Raising awareness of the banner ads.

A small Internet company Comet Systems wants to turn the plain arrow you use to point and click your way around the Web into the world-_s smallest billboard. Instead of an arrow, computer users would see a familiar icon for a company or product on certain sites where an advertiser has bought space. One purpose of commercialized cursors is to raise awareness of the banner ads now found on many Web sites. Some ad experts say banner ads are not very effective because Web surfers ignore them instead of clicking through to the advertiser_s site. Comet claims that a commercialized cursor, when tied to an adjacent banner ad from the same sponsor, can increase simple awareness of a banner ad by a factor of 10. For the past six months, Comet_s customized cursors have been available at sites dedicated to Garfield the cat, Furby, Doonesbury, The X-Files and fan sites for Madonna, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Gillian Anderson. Web surfers to those sites have the option to change their cursors from an arrow to a fanciful image. The Web portal Lycos set up a page featuring a variety of cursors that could be downloaded for free: from dogs and cats to sports symbols and religious icons. Since last August, about 2.5 million people have customized their cursors using Comet_s technology.