What is the purpose of online advertising?

[Marlee]

Harley, it's far from useless. There are BILLIONS of dollars being made via advertisements in one form or another and these people make their living knowing what works. Just because you don't like them or they annoy you doesn't make them useless. I guess it's too much to ask for all that free content and access you're given to be subjected to what, a few seconds of some ad you don't care fore?

And Yahoos record-breaking growth blows your theory out of the water, that the ads "turn people away." Yahoo is considered the second largest "search engine" in the world, behind only Google, based on the number of searches people place for information or content.

The industry is enormous and every day someone comes out with a new software, program or idea to open these social sites up even more to advertising and marketing. Take the new FB Echo, for example. It does one thing and one thing only, make it easier for businesses to get their ads in front of you on your Facebook page.