• by March 9, 2001

Not that it should come as a surprise to anyone, but for the first time since August of 2000 online ad spending has dropped from the previous month. The value of online advertising in February 2001 was $1.77 billion, which is down 5% from January 2001.

The information was released yesterday by AdZone Interactive, an advertising research firm that measures advertising on over 2500 websites that make up 95% of all Internet advertising revenue. AdZone also tracks advertising on over 250,000 web sites worldwide.

The top brand for February was AMAZON.COM at $31.3 million. Last month AMAZON.COM was number 5 with estimated ad expenditures of $16.8 million.

AOL.com remained in the number one spot with estimated advertising revenues of $89.3 million for February 2001. YAHOO.COM and ESPN.GO.COM ranked number two and three sites by revenue. They took in an estimated $50.7 and $37.0 million respectively.

"The slowdown in overall web spending is a clear indication that advertisers are more careful now than ever before with their ad dollars, however the overall ad count indicates that the Internet is a viable marketing medium," said John Cardona, president of AdZone Interactive. "2001 should be a year to watch very closely," he continued.