Online Ad Revenue over $21b in 2007

Online ad revenue over $21B in 2007

Online advertising revenues exceeded $21 billion for the first time in 2007, although it is suggested that growth is slowing. The growth exceeded last year's growth ($4.2 billion) at a stunning $4.3 billion, which is a 25% spurt compared to last year. This does not surprise me because of all the ads that I see online every time I get online. It seems to me that companies are wasting their hard earned money on online advertising because I'm sure that a lot of people are like me in the fact that I do not pay attention to these ads. But with online advertising still being less than 10% of all U.S. ad spending there is plenty of room for it to grow, even at a slow rate. "PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, which conducts a quarterly survey for the advertising trade group using data from the 15 largest online ad sellers, said fourth-quarter revenues totaled about $5.9 billion, topping the previous record of $5.2 billion in the third quarter" (USA Today). This is such a large amount of money to be spent on advertising, that it would be amazing to not think it affects internet users.

Online advertising has affected internet user in many ways. One way being; you can't even go to a website without an ad for something, maybe not even related to that website. It is annoying and vague, but it is the way the U.S. is heading. Another way online advertising has affected internet user is SPAM! Spam might be the most annoying thing in the world, as it fills the inboxes of millions and millions of email accounts. But it is cheaper than the traditional way of advertising such as newspapers, TV commercials, and radio ads. So it is understandable why companies use spam to the lengths that they do, but it still seems to annoy people more than it draws them in. In the end, I feel that online advertising, although annoying most of the time, is an effective and cheap way for companies to get their messages out to the consumers.