Buzz Marketing.

Bleary-eyed I switched on my computer a few days ago. Tabbing through various sites and email accounts, I was struck rigid by the dreaded sound of a whining hard-drive. It couldn't be failing so soon! All my attention was focussed on shutting things down and limiting damage.

And then I saw it. For this was not a damage alert, but the "mosquito" buzz imposed on me by an appalling ad on my dreadful old lycos email account. If I clicked through on the ad, I could rid myself of the annoyance.

Ah yes, so that would be interactive advertising designed to engage me with your product and harbour feelings of good will. And not just another nail in Lycos's staggeringly user-unfriendly email service (and now Yahoo's as well).