LOCAL AD SPENDING ONLINE BALLOONED 28 percent to $2.7 billion last year, according to a report released Monday by research company Borrell Associates. The report, "What Local Web Sites Earn: 2005 Survey," based on a survey of Web sites of 2,177 local media properties, predicts even higher expansion--46 percent, to $3.9 billion--this year. Local marketers of computer-related services spent the largest proportion of their ad budgets--7.3 percent--online, followed by bars and restaurants--3.3 percent--and business-to-business advertisers--3.2 percent. Borrell defined local advertising as "advertising placed by locally based businesses for locally focused online messages."
While some marketers have long feared that the Internet would cut into the time consumers spend with other media--such as television and print media--it appears that the opposite is true. Adults who go online most frequently also watch more shows and read more newspapers than their less wired counterparts, according to a Carat Insight analysis of data from Mediamark Research, Inc. and Multimedia Scan. The report, based on personal interviews and surveys of 23,000 U.S. adults conducted over a period of several months during the end of 2003 and beginning of 2004, found that adults who go online at least daily watch 46 more minutes of television a day than those who go online less frequently. The daily Web habitues also reported reading at least 16 magazine issues and 27 newspapers in the prior month
Since the beginning of the Web, publishers have made the case that the Internet is the most measurable medium ever – one that allows accurate measurement of site usage and advertising effectiveness. But while site administrators are awash in data, many have found that the numbers generate as much confusion as understanding.
Hybrid autos only hold a tiny fraction of Canada's vehicle market but they are gaining momentum. Sales of the gasoline-electric powered autos jumped more than six-fold from 2003 to about 2,300 units last year and industry watchers predict business could double or triple again this year. The observers said yesterday the only factors that could stymie major growth in hybrid vehicles is a decline in the overall auto market, falling gas prices or not enough supply to meet demand.
Overall economic growth was more consistent in 2004 than 2003, rising at what many economists considered an "above-trend" level. When the final figures are in for the full year, 2004 will probably have an increase in Gross Domestic Product of about 4.4 percent. That is about a full percentage point above what many consider to be the underlying growth potential for the economy
