• by August 15, 2000

Yesterday was the preview day of one of the most eagerly awaited conferences of the year - the Jupiter Online Advertising Forum, but so far, there's not much to report.

According to our marketing director, Adam Herman, who attended the show yesterday, most of the sessions focused on wireless and if you went to one, you pretty much went to all of them. For the most part, Adam reports, the content was a little redundant.

Aside from that, a worthwhile news announcement came from the three big auditing firms - ABC, BPA and I/PRO - who have teamed up to build a website that will offer visitors the ability to access verified, census-based traffic numbers from all of the Web's audited sites that publicize their audit reports.

The site, dubbed Audit Central, is set to launch in September, and as impressive as it is that three seemingly staunch competitors are collaborating on this project, Audit Central also marks the first time that media buyers will have one single resource to compare Web traffic audits.

Of course, the issue of the website traffic report importance remains: according to some planners traffic numbers are valuable, and others think they're a waste of time and calculators.

The debate continues, but as I head into the first official day of the show, I leave you with this quote from David Ogilvy: "Some people use research as a drunkard uses a lamp post - not for illumination, but for support." He said it long before the Internet was "invented," but the sentiment still rings true somehow.