• by August 9, 2004

Jupiter's new search forecast came out today; it projects slowing growth for paid search listings over the next five years.

Although the report estimates that advertisers will more than double their spending on paid search to $5.5 billion in 2009 from $2.6 billion this year, it says the growth rate will decline to just 11 percent in 2009 versus 65 percent last year.

That's not really news, is it?

The red-hot paid search segment can't be a high-flyer forever. What goes up, is bound to decline over time. It's the same with Internet access. All the low-hanging, dial-up fruit evaporated, so providers chased after broadband consumers. Even broadband penetration is beginning to peak, and so it goes with all maturing businesses, or businesses that are growing up.

The forecast isn't news for another reason: There's a lot more to search than paid search. There are up and coming sub-sectors of search that haven't been mined yet. Take wireless search, for example, or search via personal, portable wireless devices like cell phones. Or, TV-based or video search services. What are the prospects for those kinds of search? What about the growth of metropolitan area Wi-Fi networks-these too, could spur the growth of various kinds of search services.

There are many potential growth areas for search-literally as many ways as there are to access the Internet. Take pay-per-call, for example. Local businesses pay only for those calls generated by search listings. Local search, as most of you have heard, has solid growth potential but it's also problematic. Many local businesses don't have Web presences and they don't spend much money on advertising and promotion. However, there certainly are a lot of local businesses, so there's money to be made for someone. Pay-per-call might be a compelling enough reason for local businesses to try search services.

And so, the forecasts just keep coming. JupiterResearch also reports today that total online ad spending-that's including search and display advertising-will just about double to reach $16.1 billion by 2009. If I'm still around in '09, I will loop back and see if the figure plays out. Of course the Jup figure is one forecast among many.