Interactive: Everything catches in the Net

Those of you already tired of the rose-tinted predictions about the growth of Internet ad spending should read no further. The hype continues unabated. Veronis, Suhler & Associates pegs 1998 growth at a robust 94 percent increase over this year’s projected expenditures of $400 million. But that forecast seems conservative compared to those of other pundits, most of whom are predicting triple-digit growth. Zenith Media believes that ad spending in cyberspace will double every year from now through the year 2000, and Jupiter Communications predicts that $940 million will be spent on online ads this year, compared to $301 million in 1996.
The bullish projections can be attributed not only to the sharp increase in the number of netizens browsing the World Wide Web but also to the addition of ad categories new to the medium and the advent of new forms of online advertising.