Rise of Ad Networks

Imran Khan at JP Morgan provides some interesting data on the rise of Ad Networks, as the long tail becomes more and more active, and the big portals lose their share of eyeballs.

Here are some of the charts:

Imran says, “Audience is fragmenting. While portals were once dominant, Yahoo!, AOL, and Microsoft only accounted for ~29% of minutes spent online in August 2007, down from 42% in August 2002. We believe portals which embrace fragmentation will succeed, while others will find display advertising increasingly challenging.”

I happen to agree, and as you know, I have been focusing especially on vertical ad networks, a great way to reach the long tail in a targeted way, as well as a great way for the long tail publishers to monetize their content better.