Here are a few of the top stories in which eMarketer data and analysis were featured during the past week or so:

The Economist – Cheerio to the Chief
Fond of his informal title of “chief Yahoo”, Jerry Yang has been an influential figure at the internet firm for many years. But on January 17th Yahoo! announced that Mr Yang, who co-founded the business in 1995 with David Filo, had resigned from its board of directors and would also step down from all other positions he holds at the firm. Read more.

The Wall Street Journal – New Display Ad Push Adds to Bag of Tricks
Google Inc., long labeled as a one-trick pony that sells Web-search text ads and little else, is quickly learning another trick: selling online display ads. Read more.

The Wall Street Journal – Hulu to Create More Original Shows
Online video site Hulu LLC is increasing its output of original shows, the latest in an escalation of TV-like programs being made directly for the Internet, further blurring the lines between the Web and TV. Read more.

NPR’s – Co-Founder Jerry Yang To Leave Yahoo!
Jerry Yang has resigned from Yahoo’s board and severed all ties with the company that he co-founded 17 years ago. Yang is leaving at a time when the Internet behemoth has struggled to remain relevant. David Hallerman tracks Yahoo’s ad sales at eMarketer. He says for many investors, Yahoo has lost its luster. Read more.

USA Today – Yahoo Co-founder Yang Exits the Company
Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s oft-criticized co-founder and former CEO, resigned from the board and will no longer be a part of the Internet pioneer, Yahoo said late Tuesday. Read more.

Advertising Age – Online Ad Spending to Pass Print for the First Time, Forecast Says
Online advertising spending will cruise past print in the United States this year for the first time, according to a new forecast by eMarketer. Read more.

Advertising Age Age – Trying to Decide on a Cause-Marketing Category? Consumer Location is Key
Purpose marketing, cause marketing — the phrases are among the biggest buzzwords in the industry today, and with good reason. Read more.

Bloomberg – Facebook Said to Weigh Doubling Size of European Headquarters in Dublin
Facebook Inc. is seeking to more than double the size of its European headquarters in Dublin as the most popular social-networking site prepares for a possible $10 billion initial public offering, three people with knowledge of the matter said. Read more.

Bloomberg – Accel Facebook Bet Poised to Become Biggest Venture Profit: Tech
A few months after struggling to raise a new fund in 2005, Accel Partners bet $12.2 million on a website run by a college dropout. Seven years later, that wager is poised to be the most profitable ever for a venture firm. Read more.

Business Insider – Online Ad Spending To Rival That Of TV By 2016
Most of the business press is leading with the news that this year, for the first time, internet ad spending is set to eclipse total spending on all print media. That is news for sure. Read more.

The Hollywood Reporter – Forecast: U.S. Online Ad Spending Will Outpace Print This Year
U.S. online advertising spending will grow 23.3 percent to $39.5 billion this year, pushing it past spending on newspapers and magazines, according to the latest forecast from research firm eMarketer. Read more.

CNBC – Online Advertising, Led By Google, to Pass Print Officially This Year
After a steady transition over the last decade, total U.S. online advertising revenue will officially surpass spending for ads in newspapers and magazines this year, according to forecasts from multiple research firms. Read more.

Here are a few of the top stories in which eMarketer data and analysis were featured during the past week or so:

The Wall Street Journal – Hulu to Create More Original Shows
Online video site Hulu LLC is increasing its output of original shows, the latest in an escalation of TV-like programs being made directly for the Internet, further blurring the lines between the Web and TV. Read more.

The Wall Street Journal – Facebook’s Zuckerberg Takes Long View
Facebook Inc. is gearing up for what is expected to be one of the biggest-ever initial public offerings for a Web company. But as the social network moves to an IPO it must prove to investors that it is ready for the big time. Read more.

Ad Week – With $25M Investment, eMarketer Girds for New Growth
eMarketer announced that private investment firm Stripes Group has taken a $25 million minority stake in the company. The new funding will be used to pay back early investors, including eMarketer’s major shareholder, Beehive Ventures LLC, as well as improve service and spur growth, the company said. Read more.

Advertising Age – eMarketer Nabs $25M to Accelerate Growth
EMarketer has had its fair share of suitors recently, according to Geoff Ramsey, co-founder and CEO. “We get calls from private equity firms and other companies all the time,” he said. Mr. Ramsey and his company have now turned away possible acquirers for the foreseeable future, instead taking on a $25 million investment from Stripes Group, a firm that targets growth investments in mature, profitable businesses. Read more.

Advertising Age – Twitter’s Redesign Isn’t Really Helping Advertisers
Certainly Twitter will need to attract brands to the platform to hit the $400 million mark in ad revenue that eMarketer is forecasting by 2013. The question for marketers is this: Has Twitter adequately addressed advertisers’ needs? The answer is: not very well. Read more.

Mashable – 5 Strategies for Creating Magnetic Content Online
Brands are content publishers. And the Holy Grail of brand-produced content is magnetic content — an emerging buzzword eMarketer describes as a form of marketing that “involves blurring the lines between content and advertising,” and calls out as one of the top trends for 2012. Read more.

MediaPost – Why Can’t I Be You: Online Video Vs. TV
The TV is struggling to stay relevant in a world of rich media, connected devices and a world where online video has grown to over 50% of the U.S. population, according to eMarketer, and is now a mass market platform. Read more.

paidContent – Interactive TV Advertising: Not Huge Now, Will This Be The Year It Grows?
Last week’s CES event brought a clutch of announcements around interactive TV services—specifically around more content getting pushed to devices. That points to growing attention to the medium: will advertising follow? Read more.

Here are a few of the top stories in which eMarketer data and analysis were featured this week:

9/9: SFGate.com – Twitter’s active flock reaches 100 million
Twitter use is growing, with more than 100 million monthly active users around the world and 50 million who log on every day, the San Francisco microblogging service said Thursday. Read more.

9/8: AdAge.com – Yahoo’s $4 Billion Problem
Plenty of Yahoo’s wounds are self-inflicted, but two of the biggest reasons Yahoo isn’t growing has nothing to do with former CEO Carol Bartz but will make things that much harder for her successor: Facebook and Google. Read more.

9/8: Bloomberg.com – FTC Should Reject Online Advertisers’ Privacy Effort, Groups Say
An online-advertising industry effort to self-regulate privacy safeguards fails to protect Internet users and should be rejected, a coalition of consumer groups wrote to U.S. and European Union regulators today. Read more.

9/8: Wall Street Journal – Content Deluge Swamps Yahoo
Ousted Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Carol Bartz faced a plight all too familiar to many of her peers: Making money off digital content isn’t easy and it’s getting harder. Read more.

9/8: Wall Street Journal – China Dating Site Grooms New Plan
In China, where Internet users often expect freebies, individual members of an online dating service are exchanging dozens of love notes every day at 30 cents a pop. Read more.

9/8: Wall Street Journal – Facebook Doubles Revenue in First Half
Facebook Inc. is continuing its rapid pace of growth, with the social network doubling its revenue to $1.6 billion in the first half of 2011 from about $800 million a year earlier, said a person familiar with the matter. Read more.

9/8: Forbes.com – Failure to Renew: Why Yahoo and AOL Will Perish
You don’t see too many buggy whip companies around these days. They used to be quite common until automobiles replaced horses as a popular mode of transportation. But it’s harder to make tires than whips. Read more.

9/8: Bloomberg.com – Bartz May Get About $10 Million in Compensation After Firing
Carol Bartz, who was fired Sept. 6 as Yahoo! Inc.’s chief executive officer, stands to receive a payout in the range of $10 million after less than three years on the job. Read more.

9/8: MediaPost.com – Facebook Is Breathing Down Google’s Neck… Well, Ankle
Google’s paranoia about Facebook is an established fact; much as Google execs may claim Google+ isn’t intended to compete with Facebook, it’s hard to take the assertion at face value, considering how many areas of overlap there are between the new social network — sorry, I mean “suite of social tools” — and Facebook. Read more.

9/7: New York Times – Once a Leader, Yahoo Now Struggles to Find Its Way
Yahoo has been one of the most-visited sites on the Internet since its glory days as a Web portal. Yet as the rest of the Internet moved on to social networks and mobile devices, Yahoo has failed to keep up. Read more.

9/7: The Economist – Carol goes out the portal
When Carol Bartz took the wheel at Yahoo! in January 2009 one of her first acts was to tell employees that she would “drop-kick to fucking Mars” anyone who was caught leaking company secrets. Read more.

9/7: Associated Press – Perplexing Puzzle: Can Yahoo’s Luster Be Restored?
Yahoo Inc. has gone through three different CEOs in five years. Whoever takes the helm now will face the same challenge: Solve one of the Internet’s most perplexing puzzles. Read more.

9/7: Financial Times – Hulu owners should take the money and run
While advisers in other sectors anxiously watch the latest twitches in global financial markets, technology bankers still look confident about the depth of potential bidders’ pockets. Speculation that Yahoo could again become a target after Carol Bartz’s unceremonious exit is a reminder that cash is not an issue for most would-be buyers. Read more.

9/7: paidContent.org – Barclays: Expect A Pullback In Branded Ad Spending
There are two general rules when it comes to advertising spending these days: when times are tough, marketers tend to take money from brand awareness efforts to campaigns with a clearer return, like lead gen or direct response. Read more.

9/6: New York Times – Yahoo Board Fires Chief Executive
Carol A. Bartz, Yahoo’s chief executive, was fired Tuesday, ending a rocky two-year tenure in which she tried to revitalize the online media company. Read more.

9/6: Bloomberg.com – Microsoft Ramps Up Google Challenge in $12 Billion Display-Ad Market: Tech
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the largest software maker, is adding features to its Internet display- advertising products to keep from losing customers to Google Inc. (GOOG) and Facebook Inc. in the $12.3 billion U.S. market. Read more.

For more of eMarketer’s recent news coverage, click here.

Online video advertising is finally making an impact on the digital space. Of the $28.5 billion that eMarketer predicts will be spent online next year, video advertising—as it hits almost $2 billion—will be the most dramatic growth story. Video spending has always accelerated faster than other online ad formats, but this may be the first year that trend will have demonstrable results.

Video ad spending will achieve the highest gains in market share among the formats. While other formats remained fairly static, video alone will double from a 5.5% share in 2010 to 11.3% in 2013, new eMarketer estimates show. And spending for video ads will continue to escalate at a furious clip in 2011—39% compared with 11% for banner ads and 10% growth for search.

One reason for the huge increase in video ad spending is that brand marketers will shift more of their ad budgets online. Since there is more professional video online than ever before, buyers have more inventory to choose from.

Brand marketers realize how central the internet is to consumers’ lives than it was even two years ago. More important, they see how much of that video content is professional, so they trust it and as a FreeWheel study shows, consumers tend to watch video ads to the end when they are up against professional video content.

For most brands—particularly the often traditional consumer goods marketers—perception is everything and the content that their ad runs up against is very much related to how the audience will perceive their brand. So, when it’s content that the audience already knows (like TV shows) they can be sure their brand image will not be tarnished.

Will the shift in ad dollars come from TV? I wish I could say for sure. TV is certainly not declining. It’s growing in solid single digits, according to eMarketer’s comparative estimates. Some industry watchers say that the dollars for online video ads are still shifting from TV, others say it is shifting from print.

But I predict that a major key to the shift into online video will come from the rich consumer goods companies because that ad format gives them more of what they need for branding than any other online format. As important, advertising against professional video content is the most comfortable parallel to the way they’ve been advertising on TV. Twenty-one of Ad Age’s 100 Leading National Advertisers are consumer goods brands, and those 21 spent over 22% of the entire pool of measured media advertising, according to our analysis of the Ad Age data.

That’s not to say the Unilevers and Procter & Gambles of the world will get the internet religion wholeheartedly. Consumer goods brands tend to be conservative, and they will continue to tread carefully and experimentally. But they will continue to spend. After all, for brands with such large ad budgets, a little bit goes a long way. Further, consumer goods brands need to market the brand, since in most cases their products are interchangeable.

Online video CPMs tend to be more expensive than TV CPMs, or even cable. But video ads online also tend to be more targeted. Marketers are not reaching a mass audience of millions as they would on TV. Instead they are reaching a focused, engaged audience. There is less of an ad load online, so people tend to sit through the ads, rather than flipping channels or taking a snack break as they would with TV.

Better still, there is a higher completion rate for watching mid-roll ads compared with preroll and postroll, according to FreeWheel. Why? A consumer has already committed to watching the content, so they might as well watch the ad. Most surprising, half of the post-roll ads served are viewed to the end. With TV shows nowadays, both online and on the tube, you never know what scintillating little bit of content from the show might follow the ad.

There are three caveats to all this great growth news.

With more and more content pouring online from the TV networks, Hulu Plus and possibly Google TV, growth seems certain. Don’t forget, though, these entities are still quite new. They may falter, or fade away and video ads will not grow at the same rate.

In addition, the growth of Netflix in particular, as well as Apple TV, point to a huge quantity of digital video content that will be subscriber-based or pay-per-view, and therefore creates no video ad inventory.

Bandwidth limits are another problem. If large ISPs, which are predominantly cable companies, start to meter bandwidth, consumers will become more picky about how much video they view. As they become more selective, that could decimate the amount of video inventory available.

If those caveats don’t come to pass, the future holds huge promise for digital video. There will not only be a surge in video on the internet, but an explosion of video everywhere. People will watch online, on their iPads, their smartphones or internet video streamed through the TV. And marketers will buy those ads in packaged deals across screens.

Remember that quote from former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker about analog dollars and digital pennies? It was early 2008 and he was commenting in The New York Times about the top monetization priority for the TV industry as it transitioned to online video.

“Our challenge with all these ventures is to effectively monetize them so that we do not end up trading analog dollars for digital pennies,” said Zucker, referring to various online video initiatives, including Hulu, of which NBC Universal is a partner.

A couple of years later, two things are different: First, Zucker was ousted from NBC following Comcast’s plans to acquire the network and second, Zucker has changed his tune somewhat.

“I’ve since revised that quote, and I think we’re now up to digital dimes,” Zucker told an audience at the Wharton School on September 29, 2010—just five days after his dismissal.

But regardless of whether he’s talking dimes or pennies, Zucker hasn’t changed his overall assessment of the online video economic model. “Hulu and Netflix are pretty much destroying our business model and if we don’t figure this out, there’s not going to be any content to watch anymore. The equation still won’t work,” he said, gravely.

Zucker offered a familiar litany of reasons for his pessimism—the fragmentation of the viewing audience, competition from cable channels, the difficulty in getting high CPMs for content on broadcast TV, and the industry’s fundamental lack of “a business model that will cover its costs.”

I can’t argue with Zucker that those are big challenges. But the real crux of the issue was something he revealed in response to a suggestion from the audience that NBC Universal reduce actors’ salaries or other personnel costs.

“There’s a lot of mansions in Hollywood built on preserving the old system,” said Zucker. “We make billions and billions … each year from the old models that are still in place, [such as] distributing USA and SyFy and CNBC through Comcast and Time Warner Cable. It’s expensive to produce the kind of content that we do and to collect the kind of news and information we do. If we forgo all of that because of these new technologies, we’ll be out of business right away.”

Zucker’s comments confirm what many of us have thought all along, but few (at least in the industry) have been willing to admit: That the monetization struggles of the burgeoning online video industry have less to do with a lack of economic viability than with a dogged determination by the old guard to protect its own interests—from their big mansions to their sweet content deals.

The “old system” Zucker is referring is not just the TV network he worked for, but the entire ecosystem of actors, writers, producers, content owners, broadcasters, cable channels, cable and satellite systems, and of course the two parties that ultimately fund the whole enterprise: consumers and advertisers.

At least in the short term, the shift to digital video will disrupt that ecosystem. The viewing audience will migrate toward online and mobile platforms, of which some will be fee-based and some ad-supported. For marketers, neither option is as attractive as the status quo. Paid content models effectively take advertising out of the equation, while ad-supported venues will take a long time to reach the kind of scale that broadcast and cable channels offer.

As I noted in a recent column in AdAge: “It will be years before TV and home movie viewing shift en masse from cable and broadcast to purely internet-based offerings. Until TV networks and movie studios start seeing dollar signs, they’re not likely to make a critical mass of content available to digital video providers.”

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