The Logbook: The first online ad

On October 27, 1994, the advertising world achieved a first: Along with the debut of HotWired, Wired magazine’s website, the internet's first banner ad was born. This is a brief story of how the now (in)famous banner ad came to be.

Prior to launching HotWired, the Wired team was trying to figure out how to generate enough money to support it. One idea they had was to do what they were already good at:   selling advertisements . They'd just do it online instead of in their physical magazine.