• Mediaweek, Monday, January 26, 2009 12:15 PM

Despite the doom and gloom in the overall economy, the first few months of 2009 are shaping up to be better for the online advertising market than the gloomsters once predicted. That said, many businesses have reported slowdowns, especially as a result of pricing pressure in the ad networks space, "but the abysmal first quarter that many anticipated...hasn't happened," Mediaweek reports.

"I was one of the people that thought Q1 would be disastrous, but so far it's not that bad," says Jim Spanfeller, president and CEO of Forbes.com. "Things have been OK. It's not the nuclear winter we feared."

Even so, there's still a good amount of uncertainty, especially for advertisers. "What's different about this year versus last is that we had a lot more knowledge about what was going to happen the rest of the year. Instead, this year many brands are unable to plan long term," said David Rittenhouse, media director, Neo@Ogilvy. Mark Kahn, CEO, of Traffiq, agreed. "'Let's plan 2009' is gone. Now, it's mid-January, and buyers are saying, 'Let's plan February.'"

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