Sure, it started on Geocities, but everyone knows that bit of lore. Websites on Geocities had to link back to the main page with an 88x31 button, and it became a trend to modify its appearance while keeping the size the same. After its virality it got codified in the IAB's (at the time "Internet Advertising Bureau", now "Interactive Advertising Bureau") December 1996 "PROPOSAL FOR VOLUNTARY MODEL BANNER SIZES"
The IAB called the 88x31 standard the "Micro Button" and later the "Micro Bar". The banner ad sized became standardised as the IAB gained more and more legitimacy. There was in fact a need for this. Prior to it there were over 250 different ad banner sizes around the web, and users often times could not recognise what was and what was not an ad!
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https://88x31.nl/history.html
Sure, it started on Geocities, but everyone knows that bit of lore. Websites on Geocities had to link back to the main page with an 88x31 button, and it became a trend to modify its appearance while keeping the size the same. After its virality it got codified in the IAB's (at the time "Internet Advertising Bureau", now "Interactive Advertising Bureau") December 1996 "PROPOSAL FOR VOLUNTARY MODEL BANNER SIZES"
Good try @divinicide but i got this history down to a T
The IAB called the 88x31 standard the "Micro Button" and later the "Micro Bar". The banner ad sized became standardised as the IAB gained more and more legitimacy. There was in fact a need for this. Prior to it there were over 250 different ad banner sizes around the web, and users often times could not recognise what was and what was not an ad!
This is the first iteration of the standard: https://web.archive.org/web/19980211033307/http://www.iab.net/news/content/library/decbanner.html
After that, they had some expansions in 2001 introducing additional sizes called Interactive Marketing Units: https://www.iab.com/news/internet-advertising-bureau-iab-issues-voluntary-guidelines-new-interactive-marketing-units/
Tradition from the days of Netscape lmao
bro studied them in college lol