• Ad Age, Friday, November 10, 2006 12:30 PM

Online video may be poised for big growth--from $775 million in 2007 to $3 billion by 2010, according to eMarketer. But that's not a lot, if you consider that online ad spending overall should approach $30 billion by then.

That begs the question: What's with all these startups that assume they can become the next breakout online phenomenon? Yelp, which runs community restaurant reviews, and Dogster, which is social networking for people with dogs, come to mind. But how do they plan to make any money?

Social networking and the like may be hot right now, but advertisers are still waiting on the fence for the right opportunity to take advantage of rising audiences at potentially risqué sites. As ever, research is what advertisers want to see. They want numbers and results, because metrics and research are what make this business go round.

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