The Web: King of All Advertising Media?

At the annual conference of the Interactive Advertising Bureau in Phoenix this week, Yahoo C.E.O. Jerry Yang said Internet advertising revenue would surpass that of any other medium, including TV, in 2013.

One might expect someone in Yang's position to talk up his product, but that's still, as he said, a "bold prediction."

How bold? Private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson has said that in 2011, marketers would spend $62 billion on Internet advertising. While that would be enough to trump print by then, it wouldn't be enough to beat TV. The firm says advertisers will spend $80 billion on TV in 2011.

Still think Yang's prediction is a stretch? At the conference, the I.A.B. said preliminary statistics show that marketers spent $21.1 billion on Internet advertising in 2007 — a 24 percent increase from 2006. That follows a 35 percent in 2006 over 2005.

A more modest forecast comes from eMarketer, a New York market-research firm. Using I.A.B. data, it predicted last fall that Internet advertising would reach $42 billion by 2011. Apparently eMarketer use a different crystal ball than Veronis Suhler.

At the conference this morning, Rob Norman, C.E.O. of GroupM Interaction Worldwide, offered some advice to forecasters. "If you ever make your predictions in public, [leave] a really long horizon," he said.

That way, he explained, if you happen to be right, you can show off your brilliance by pulling out your Power Point slide — if your operating system at the time still runs the program.

by Willow Duttge