Business
Online ad market eyes recovery
The online advertising market may have seen its worst, according to analysts and media executives, who say they are increasingly optimistic of a recovery by mid-2002. Encouraging signs include immediate hopes of better-than-expected ad sales at bellwether Yahoo, stabilizing advertising volume and rates across the Web, and slight increases in next year's online marketing budgets from big spenders such as Microsoft and Oracle.
The online advertising market may have seen its worst, according to analysts and media executives, who say they are increasingly optimistic of a recovery by mid-2002.
Encouraging signs include immediate hopes of better-than-expected ad sales at bellwether Yahoo, stabilizing advertising volume and rates across the Web, and slight increases in next year's online marketing budgets from big spenders such as Microsoft and Oracle.
Internet ad sales hit $1.79 billion in the third quarter, down 4.1 percent from the second quarter. But Internet analysts said they were encouraged that the decline had slowed.
"We're on the bottom couple of stairs," said Salomon Smith Barney analyst Lanny Baker. "We've probably seen the bottom, but we're going to get intimately acquainted with it over the next six months." --Stefanie Olsen