For the past three or four weeks, industry prognosticators have been hard at work trying to paint a picture of the year to come in Online Advertising. Accordingly, we at avant|marketer would like to begin 2005 with a few incidentally contrarian predictions of our own on what the year ahead holds in store for the industry. By any yardstick, 2005 generally looks to be a bright one for most interactive marketers: We are certainly relieved to not be in the position of having to predict "the big recovery". That noted, let's now turn to look at some of the specific bigger strategic issues and areas of the Online Advertising space you're likely to see covered this year in the pages of avant|marketer, and see if we can't call our shot:

1.  This is not the year that big traditional advertisers will migrate to the web in earnest.

It has been predicted for nearly a decade now:  advertisers doing big spending in traditional media are about to become big spenders online.  In fact, Jupiter Research - a long time friend of avant|marketer - began 2005 predicting the possibility of "serious cannibalization" for traditional publishers because twice as many wired users considered the Internet their preferred information channel than those chosing magazines or television. It's difficult to come up with one benchmark for every industry vertical to prove they've migrated online; but certainly no one can legitimately suggest that a medium capturing single-digit percentages of CPG or Auto ad spend has made the grade. When the Internet captures half the dollars these verticals spend on Magazines, then and only then has the tide turned.

Put simply, there is not yet any online vehicle that allows marketers like Kraft or General Motors to spend 15-20% of their ad dollars online effectively. We have the reach and the time-spent, but we lack creative vehicles with impact and we lack standards. Until we have those, this topic is best put on the back burner.

2.  Blogs will not become a mainstream ad vehicle in 2005.

Yes, the weblog is an interesting opportunity for many advertisers. Particularly for advertisers whose audiences are difficult to reach, now is the time to reconnoiter the blogosphere for undiscovered opportunities. That said, Blogs will not become a mainstream ad vehicle in 2005. To say this is not to be completely dismissive of the medium, but rather to simply state they remain a great unknown as a marketing vehicle - if only because they remain an unknown as a content vehicle. Contextual ads, content sponsorships, and paid placements are opportunities that may take some baby steps this year; but for now, it's unlikely most advertisers will make major allocations to this vehicle. Be ready however; this may be a completely different story in a year or two.

3.  In 2005, the Spyware/Adware debate will be cooled down by legislation.

One of the highest profile issues of 2004 was the debate over Spyware and Adware.  What is Adware?  What is Spyware? Is the distinction meaningful?  Will the actions of the Adware and Spyware companies create an unworkable patchwork of state-by-state regulation, or worse, a bad Federal law?  All these questions and more have been chewed on as the number of desktops with Adware/Spyware grows to the tens of millions.  We believe this issue will cool significantly in 2005 when a legislative line is drawn that protects the use of cookies, creates a clear distinction on what other types will be accepted. In our forecast, that acceptance is very unlikely to extend to many of companies currently engaged in the Adware/Spyware game without a major overhaul of their practices.

4.  2005 will not see the dawn of a new Google.

Countless millions, if not billions, have been poured into research on search technology capable of unseating Google. Ain't. Gonna. Happen. Not Microsoft, not Amazon, not anyone; at least not this year. As great as Google's technology is, their brand is nearly its equal. Yes, the product works, but the brand works too - and that brand is not the creation of an ad agency. That brand has become integrated into the life of the Internet, if not the country. Google is a verb. People like Google. Google innovates. What Google decides to do, they do well. Right now, Google has a brand that is focused upon the location and aggregation of information exactly when it is needed.  Yahoo! is a competitor of Google to be sure, but their reason for existing is different. No doubt there is lots of great work going on in the great Google chase, but it won't be enough to simply provide a better algorithm or interface.  If you want to be the next Google, you will likely have to be the next Internet brand that people love to tell their friends about. We would be shocked if any of those R&D millions are going to be able to do that as well as Google got it done for free.

5.  2005 will be the great ad inventory shortage that never really was.

This very week, several Wall Street firms released very bullish reports on the year in online advertising, with one analyst going so far as to highlight what he heard from some top portals about a shortage of inventory supply in Q4 2004. The rebound of the industry appears to be for real, and that is great news. And, we don't doubt for a second that there was bigger Q4 demand for some top-tier placements than supply, seasonal or not.  With the re-birth of the ad network business also in full swing, the power of optimization may create a market for the billions of remnant impressions publishers have been swimming in for years; and here too, we say a healthy industry is good news. However, even with the success stories rolling in, it borders on farce to suggest that the Internet, or even just the portals, are experiencing an inventory shortage.

Research from the major firms suggests that while the growth in the number of new Internet users has slowed, the number of pages viewed, and time spent online continues to grow on a per user basis. The number of people, the number of pages, and the number of quality users spending quality time continue to grow faster than almost any publisher could possibly monetize them using current "best practices". The number of opportunities for publishers to monetize the average American online is growing by leaps and bounds; the only thing in short supply is the innovation required to turn that growing channel adoption into growing advertiser adoption.  Unless the advertisers themselves step in to drive innovation, we will likely be looking at a shortage of the easy-to-sell stuff again next year, even as billions of house ad impressions coat the Internet wall-to-wall.