Web flotsam of 2002 worth pondering

Web flotsam of 2002
worth pondering

Odd items on junk mail, ecommerce and ad $s

By John Durham

   Think of this as my loose change from 2002.
   It consists of some things I found on my hard drive at year’s end. Most deserve comment. Some do not, but I won’t let that stop me.
   Item No. 1: The most astounding stat in the Pew Internet & American Life Project study is the one that got headlines by claiming “Workers not overloaded with email.” It reported that 60 percent of Americans who use email at work receive 10 or fewer messages on an average day.
   These are people using e-mail at work!
   And they get less then 10 emails a day?
   I don’t know about you, but I get more than 10 emails a day just from people worried about my erections and offering low-cost mortgages. If I got just 10 emails I’d yell at my ISP that its email server was down.
   Item No. 2: Online consumer spending, including travel, reached an all-time record during the Xmas season, according to comScore Networks.
   You know that paradigm shift everyone was yakking about a few years ago?
   This was the one about how online stores were going to smack down bricks-and-mortar retailers because they were cheaper to run, could easier display inventory, could deliver packages to your mailbox or doorstep, instead of you having to lug them back to your car, which got sideswiped in the parking lot.
   That paradigm shift is a-coming, but not the way it was touted by the yakkers.
   One of the things driving this fantastic number is that a good many brand-name stores got off their butts and got online and are now beginning to serve their customers eager to shop with their keyboards.
   Item No. 3: A new research report indicates that auto-reply emails may tip off burglars. Email addresses can be cross-referenced with lists on the internet to obtain the home addresses of people. I’m not worried, my auto message says, “I’m at a Raiders game at the moment but will be home shortly with the highly inebriated ticket-holders of sections 106 through 118.”
   Item No. 4: Ask Jeeves revealed their three top searches during 2002 were song lyrics, dictionary and Halloween costumes.
   This now out of more than 2 billion queries since Jan. 1, 2002. Interestingly, jobs ranked No. 13.
    If Halloween costumes are more important than jobs by a multiple of three, perhaps the economy isn’t as bad as we think it is. Maybe Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill should have used those stats to keep his job.
   Item No. 5: Teenagers are being prevented by schools and libraries from accessing web sites related to safe sex by software meant to block pornography, says the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation.
    Who needs the internet to learn about sex? Hang around locker rooms or ride the bus, like God intended.
   Item No. 6: Most forecasters are calling for increased online ad spending in 2003, though up only a little over previous years.
   But are we measuring apples to apples?
Tell you what, if our industry was regulated like public companies, the industry and its analysts would probably be required to restate their numbers for 1999 and 2000, and we would probably find that the reported online advertising numbers for 1999 and 2000 were overstated by several billion dollars each year.
   Everyone I talk to in this space is up considerably versus last year, including us.
    If numbers from admitted bogus-bookers like AOL CMGI and ICG were properly restated, 2003 would be shaping up as a truly gangbuster year -- perhaps the year we have all been working and waiting for.

-John Durham is COO of Interep Interactive, an independent online ad sales company.

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