In case you all haven't seen this in Media Central today:
Web Ad Revenue Jumps 154.2% in February
(Simba/Electronic Advertising & Marketplace Report) Web advertising revenue totaled $70.4 million in February, up 154.2% from $27.7 million last year at this time. SportsLine was the big winner in February, leveraging its partnership with CBS to provide an official Olympic sponsorship area, attracting 10 sponsors including AT&T, Visa and Shell, which generated approximately $2 million. Only two sites -- ZDNet and Pathfinder -- posted drops in the year-to-year comparison, decreasing 10.5% and 31.7%, respectively.
Twenty top ad-supported sites generated $35.7 million in February, up 90.9% from $18.7 million for the same period last year. Yahoo kept its stranglehold on the top position, despite a month-to-month drop of 3.4% to $5.5 million in February, down from $5.7 million in January. Excite was the second leading ad-supported site at $5.3 million, while Infoseek rounded out the top three at $3.1 million.
IDG.net had the largest year-to-year increase of the top 20 sites, up 286.4% to $850,000, from $220,000 in February 1997. CMPnet had the smallest increase of the group, up 9.7% to $868,000, from $791,000 last year. CMPnet also posted a drop from January 1998 to February 1998, down 10.8% from $973,000.
While most sites posted impressive growth between 1998 and 1997, month-to-month growth was sluggish. The industry total increased only 0.86% to $70.4 million in February, from $69.8 million in January. The top 10 sites for February only boosted their totals 5.7% to $28.6 million, from $27.1 million in January, mostly as a result of SportsLine's Olympic success. In addition to Yahoo and ZDNet posting decreases from January to February, Netscape dropped 6.7% to $2.8 million and AltaVista dropped 14.3% to $1.2 million.
The technology sites seem to be suffering most from the first quarter ad spending slump, a trend that crosses all media. According to EAMR sister publication Computer Publishing & Advertising Report, the number of ad pages sold in leading trade magazines dropped 6.4% in February (see related story). |
