Keep in mind that a good part of our business revenue online (100% for this particular blog) comes from internet advertising, so it probably comes as no surprise that I’m stoked that internet advertising appears to be on the upswing, via iab.net:

Today, during the MIXX Conference and Expo, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released Internet Advertising Revenues covering Q2 and the first six months of 2005. Internet advertising revenues (U.S.) for the first six months of 2005 were approximately $5.8 billion, a new record and a 26% increase over the first half of 2004. Internet advertising revenue totaled $2.985 billion, just shy of $3 billion for the second quarter of 2005, representing a 26% increase over same period 2004. Q2 2005 revenues represent a 6.6% increase over Q1 2005

I found interesting the breakdown of the study which puts the percentage of search related advertising at 40% for 2004 and 2005, but the amount of revenue generated was significantly less. Display adds up, classified ups, referrals and lead generation up some 4%. Some 48% chose CPM or Impression based deals.

One very important thing I hope does not happen in this advertising boom is publishers saturating their pages in an attempt to increase revenues. I mean, if you want to increase your revenues that doesn’t necessarily mean add more ads in more places, which is something I commonly see in play. Hey, let’s put this banner that you mouseover and it explodes out into view of the content. Let’s try this flash flyover, etc. All that stuff just pisses off loyal readers who will carefully gauge the signal to noise ratio. And many more say nothing instead of get vocal before removing the bookmark and unsubscribing.

Also, instead of more advertising placement and making the website look like a slot machine, I’d like to see a move to more subscription-based areas. Yeah, this is something I’ve said several times, but I strongly believe in the subscription model if it is used the appropriate situation. Take for instance Slashdot which allows users to buy their way out of ads and get advance notification of stories. I like subscriptions like that.

Have you seen any other cool subscription models you’d like to share? Any really bad ones? Why / why not?

Did this post make you go hmm?

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