clickthrough rates for Microscope's featured ads are likely to be very high -- certainly much higher than the rates for the actual ads that Microscope runs. It's only natural for viewers to want to compare their critique of the ad with the reviewers' informed appraisal. If one ad exec says the "jump page" -- the page loaded after the first click -- is truly awful, chances are good you're probably going to want to see that for yourself. In a climate where a 2 percent clickthrough rate is considered worthy of a hallelujah chorus, anything higher is nothing to snort at. The sad truth for the online advertising industry is that overall clickthrough rates have declined steadily since the debut of Web banner advertising some four years ago. Surveys repeatedly show that the longer someone has been online, the less likely that person is to click on an ad. As the Web has matured, the novelty of interactive advertisements has plummeted. The number of people who click is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking," says Bourland. N E X T_ P A G E .|. So how do you make banner ads work?