Yahoo! News: Manager's Journal: Selling The Internet

In an piece republished on Yahoo from todays' Wall Street Journal, Christopher Schroeder, CEO and publisher of Washingtonpost.com and Newsweek.MSNBC.com Interactive, sheds a little insight on what he thinks we'll see in 2003 in the online advertising market in this article:

Hal Riney, one of the greatest advertising mavens of our time, said not long ago that the "magic of traditional advertising is no longer magic." Mr. Riney should know — he created the television ads that helped elect Ronald Reagan president and made Bartles & Jaymes household names. He told Advertising Age magazine that the Internet "offers a better and far more extensive resource for information than the…30 second commercial."

At the moment, with so many dot-coms gone bust and the broader economy in a slump, now seems an odd time to be pledging alleigance to the edgy medium of Internet advertising. Television remains powerful, allowing us to be passive spectators in history and reliable receptacles for product information. But the more quickly the news moves these days, the more people turn to the Internet for breaking stories and in moments of anxiety.

While he focuses on online profitability for publishers, the last paragraph points to "a milestone in the development of a real and sustainable online news and information business" that could be proven out this year, if we continue to see the internet truly become the first place people go for their news and information.

Is 2003 really going to be the return of the internet to media buying plans? I think so - we're all just a little smarter than a few years ago.