Yahoo! Loses Another Media Executive (internet.com, December 28th)
After taking a battering through resignations of high-level media execs for many months since CEO Tim Koogle's own departure, Yahooo! has again faced a sudden gap in its line-up as senior VP of media, finance and leisure David Graves set to leave at the end of the month.

Are Ads Less Effective on Cluttered Sites? (ClickZ, December 26th)
While the logic behind the analogy presented in this article's leading paragraph is arguable, the gist of this featur obviously holds credence, with a reduction in supply of ad inventory and an increased focus on drawing attention to the few ads appearing on a page seen as key to increasing their effectiveness.

Jupiter Media Metrix Changes Its Tune On Pop-Ups (internet.com, December 26th)
Bending under market pressure, web traffic measurement firm Jupiter Media Metrix has increased the divisions in its reporting of the most popular online properties in order to combat the perceived artificial inflation of some domains' traffic figures as a result of their being promoted via popups and popunders. Sites that employ such tactics (including iWin, BlueFishMedia and X10.com) will be categorized seperately from other destinations.

DoubleClick Promotes Tech Executives (internet.com, December 20th)
Confirming its intent to progress away from the media market and increasingly towards the technology, data and research aspects of its business, DoubleClick has advanced its tech heads to greater positions of leadership.

Planning and Buying: How Long Should It Take? (ClickZ, December 20th)
Tom Hespos looks at the delays in online media buying as perceived by some traditional advertising players, and addresses why these have occurred, and just how the process may be streamlined.

Study: Online Advertising To More Than Double By 2005 (internet.com, December 19th)
Though the short-term outlook for smaller online media players remains dim, promising figures released by Gartner G2 suggest that the overall online ad market will more than double by 2005; continuing an expansion at leaps far in advance of the growth expected in established media. Gartner also, however, warned that online media firms which fail to diversify their revenue streams will see ther growth stunted, or fail. More on the diversificatioin recommendations may bee found in this CyberAtlas article.

Travel Ad Spending Remains Strong, Retail Ads Sluggish (internet.com, December 19th)
Almost in contrast to traditional thinking in the wake of 9/11 and the lead-up to what is arguably a do-or-die Christmas season for many e-tailers, Jupiter Media Metrix has reported that ads placed by airlines and travel booking agencies are well up on October and November levels, while retail-oriented ads (perhaps stunted by the drop in consumer confidence) have failed to grow - or even to match last year's levels of exposure.

Marketing Unplugged (ClickZ, December 19th)
This insightful article considers how we may overcome the limitations posed by the intensely-personal wireless medium in order to deliver messages that consumers really want, while building brand precisely and affordably.

Lycos Drops Ads for Fee (internet.com, December 18th)
Following Yahoo!'s GeoCities lead, Terra Lycos (who owns and operated the Tripod and Angelfire free hosting services) is introducing a paid upgrade to its service, and enticing its members to dump their free service for one devoid of ads.

Avenue A to Sell GRP Tool (internet.com, December 17th)
Banking that the recent buzz around reach-based pricing will prove lucrative (see previous NY Times, IAB and FastClick CUME articles), Avenue A has announced the roll out of its Gross Rating Point, Targeting Rating Point and Reach Forecaster tools for media planners more familiar with traditional audience metrics than the impressions, uniques and clicks of the web.

Advertising Industry Ensnarled in the Perfect Storm (NY Times, December 17th)
A series of terrible events aligned in 2001 to create what few could deny was the worst possible environment for advertisers, leading to one of the biggest year-over-year declines in ad spending since the Depression of the 30s. According to sourced cited within this NY Times article, the scene doesn't look much better in 2002, unless the global situation makes a rapid turn for the better.

Absolut Vindigo: A Revered Print Advertiser Goes Mobile (WirelessAdWatch, December 17th)
The pop-advertising legend recently turned its interest to exploring web branding endeavours, with positive results. As a follow-up, the group has pursued an agreement with wireless firm Vindigo to promote its brand to the affluent PDA crowd.

24/7 Real Media to Drop Connect (internet.com, December 14th)
Continuing the consolidation of its technology line following the company's merger with Real Media, 24/7 is dumping its own Connect ad serving product to focus exclusively on Real's Open AdStream.

CMR: Online Ad Spending Dips Further in 3Q (internet.com, December 14th)
In news that will come as no surprise to the interactive advertising industry, research group CMRi says spending on online ads in the first three quarters of 2001 dipped, as compared to the same time period last year.

Standard Internet Acquires CellularPhones.com (NET-ADS, December 13th)
Less than four months after entering the mobile phone services business as a reseller of retail cell phone plans, Standard Internet has made a bid to boost its online presence through the acquisition of the coveted domain CellularPhones.com.

RealNetworks Secures Ad Clients For RealOne (internet.com, December 12th)
Soon after lifting the lid on its subscription-based streaming media service, RealNetworks has announced success in attracting advertiser interest to the medium.

Encouraging Signs For Online Ad Market (CNET News.com, December 11th)
This article brings together the expectations that several high-profile internet analysts hold for a stabilization and tentative recovery of the online ad market during 2002. For a slightly more downbeat set of estimates, check out this NY Times article.

Lord of the IM (Instant Messaging Planet, December 10th)
AOL TW, fresh from its successful web-blitz used to promote the first Harry Potter movie, is gearing up its online marketing muscle to build Lord of the Rings buzz - with an innovative instant messaging component central to the plan.

AT&T Wireless Launches 'Takeover' Campaign (internet.com, December 10th)
While intrusive rich-media branding ads are hardly new, it remains newsworthy each time a big traditional advertiser embraces the format in its online branding efforts, and they don't get much bigger than AT&T.

A Future for E-Advertising (eMarketer, December 10th)
Online ad spending fell quite dramatically in 2001. No surprises there. What's interestng in this report is the finding that although consumer-oriented spending faced the most precipitous decline, it nevertheless remained the largest economic segment of the online advertising pie.

Has Email Killed the Web Ad Star? (ClickZ, December 10th)
The rise of email as the preferred online advertising medium during the past year has come as no surprise to direct-marketing crowds who are used to seeing interest in their low-cost methods of lead generation gain in popularity during times of economic hardship. In this article, Dana Blankenhorn questions whether the tides have turned too far, with net pureplays and traditional marketers alike mistakingly seeing the net as an ineffective branding platform.

Bill Gates Shills for MSN (internet.com, December 7th)
The world's richest man has taken to the stage this week to espouse the glorious future of a wired world, and one in which marketers will be able to achive substantial business goals through online initiatives.

Email Can Do That? (ClickZ, December 7th)
ClickZ' Rebecca Lieb comments on the risks and opportunities surrounding the apparently burgeoning email marketing sector.

Affiliates, Merchants At Odds Over 'Stolen' Traffic (Refer-It, December 6th)
The scumware/theftware debate continues. This article notes the threats posed by merchants embracing technologies that scalp affiliate revenues, but notes that some merchants have allegedly seen such impressive returns on investment through such techniques as to make the tradeoff seem attractive as a short-term proposition.

DoubleClick Sells Part of Research Business (internet.com, December 6th)
DoubleClick is selling its Ad Effectiveness research practice to online research firm Dynamic Logic, continuing the Web ad leader's efforts to reduce its dependence on non-technology revenues.

AOL Revs Up Rings Web Marketing Machine (internet.com, December 6th)
Just as it did in the lead-up to the release of box-office smash Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, AOL Tim Warner has flexed its sizeable marketing muscle to draw attention to the first instalment in the big-budget cinematic adaptation to Tolkien's Lord of the Ring trilogy. The effort incorporates a variety of web and net-based elements.

DoubleClick CEO: Web Ad Industry Is Evolving (internet.com, December 5th)
Kevin Ryan's keynote address to the attendants of this year's @d:Tech forum glossed over the present woes faced by the online ad representation scene, instead focusing upon the need for survivors to use this down-time as a platform upon which to build market share and best position one's organization for the sustained growth that is expected to come soon.

IAB: Web Revenue Down, But We're Still Strong (internet.com, December 4th)
Taking a positive spin on the news that online ad spending is continuing its decline, the IAB has claimed that this is in-line with the greater trends seen in offline advertising. The group has also released a wealth of stats concerning online media buys, finding that the top 10 media companies attract 75% of all online media dollars. It was also found that the proportion of revenue flowing through CPM-based models declined, with the balance shifting to commission-based transactions. As a follow-up from the story released on November 30th, the IAB has also made further hints pertaining to its foundation of a set of principles aimed at guiding and standardizing the manner by which impressions are measured and reported. That report may be found here.

Unicast Lands Patents, Promises "Action" (internet.com, December 3rd)
Ad technology firm Unicast has secured two patents that protect aspects of its Superstitial® ad format, and has subsequntly suggested that it shall go on a rampage to shut down competing services whose method of deliverinig rich-media content it feels overlaps its own.

Orbitz to Pop-Up on Comet Cursor (internet.com, December 3rd)
In a move that it very likely to adversely affect Orbitz' reputation with website publishers, if not with consumers, the group has signed an agreement with Theftware/Scumware player Comet Cursor to aggressively deliver its marketing messages to consumers as they traverse competing websites. What were they thinking?