Up until 2008, the Internet was most often made up of small communities in the forms of trade or business specific forums, small blogs and personal Web Journals. The popularity of the Internet was constantly growing, however, and it was the introduction of websites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn that harnessed the previously unknown Social stage that the Internet had to offer. Suddenly, it became fun and interesting to connect and interact with just about anybody online, and the growing availability of internet access across the globe only added fuel to the fire as people began using social media to share information - sometimes even faster than major news organizations could.
In the formative times of the Social Web, businesses usually stuck with traditional and practical forms of marketing. "Interruption marketing" - often a call for customers to stop what they're doing to take a look at your fantastic offerings - is a very common type of marketing used in things like television or radio commercials that is intended to catch a user's eye with often flashy or exciting elements. In a society that is saturated with this form of marketing, it's no surprise that many users have simply grown to ignore most of the branded advertisements and messages that they are exposed to - a phenomena known as "Banner Blindness".
