With the economy dangerously close to a recession, it was only a matter of time before someone took it upon himself to raise the waning morale of all Internet enthusiasts. That someone is the biggest Internet optimist of them all, Iconocast's Michael Tchong, and if you've ever had the good fortune to attend one of his conferences, you know he's not one to do things quietly or simply. So mark your calendar - April 3 is Michael Tchong's Crusade Day, or as he calls it, "Take Back the Net Day." In an email he sent to tens of thousands …

The recent study by Opt-in News reveals some interesting facts about what's happening right now in the email marketing industry. Two questions are: 'what to buy?' - direct mail or e-zine ads; and 'how to buy it?' - CPM, CPA, CPC, or other. Well, judging by that most controversial of metrics - the click-through rate - the majority of email marketing networks shared similar results for the year 2000. However, the range between direct email (where a single ad copy is broadcast to email recipients) and e-zine sponsorship (ad copy placed in the body of an email publication), was …

It's been a while since we've talked about streaming media, so here's an update. One the hottest fields right now is streaming radio, if only because use of Internet radio is growing so fast. MeasureCast, Inc., a company that provides next-day audience size and demographics reports to Internet broadcasters, today introduced the MeasureCast Internet Radio Index, which shows that Internet radio listening to stations measured by MeasureCast has increased 48% since January. For targeting purposes, here's some data. At present, MeasureCast found, 89% of all listening occurred between Monday and Friday with Wednesday being the peak listening day, …

Here's an alternative to using Media Metrix and Nielsen numbers in planning your online buys. DoubleClick and comScore Networks today announced that its jointly marketed online audience measurement product, netScore, is producing traffic estimates that closely match the server logs of individual sites, confirming that actual traffic to most websites is substantially higher than has been reported by other syndicated ratings services. As an example of the degree to which site traffic has been understated by current ratings services, Media Metrix reported 51,983,000 unique U.S. visitors for Yahoo during December 2000, while netScore reported 81,262,000 unique U.S. visitors, …

Here's a new term for your spellchecker to tackle - "advergaming." A company called kpe, which works with media and entertainment companies, has published an 8-page report titled "Can Advergaming be the Future of Interactive Advertising?" - an in-depth analysis of this curiously named emerging trend. Through its work in the interactive sector, kpe has found that gaming is a new and extraordinarily powerful vehicle for delivering branding and advertising messages, with strong advantages over traditional methods such as banner ads. Of course, it should come as no surprise that kpe also specializes in interactive game development, …

As one expert sees it, most of the online ad players and publishers still have overly optimistic full-year earnings predictions, which are likely to be cut in coming months. Yes, according to Merrill Lynch's famed analyst Henry Blodget, things are getting worse in the online ad market. In a conference call yesterday, Blodget predicted that online ad revenues will actually decrease 25% during the year. Interestingly enough, two months ago Blodget predicted "modest sequential increases" beginning in second quarter of 2001, but now he says the market won't work itself out until near the end of the year. …

Judging by the number of responses I received to yesterday's Minute, I've certainly hit a nerve with many of our readers. Some took my plea to someone, anyone unbiased out there in the real online ad world to PLEASE tell me the real pros and cons of using larger ad formats as rhetorical. Fortunately, I did receive several dozen real responses, with useful, real- life opinions. Here's a synopsis: THE PLUSES: - Bigger banners are relatively new and like anything "new," larger ad units are getting honeymoon attention both with advertisers and web users who are showering bigger banners …

To everyone's surprise (yes, I am being sarcastic here), the Internet Advertising Bureau today announced that according to their own survey, advertising industry decision-makers "overwhelmingly" support the IAB's recently released guidelines for interactive marketing units (the big banners). As if the obvious conflict of interest is not enough, the results are based on responses of just 78 participants. The IAB said that an "almost unanimous majority" of those surveyed (93% or 73 people) view the new units as "more effective than previous guidelines. The enthusiastic support of the new guidelines by top-level agency representatives is underscored by the number …

Here are some interesting marketing salary stats. Results from the 2001 Marketing Professionals Salary Survey, conducted jointly by the Association for Interactive Media, HeadHunter.net, MarketingSherpa.com and WebSurveyor Corporation, show that 92% of marketing executives responding reported that knowing how to market effectively on the Internet is an important factor to their success. Interestingly, the perceived importance of Internet marketing skills decreased the farther down the organizational ladder the respondent was. For instance, only 34.8% of staff-level employees felt that these skills were critical, but 1 in 4 managers and staff members reported that Internet Marketing was not important. …

Just in case you missed it, the Advertising Council this week presented a study titled "Secrets of Highly Clickable Banners," which defines several important guidelines for increasing Web banner click-through rates. A frequent Internet Top 20 advertiser (think, "Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires,") the Ad Council submitted 93 banners to be analyzed in terms of factors that influence a user to click on a banner advertisement. And, according to the study, a banner ad that adheres to four significant components -- drawing the eye, engaging the mind, creating a desire for more and facilitating action -- will …