Search is one of the fastest, if not the fastest growing area of online advertising. You've heard it before. You'll probably hear it again. In fact, I'm sure you'll hear it at Jupiter Media's Search
Engine Strategy conference next month. This week a Jupiter Research report projected that search will account for $14.8 billion of the online ad market by 2008. Surely the projected growth is a key
reason why Yahoo! and MSN and others have developed their own search capabilities.
No one wants to outsource search anymore - why leave all that money on the table? Yahoo! doesn't want to, which
is why it has worked for more than a year to cobble together its own search solution and has cut ties with Google. Yahoo!'s acquisitions of Inktomi and Overture Services, among others, were key moves.
Jupiter reports that search helped propel online advertising growth in 2003. Online advertising rose 10 percent last year with paid surge growing by 50 percent. Local search is the next big
battleground that is bound to bring other entrants into the mix - both technology providers and media entities.
Search growth is fueled by the growing number of broadband households. Jupiter's
report suggests that increasing household broadband penetration means more people viewing more advertising, which means more advertising overall. It also means that we will see advertisers use more
rich media, streaming media, and other forms of video advertising. Some marketers are already streaming TV commercials on the Web. Jupiter projects that 46 million U.S. households will have broadband
by 2008.