• by Ken Liebeskind , June 11, 2002

The air conditioning wasn’t working at the Online Publishers Association press function in New York yesterday. Interestingly, the heat corresponded well with the state of online publishing today, according to the industry members who attended.

Geoff Ramsey, CEO of eMarketer provided the hot figures, which show online advertising revenue as high as $19 billion for last year, although eMarketer's figure, culled from many others, is $7.2 billion. Estimates for growth in 2002 are as high as 44.3%, with eMarketer humbly calling for 11% growth. Meanwhile, estimates for traditional media spending this year range from -2.7% to 2.4%, prompting Ramsey to say "the Internet is growing while traditional media is flat."

There are five reasons for the growth, he says. The first is that the Internet audience is growing, with 174 million users projected for 2004, compared with 124 million in 2000.

The second is they spend more time online, 3:30 per month this year compared with 2:45 last year for at home use. Meanwhile, Internet users are spending less time with other media, with a 23% decrease in TV and 20% in magazines.

The third reason is the growth in broadband use, with 34.7 million projected for 2004 compared with 17.6 million this year. Forty-five percent of users will have broadband by 2004.

The fourth reason is the number of online buyers and shoppers is up.

The fifth reason, especially relevant to the advertising community, is "the big guns are awakening," a reference to the fact that large package goods advertisers, such as Proctor & Gamble and General Mills, are moving online to advertise. The ads are running on major sites, like Washingtonpost.com, the CondeNet sites and MSNBC.com.

Representatives from those companies followed Ramsey with updates on some of their latest efforts. Chris Schroeder, CEO/publisher of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, showed a large floating Skyscraper ad that he called "visually emotional, alluring," a reference to the variety of new formats that are revolutionizing the medium, without distracting from news content on the site, of course.

Sarah Chubb, president of CondeNet, showed a multi-media program for Gallo wines that merged magazine ads, in store brochures and a microsite on Epicurious.com. The campaign was only possible through CondeNet, she said, since it owns a rich array of media to communicate the message.

Merrill Brown, senior vice president, editor in chief of MSNBC.com displayed an example of convergence of the Web and TV by showing "Where in the world is Matt Lauer?" a segment on the Web tied into NBC's Today, where Lauer is a co-anchor. The presentation helped drive home the point of the entire event: how the growth of online publishing is tied into the expansion of the Web and online publishing.