The Digital Dark Ages By Joel Hladecek
I have been developing Interactive work for over 15 years, and sadly, my son may never see any of it. That’s because we are living in what future generations will undoubtedly call: The Digital Dark Ages.
This all came to a head with renewed force for me a few weeks ago, when an interactive agency contacted me as part of a vendor pitch. They were very proud of themselves for having “innovated a brand new kind of banner ad”. One that allowed the user to interact with the brand/store/product within the banner itself, all without leaving page the banner was on. They went on to imply that it was the first time this had ever been done, and wasn’t it a brilliant solution.
I generally agreed with it being the right direction – well, righter than the static alternative – except that it had been done before, and frankly, many times. I know because, my old company, Red Sky Interactive, did it, to name one. A lot. And as far back as 10 years ago. And it worked then.
This isn’t the first time I’ve come across such a disconnect from past efforts. Especially in advertising. It seems to me that advertisers “discover” the same basic, big ideas, a couple times each decade. And each time it’s hailed as a “truly innovative solution” all over again, as if it hadn’t happened the first time. This doesn’t just happen with banner ads either, but all sorts of basic interactive principles, interface techniques, and solutions based on newly observed user-behavior. I honestly don’t think this is a case of selective memory, to their credit I think they truly believe they invented the idea. In part because they probably had to. Redundant though it may have been.
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