Avenue A | Razorfish released their 2007 Digital Outlook analyzing trends in online advertising spending, media consumption, and user behavior. There are lots of great insights here (disclaimer: I work at AA|RF) that is worthwhile reading for any online marketing professional.

Some Interesting Trends:

• Search spending as % of total budget decreased attributed mainly to boosts in brand advertising (display banners, sponsorships, etc.) - Could Search be hitting a peak in spend? Have advertisers already exhausted their keyword lists and has search engine usage plateaued?
• Yahoo! and AOL are firing on all cylinders for display advertising (heavy revamp of Yahoo! properties has helped) but also reflects a continued decline in billings for Search (Panama is helping a bit)
• The Digital Class Key Findings:
  - Human-computer interaction is about to get intense
  - The network is ubiquitous
  - There’s no middle
  - The Internet is where general interest goes to die
  - Information seeking equals entertainment
  - Transparency is king
  - Social networking ascends to utilitarian status
  - Let’s stay friends
  - Giving back is good
  - Dust is settling on the music library
  - Blogs have yet to achieve media brand status
  - More mobile phones, less talking

Of particular note that I’ve touched upon several times on this blog about the causality of view-based conversions.

From the 2007 Outlook:

View Based Conversions Study