Online Ads: Even the Evangelists Turning Bearish
It wasn’t too many months ago that saying online advertising would decline in 2009 was enough to get you laughed at in the blogosphere, mocked on Twitter, and have Eric Schmidt roll his eyes and explain, again, why Google ads were such a better value than traditional media.
Flash forward to this week and the Interactive Advertising Bureau big wigs are predicting whole businesses dependent on online ads could go belly up, and researcher IDC has completely reversed its growth estimates. No longer will online ads grow 10% in 2009, says the firm. IDC now predicts a 5% drop in revenues in the first quarter that could get worse in the second. Fingers crossed for the second half of the year.
The trend is certainly already moving in that direction: Last year the market was growing at 18%. Last quarter it grew a sad .4%. That’s flirting dangerously close to the first quarter-over-quarter drop in online ad sales since the great dot com bust. Suddenly everyone’s bull scenario isn’t double-digit growth, it’s a year that doesn’t tip negative.
How’d everyone get the story so wrong?
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