Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Long Tail of web advertising

In a story today (9/20) in the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo warned of weakening third-quarter revenues. The reason - weakening online ad sales largely attributed to the less than expected increase in ad spending by automotive and financial services companies.

The question is, does this bode ill for online advertising in general or is it just a bump in the road? The article presents comments which indicates that industry participants are generally confident of no imminent slide in revenues systemwide indicating that the slide at Yahoo may be endemic.

Is it possible, though, that the 'long tail' phenomenon as it operates in the entertainment industry may be relevant to online ad sales also. Too far-fetched to imagine that the incremental ad dollar spent online may, at some point in time, move away from Yahoo and mainstream portals/websites and find its way to those obscure websites lurking at the far end of the tail?

For now, people await the fourth quarter results - often the main revenue earning season for the online advertising industry - for further clues!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115868088020267584.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us

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