Blame it on the season, but everywhere I look, people are talking about weddings. As luck would have it, weddings these days have an online advertising component worth discussing in this column. Here's an example: when the owners of Kleinfeld, one of the nation's oldest and largest upscale bridal salons, recently advertised a designer sample sale on TheKnot.com, hundreds of brides came crashing through their doors, proving that online advertising does work with the right equation. That equation, according to The Knot is "highly-targeted consumer base, highly-trafficked media outlets, relatively low competition, innovative technology and affordable prices." Nothing …

Here's an interesting stat about at-work Internet surfers: of all destinations on the web, people are choosing to hang out at NASA.gov. The Internet ratings report for the week ending April 22 from Nielsen//NetRatings, shows that traffic to NASA.gov spiked 75% as office workers flocked to the site to get the latest video and audio updates of the space shuttle Endeavor launch. Traffic to the site jumped to 567,000 unique visitors for the week ending April 22, making it one of the fastest growing domains at work. Men comprised 56% of the traffic, while women made up 44%. Surfers …

I recently read a column in one of the trade journals where the author blamed the standard banner for essentially killing all creativity in online advertising. You've probably read many an article like that yourself - he's not the first, or the last, to complain about not being able to let his creative juices flow freely within a 468x60 rectangle. I don't support blaming size for lackluster results, but just for kicks, here's a cool tool I found in my web travels that should give all creative complainers an alternative canvas (and no, I'm not talking about bigger units). …

If you're a regular reader of this column, you know I'm very wary of endorsing anything in this day and age, so this will be a first for me. I'm talking about WebSideStory and the release of the latest version of their HitBox Enterprise service, which I think is one of the best website tracking tools available today - http://www.hitboxenterprise.com. Simply put, HitBox can tell you just about everything you could ever want to know about user activity on a site you're considering for an ad buy (provided that site subscribes to HitBox). I won't waste your time …

Here's some data to help us figure out the much debated concept of frequency of online ads. Dynamic Logic's AdIndex researchers have found that the branding value of online advertising plateaus after five exposures in the specific area of "message association." Dynamic Logic defines message association as a metric that helps advertisers determine the degree to which people associate a specific tagline or value-proposition (i.e., Just do it) with a specific brand (i.e., Nike). Their latest findings, based on aggregate data from many campaigns tested, indicate that the "incremental branding value of additional impressions beyond five exposures levels …

The Internet advertising industry celebrated its fifth birthday in the year 2000 and while the future looks uncertain, the past is officially chronicled.The Interactive Advertising Bureau released the official Q4 2000 numbers this afternoon and according to Rich LeFurgy, chairman of the IAB, and Pete Petruskey, a PricewaterhouseCoopers analyst, total Internet ad spending for 2000 was $8.2 billion, a 78% increase over 1999. The figure for 4Q 2000 is $2.2 billion, a 9% increase over 3Q. The bad news is that the Internet advertising sector will probably never again see growth rates like that. "As our base gets bigger and …

I don't give our readers enough credit for the daily inspiration I receive with the feedback to this column. My inbox is full of responses to yesterday's Minute, so I thought I'd share some of them with you. On the topic of bigger banners being more effective (based on CTRs), Jim Meskauskas, Chief Internet Strategist at Mediasmith, wrote: "All of this is to say that the larger, newer and thus more novel ad units elicit greater response. That is no surprise. But this entire issue is predicated on the belief that click-through rates are the end-all/be-all of online advertising. …

The saga of the big banner continues. Cynicism still reigns supreme, but some success stories are beginning to pop up. Yesterday, teen network Snowball.com - one of the early adopters of the new units - released its first set of results. A word of caution if you happen to read these impressive stats elsewhere - like many dot-coms, Snowball is facing financial difficulty and the timing of this release is questionable at best. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the company laid off 33% of its staff and faces delisting from the Nasdaq Stock Market. …

In an effort to go "back to the future," eMOTION! REPORTS.net, the new auto/aerospace site, today said they would begin offering the new "Modular Web-Ad." The approach involves huge 800x550 pop-ups, site hosted streaming video multi-media and 1200x800 message page divisions. Just another ad format idea, right? Yes, but what's interesting about this thing is the thinking behind it. The company took a long look at how advertising is presented on the web and decided that it is very inefficient, says ER publisher Myron D. Stokes. It seems that e-enthusiasts, have asked seasoned advertising professionals to "check their minds …

Here's a shocker: some websites are still not safe havens for personal information. No big surprise, but there's more. As scary as it sounds, the American government is the villain. According to a congressional report released yesterday, people who log onto dozens of federal government sites may be unknowingly tracked despite a privacy policy forbidding it. The report found that 64 federal websites used "unauthorized files" - better know as cookies - that allow them to track the browsing and buying habits of Internet users. The departments of Education, Treasury, Energy, Interior and Transportation used cookies, as did …