That maybe part of the problem. Ad-blindness generally becomes the necessity of ad invention. Even as Google slays the competition in the search ad sector and takes in 40 percent higher profits quarter after quarter, there must be something to the company's (and its competitors') willingness to dole out heaps of cash for ad display companies and prime real estate like YouTube.

Google did, after all, start weaving video into AdSense, and overlaying ads on YouTube.

So there may be (okay, there is) some credibility to Microsoft's belief that the bulk of online ad spending in the near future will steer away from keyword advertisements. But again it is still hard to imagine too much of that bulk being redirected.

My teenager at home, Internet-savvy as he is, still uses the Google search bar to find YouTube and Wikipedia – even though I've fussed at him repeatedly to just type in the URL. He's a good representative of the average surfer – the journey begins with a search engine.

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