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 …

Once everyone's favorite buzzword, convergence is no longer the stuff of dreams. The Internet has blurred many lines between different media, and that's good news because with every blurry line, we get yet another ad vehicle. Some work and some don't, but almost all are worth a try. To that end, (and this is not an endorsement, just something I stumbled upon in my inbox) Ten Square, a Silicon Valley company, is making interactive advertising accessible to everyday life - one gas pump at a time. Point-of-sale (POS) advertising is one of the oldest concepts in the book, …

As pessimism spreads across the U.S. online advertising land this holiday weekend, following disappointing earnings announcements from DoubleClick, trouble at 24/7, Yahoo and others, I thought it might help to look to the rest of the world, namely the United Kingdom, for some good news. And good news it is. Online advertising continues to grow at a staggering rate in the UK, surging over 200% year-on-year in 2000, a survey showed on Wednesday. Total spending on online advertising totaled 154.7 million pounds ($221.7 million) in 2000 up from 51 million in 1999, the survey by UK's Internet …

A few minutes ago, DoubleClick, an indicator of the health of the online advertising industry, announced financial results for the first quarter of 2001, and provided a business outlook for the remainder of the year. There's definitely room for optimism. According to the announcement, DoubleClick exceeded consensus analyst expectations despite a weak online advertising environment. The company reported revenue of $114.9 million for the first quarter of 2001, an increase of 4% over the same period last year. Gross profit for the first quarter of 2001 was $64.5 million, a 12% increase over gross profit of $57.6 million in the …

Don't do a double-take. The Internet Advertising Bureau is taking on a new, more contemporary name. Meet the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The name change is an attempt to attract a wider variety of members to the organization. And they're changing membership requirements to go with the new name. In an effort to concentrate on building confidence in and promoting the value of interactive advertising and marketing, the IAB will expand its membership eligibility to include all companies actively engaged in the sale of interactive advertising and marketing. That means that interactive TV and wireless advertising firms can now …

We know that women outnumber men on the Web. It's time advertisers took advantage of that knowledge. A new study by Millward Brown suggests that as the primary decision-maker in household purchases, online women represent a crucial market for advertisers, especially in the consumer packaged goods arena. The study suggests that women take to the Net to look for actionable offers or relevant product information, and that a sizable chunk of this information-gathering comes from ads. According to the study, 60% of study respondents said they click on banner ads to acquire more information, while 34% go back …

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but today was not a happy day for the media industry, at least on the Wall Street side of things. First, we learned that NBC has pulled the plug on NBCi, and will immediately begin cutting the size of its work force as it prepares to scale down the business. NBC executives said during a telephone press conference that continued softness in the ad market, particularly a collapse in the Internet ad business, made it impossible to keep the company going. Déjà vu, anyone? "NBCi was highly dependent on other …