Total ad spending in the U.S. fell 12.3% to $125.3 billion in 2009, according to a report from Kantar Media (formerly TNS Media Intelligence).

Internet display advertising was up 7.3%, and free-standing inserts, up 3.0%.

While the economy had an impact in the numbers, clearly, the business model is not working.

Google’s new enhanced business listings, which it started to test quietly in Houston and San Jose, Calif., early this month, have an obvious competitor: the Yellow Pages. -read the entire post at NYTimes.com

Here is the link to Google Map’s Enhanced Listing page (the yellow tag option is probably not available in your area yet though.

My tip for the next decade is get your business online and mobile ready – if you are not already (what the hell are you waiting for?). If you have money to invest, put it in the big usa internet stocks, they are the new USA blue chips.

2. If you are not advertising your products and services online, then you are missing out on Billions of dollars of revenue.

“Online shopping sites offered deeper discounts and pushed new technology to connect with consumers on Cyber Monday, in what’s shaping up to be a strong post-Thanksgiving sales period for online retailers.” -read entire post at the Wall Street Journal.

As the title of above Reddit thread implies many newspaper news sites spread their longer articles over several pages.  It’s my opinion that they do it to drive up pageviews and advertising impressions, but in the process annoy the hell out of the reader.  While the Newspaper Association of America continues to triumphantly announce record pageviews on newspaper sites, the newspapers themselves are going bankrupt.   Hmmm… It’s time for a new strategy fellas.

My suggestion to these newspaper sites is put the articles on ONE page and increase CPM’s by reducing the total number of advertising spots on their webpages.  In other words, don’t have 12 ad spots on every damn page.   Look at Kottke.org he has ONE ad on that site (via The Deck) and it generates something like $80k year!

In the meantime people are developing workarounds for crappy user experiences by:

1. reading the article in print page view which usually puts the article on one continuous scrolling screen.

2. using the Auto Pager firefox plugin which automatically loads the next page at the bottom of the screen to create one continuous scrolling screen.

3. using ARC 90 Labs Readability tool which eliminates all ads from the screen

4. using Ad Block Plus to eliminate ALL on site advertising

5. using this GreaseMonkey Script make a multi column page

The online experience is totally different then the print reading experience.  Newspapers need to get it in their heads that what works in print does not work online.  Print best serves a Geographic Community.  The web best serves Communities of Interest.  If newspapers are selling “brand awareness” type ads, they won’t sell enough to become economically sustainable.  If they sell ads that result in conversions (sales) then they will realize higher CPM’s.  Newspapers however, must dismantle their behemoth catch all news sites and create community of interest news sites to best position such conversion ads.  The advertiser and newspaper will both benefit.  The current online advertising and user experience strategies cannot go on.

The biggest shift is going to be that organizations that could never have afforded a national campaign will suddenly have one. The same way that there’s very little correlation between popular websites and big companies, we’ll see that the most popular commercials get done by little shops that have nothing to lose.

Businesses that rely primarily on advertising revenue take note.  I’m looking at you Mr. Newspaper, and MS. Magazine and… oh well you get it.  The internet paradigm breaks traditional busines models by undermining prohibitive cost structures.  I don’t need a printing press.  I don’t need a television studio.  All I need is a computer, camera, and passion.

How will you adjust?

Investors Business Daily has a short article in their editorial section today entitled “Dying for An A”.  The article starts out with this line, “From once-revered print institutions to formerly dominant TV giants, the major media are crumbling. And the White House press secretary just told them why, “grading” them a “strong A” — A for acquiescence.”

The article then goes on to explain that “White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who recently took it upon himself to give the White House press corps a collective report card affixed with a gold star, telling reporters he was awarding them “a strong A” for their coverage of the administration’s first 100 days”.

Zing!

IBD has an agenda and people usually either love IBD or hate it, but you have to respect their ridiculous number of revenue streams, and print circulation… growth!  IBD generates approximately $10 million in annual revenue from its seminar business.” as reported recently in TheBigMoney.

Sharon Waxman who writes Waxword for the Wrap… ugh, we get it we get it, has an interesting interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt who reveals that in about 6 months Google will launch a premium ad service for “premium content”.  The pilot news outlets to get this treatment will be the NYtimes and WashingtonPost.

The participating news outlets won’t get direct revenue bumps but the theory is that they will enjoy greater traffic from search.

In my opinion and Google’s too, websites need to figure out a way to better connect with their audience to create a community and lessen the reliance on search for revenue generation.