Online ad growth grinds to a halt
Online Ad Growth Grinds To A Halt | TechCrunch

		
		
We all know online advertising decelerated in the third quarter, but how bad was the slowdown overall?  To find out, we added up the online advertising revenues for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL, which together account for the majority of online advertising.  In the third quarter, growth pretty much ground to a halt. The combined ad revenues of those four Web bellwethers eked out only 0.6 percent growth, quarter over quarter.  That sequential growth rate was 12.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, to 2.8 percent in the first quarter of 2008, and 1.1 percent in the second quarter (see chart above).






On an absolute basis, the combined ad revenues for all four companies during the third quarter increased by only $50 million to $8.2 billion.  The year-over-year growth rate was still a healthy 18 percent, but those comparisons will likely flatten out as well starting in the fourth quarter.
For the purposes of this analysis, I took the total advertising revenues from both Google and Yahoo, including their network revenues paid to affiliates, the online revenues reported by Microsoft, and only the advertising portion of AOL’s revenues.  There were other companies I could have added, but these four serve as good proxy for the overall online advertising market.  Below are the absolute revenue numbers, broken down by company:



		

		
		
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		Erick has been discovering and working with startups his entire professional career as a technology journalist, startup event producer, and founder. Erick is President & Founding Partner at Traction Technology Partners. He is also a co-founder of TouchCast, the leading interactive video platform, and a partner at bMuse, a startup studio in New York City. He is the former Executive Producer of the DEMO conferences and former Editor-in-Chief of TechCrunch (where he helped conceive, lead and select startups for the Disrupt conferences, among other duties). Prior to TechCrunch, which he joined as Co-Editor in 2007, Erick was Editor-at-Large for Business 2.0 magazine, and a senior writer at Fortune magazine covering technology.

At TechCrunch, he oversaw the editorial content of the site, helped to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produced TCTV shows, and wrote daily for the blog. He joined TechCrunch as Co-Editor in 2007, and helped take it from a popular blog to a thriving media property. After founder Michael Arrington left in 2011, Schonfeld became Editor in Chief.

Prior to TechCrunch, he was Editor-at-Large for Business 2.0 magazine, where he wrote feature stories and ran their main blog, The Next Net. He also launched the online video series “The Disruptors” with CNN/Money and hosted regular panels and conferences of industry luminaries. Schonfeld started his career at Fortune magazine in 1993, where he was recognized with numerous journalism awards.	


	
	
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