CNET: Why AOL's Ad Woes Are Unique

I was really glad to see this headline from CNET, as I was thinking of writing something saying exactly the same thing. All the media are picking up on the last few disastrous quarters for AOL and many are insinuating that much of the rest of the industry is heading the same way. Well, the bigger they come, the harder the fall, and AOL's problems and unique situation are far from predictive of what is happening in the rest of the online ad industry.

Quoth the CNET piece:

In October, Yusuf Mehdi, the corporate vice president overseeing Microsoft's MSN division, touted advertising in a way that recalled the boosterism of 1999. He said that for the 2002 fiscal year, which ended June 30, MSN's online ad revenue grew $40 million. Between June 30 and Sept. 30, it jumped 40 percent.

"We're on a monster roll," Mehdi said. "This is the best-kept secret in the industry, which is that the online ad industry is alive and well and actually kicking butt for a number of companies out there."

Certainly at @d:tech I met lots of companies singing the same song, and last month I wrote something similar about lots of companies doing well selling online ads.