As we wrap up the first half of 2005 and head into a long holiday weekend, all talk is about projections for the future, thanks to reports released this week by two of the most respected forecasters in the industry: TNS and Bob Coen.
Before I talk about the future, however, one of the things I accidentally stumbled upon this week was CNN.com's review of the web's history. It's largely based on old data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, but offers the general public a pretty good overview of where the web has been and where it is today in terms of: worldwide users by location, age and income, most popular online activities (email, what else?), most popular websites and some other stats. (We all know these stats by heart, give or take a few percentage points.) Also, the site has several picture galleries of internet influencers, including Jeff Bezos, Vint Cerf, uber-blogger Nick Denton and, yes, Al Gore made the list too.
The one section of this site that annoyed me was the little glossary of terms, where CNN writes the following about pop-ups and pop-unders: "software to block ads and pop-ups is available, but advertisers are constantly inventing new ways to circumvent techniques intended to block their ads."
Like most web users, I have pop-up blockers on my browsers. When I asked a major research company for some current stats on pop-ups and pop-unders today, the response was a very understandable "we haven't done anything on them for a couple years. Every year the data came back the same: users hate them, advertisers keep running more."
Pop-ups aren't a big issue anymore as far as I'm concerned, and I don't really want to open a debate on the subject, but at the risk of sounding touchy, that CNN line makes all advertisers sound a bit deceitful, doesn't it? It's another case of a few bad apples ruining it for the rest of the advertising community, most of which uses them responsibly or stays away from pop-ups/unders altogether and sticks to in-page ad units.
Not that there's anything really wrong with the pop formats, especially if you consider WhenU's most recent legal win.
The Second U.S. Court of Appeals on Monday overturned a lower court decision and allowed adware company WhenU to sell pop-ups that are set off by trademarked words and phrases. Back in 2003, 1-800-CONTACTS accused WhenU of trademark infringement for serving pop-ups for competing services when users of WhenU software visited 1800contacts.com. But, as Judge John Walker wrote in his 29-page ruling, "the fact is, WhenU does not need 1-800's authorization to display a separate window containing an ad any more than Corel would need authorization from Microsoft to display its WordPerfect word processor in a window contemporaneously with a Word word-processing window."
This decision echoes WhenU's victories in similar lawsuits brought by U-Haul and Wells Fargo and gives some hope to the adware industry, which was recently rocked by Intermix's $7.5 million settlement of a lawsuit brought against them by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
Also, having successfully changed its name from Gator and its image from spyware to adware, Claria is now said to be in acquisition talks with none other than Microsoft. According to a New York Times article published this week, the offer price on the table was a whopping $500 million, but due to opposition within Microsoft the deal could break off at any moment.
The opposition has a point in that they're afraid Microsoft will look like Big Brother, tracking and profiting from users' every online move, the Times article said, quoting an anonymous source. Just imagine the consumer backlash! On the other hand, Microsoft could "help clean up the adware field, establish rules to protect privacy and benefit from the anticipated increase in personalized advertising."
I won't take sides just yet (at least until we know more about the possible deal), but I'd like to think that if WhenU, Microsoft and Claria put their heads together, they will be willing and able to clean up the adware/spyware/cookie mess.
Speaking of acquisitions, the grapevine has it that CNET Networks is shopping itself to a host of media companies, including Viacom and Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp. According to the New York Post, AOL and Yahoo! are also rumored to be considering a bid.
And speaking of messes, if you're still with me, how about those projections?
According to a TNS Media Intelligence release earlier this week, 2005 advertising spending is expected to grow a moderate 3.4 percent to $145.3 billion. Internet expenditures are forecast to increase by 7.6 percent after two years of double-digit growth in ad spend.
On the other hand, Universal McCann's Robert Coen, one of the more respected forecasters of worldwide ad spending, placed the totals nearly twice as high as those issued by TNS. He expects U.S. advertising to grow 5.7 percent in 2005, and total worldwide spending to grow 5.8 percent. As for the internet, he expects it to go up 15 percent to $7.8 billion for this year.
So which is it? What should we expect? I think we're better off consulting the crystal ball in my attic or asking that old gypsy in the East Village. If the analytics community can get together through partnerships and acquisitions and establish a decent method for counting things, why can't forecasters at least … nah, I'm going to the gypsy.
Happy Fourth of July and see you in Q3!
iMedia editor-at-large Masha Geller is the founder of interactive marketing and corporate communications consultancy Geller Public Relations in New York. She has been covering the interactive advertising industry since 1999 as the former editor in chief of MediaPost.com, and is a widely-published thought leader in the interactive arena.
