How exactly are these banners displayed?

[Looney]

What i mean by that, how are they chosen? Because for weeks, i never received the flashing banner, and was wondering what people were talking about. But today alone, nearly half of the threads i go into, i see the damn banner, and it's giving me a headache.

And BTW, is that a scam or is it legit? How the hell could they profit from that? That's $149.00 for 2 nights in Daytona Beach, 2 nights in Orlando, a coupon booklet with a value of $500, 2 passes to a casino, 2 tickets for a 3 night Bahamas cruise, and 2 tickets to disney pleasure island. All this for $149? Sounds like a scam to me.. but could it be? Anandtech advertising for a scam?

 

[Noriaki]

Anand gets payed by an advertising company.

Then he puts a link on his page that calls a script on the ad company's website. He leaves room for a set size banner, and this script (CGI I would assume) call up an image and link from the ad company's server and posts it into Anand's page.

The ad company decides which adds to include as possible grabs for the server and it fills one in.

Anand has no control over which adds get posted in.

 

[Looney]

Well, i'm wondering on the pattern. It seems odd today is the first day i've seen the ad, yet i've run into it at least 20 times, almost half of the threads i enter i see it.