I wonder who will be bold enough to call the ‘top’ of the online ad market? I have felt that online will easily reach a 15% share of advertising revenue for some time now, but it feels like we will surpass this figure even quicker than many anticipated. With so many distribution channels yet to be fully realised, including the burgeoning community networks and natural search optimisation, the challenge to digital agencies will be how to embrace their clients needs at a pace that keeps up with a voracious consumer demand.

The latest data from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), carried out in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) confirms that online advertising’s break-neck growth continues to outpace any other form of advertising media.

Given that the wider UK advertising sector is struggling, and in many areas is depressed, the 40.3% like-for-like annual growth for the first half of 2006, confirms that we are in for another record breaking year and pushes online’s share of the pie to 10.5%.

2006 will not be far off 2 billion in online revenues, bring-on 20%!

We’ve written a concise beginner’s guide to social media for people in marketing and media. It’s aimed at people who have heard of blogs, wikis, MySpace and YouTube, and kind-of / sort-of understand it but would really appreciate a clear explanation, just to make sure.

The e-Book’s called “What is social media?” and you can download it here.

We really hope the book’s useful. Work’s already begun the second edition and some follow up books on related subjects, so please do email me if you have any feedback or suggestions: amayfield@spannerworks.com

The e-Book also marks the official launch of the Spannerworks Social Media division. Social media marketing is our third offering, effectively, alongside paid and natural.

We are working hard on some interesting new services and tools for our clients behind the scenes and will let you know al about them as soon as we can.

AOL is facing legal action from three people whose search data was released by the company. Read more…

Del.icio.us, the bookmark-sharing community has gained its one millionth member. If you’ve not tried it yet, now’s the time… Read more…

This years ad-tech promises to be the best ever, there’s a real buzz about this years event and probably due to the ever increasing importance being placed on Search Marketing. Read more…

Fascinating Friday: four web stunts that worked and fired the imaginations of millions. Read more…

There’s a real sense that marketers are taking search, both paid and natural, far more seriously. Read more…

Business travellers are turning on to the power of blogs to air their frustrations about poor service, says an article in the New York Times today. Read more…

A Belgian court has ordered Google to stop posting links and summaries of French-speaking newspapers. Read more…

Google Finance means that people are just a click away from blogs about your brand… Read more…