Past & Present - Internet advertising

The first online display advertisement — a simple, clickable image — appeared online over 16 years ago. Fast forward to 2010. You're likely to see display ads — image, text, video and rich-media formats — on most of the websites that you visit. These ads are crucial to the Internet. They provide information about thousands of products, services and businesses. They help to fund the web content and services that we all use. And they enable large and small advertisers to reach new customers, increase sales and grow their businesses.

I've watched display advertising evolve from a series of simple, static images, to the incredible creative units that we see today. The best display ads today are often like mini-websites with complex animations, stunning graphics or videos, interactive and social elements. As technology enables better ways of matching ads, they're becoming more relevant to the audience that views them and the website that hosts them. In addition, they're bought and sold across the web more seamlessly than ever before.

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Facebook Office in Hyderabad, first presence in Asia.

Who says the City of Pearls has lost its sheen or face to the Truckus In what is a major thumbs up for Brand Hyderabads image as a global IT destination,social networking site Facebook has announced plans to set up a centre in the city.

Facebook,which at last count had more than 400 million active users globally including over 8 million in India,said it was setting up shop in Hyderabad in a bid to support the growing number of its users,advertisers and developers in India and across the globe.

The Hyderabad centre,which incidentally will be Facebooks first presence in Asia,will house online advertising and developer support teams and provide round-the-clock,multi-lingual support to the social networking sites users and advertisers globally,the company said.

Though Facebook did not specify its India investment, hiring figures or the location of its office in Hyderabad, buzz has it that the company is set to log into a swanky address in the Hi-Tec City area that houses global IT giants like Google, Oracle, Dell and Computer Associates. On the other hand,the citys Gachibowli area is home to biggies like Microsoft as well as homegrown IT biggies like Wipro and Infosys.