• Just an Online Minute... Clutter!!!
    Never before have I wanted to be in two places at the same time more than this week. The Jupiter Media Forum is going on now in New York City while I'm cooling my heels in New Orleans, waiting for the AAAA's Media Conference to begin. The AAAA show kicks off with a grand reception in a few hours (I'll certainly keep you posted), but the Jupiter show is already making headlines. A report released at the conference today says that online ads reached a record level of over 172 billion impressions during the fourth quarter of 2000 while …
  • Just an Online Minute... AOL-TW Reigns Supreme
    Get a group of media buyers talking about reaching large online audiences and chances are AOL-Times Warner will come up at some point. And it should, according to the latest numbers from Jupiter Media Metrix. The researchers today reported that AOL-Time Warner accounted for nearly one third of all time spent online in January 2001 in the U.S. Jupiter says that on its own, Time Warner's online properties reached 15.7% of users at home, but combined with AOL, the merged entity had an at-home penetration of 72.3%. Moreover, while the total usage minutes for Time Warner's properties amounted …
  • Just an Online Minute... Too Little, Too Late
    By now you've heard that the Internet Advertising Bureau has come up with new standards for bigger banners. At first glance, establishing guidelines for seven new ad units, two vertical units and five large rectangular units seems like a major accomplishment on the IAB's part. According to the announcement, IAB hopes that this new set of guidelines will "rejuvenate" the online advertising industry, but forgive me if I see this as a clear case of "too little, too late." The organization, whose primary duty is to promote online advertising, has been under heavy fire lately for keeping quiet …
  • Just an Online Minute... Geo-Targeting
    With all this talk about geo-targeting, it will soon pay to know where your online target audience is logging onto the Internet from, or - more importantly - where they live. Well, according to IDC's U.S. Consumer Internet Commerce map, California, New York, Texas, and Florida are at the top of the list of states with the most available consumer funds. IDC's evaluates states on the basis of either high average income or a large number of households, or both. As it stands, U.S. consumer Internet commerce at the beginning of 2000 totaled $41.7 billion, with California and …
  • Just an Online Minute... A Word on Wireless
    Good timing! The Internet World Wireless show is in full swing in New York, but Accenture, formerly known as Andersen Consulting, released a study today that says only a tiny fraction of people use the mobile Internet and even fewer shop on it. While use of the wireless Web varied widely among users surveyed in the U.S., U.K., Finland, Germany and Japan - with the highest usage in Japan and the lowest in Finland and the U.S. - users in all five countries overwhelmingly view wired PC connections as the most viable option at present for accessing the Internet. …
  • Just an Online Minute... Official Casualties
    As you well know, January 2001 was a cruel month for the Internet sector. Here are some official numbers. At least 49 Internet companies closed their doors as funding ran dry and customers failed to materialize in adequate numbers, says a new report from Webmergers.com, a company that provides a research-backed hub for buyers and sellers of Internet properties. The above is particularly distressing considering that only one dot-com closed down in January of last year. Shutdowns in the month included Disney's entertainment portal Go.com, group buying site Mercata.com, gifts e-tailer Send.com and health site SelfCare.com. January …
  • Just an Online Minute... Commoditization of Web Ads
    A new Myers Mediaenomics report indicates that ad executives are commoditizing Internet advertising by using traditional media value systems to evaluate Web ad effectiveness. The Internet's unique traits - one-to-one marketing capabilities and real-time access to consumers - are overshadowed by other attributes that are shared by other, more established media, the report says. When ad executives use the Internet in ways that mimic mass media usage, they are generally disappointed. Respondents identified "Driving Traffic to Site," "Branding," and Integrated Marketing/Multimedia Packages" as the top three reasons for using online advertising, but it's clear those reasons are not …
  • Just an Online Minute... Web-Based Coupons
    Even though we don't normally talk about direct response issues, a new e-coupon service from Advertising.com is launching this week and it's worth a mention. The concept is fairly simple - it's a web-based delivery system that gives advertisers the ability to reach consumers online with coupons while allowing consumers to choose when and how they will receive these offers. A regular 468x60 website banner invites a customer to receive a coupon for a free or discounted something. The customer enters his wireless phone number into the banner and immediately receives the coupon as a text message on his …
  • Just an Online Minute... Stability at Last!
    Well, it's about time. According to stock analyst Henry Blodget, online advertising picked up slightly this month over January and AOL Time Warner and Yahoo are among the companies expected to benefit from a stabilizing online advertising market. "Conversations with online media buyers and companies suggest that although overall demand is still soft, pricing has stabilized at the leading sites, which we regard as encouraging," Blodget said in his regular report. Blodget said that even though companies from Yahoo to CMGI recently projected a slowdown in ad revenue for the year and saw their stocks sink, giants like …
  • Just an Online Minute... Web Advertising Grows
    While Internet companies are in turmoil and layoffs abound, overall online advertising grew 5% from December to January. At least that's according to the most recent AdZone Interactive research report. AdZone tracks advertising on 1,700 U.S. websites, which make up more than 95% of all Internet ad revenue, and has been criticized in the past for being too bullish in their predictions. For example, they say December 2000 came in at $1.785 billion in estimated revenue and January 2001 totaled $1.867 billion - both figures seem astronomical even when compared to the IAB numbers, which are largely designed to …
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