Searching for China

With Google giving up the fight in China, my earlier prediction about Baidu probably means they will be second to Google in search queries by the end of 2011 not 2012. Although this may feel like a great opportunity for Yahoo/Microsoft, it’s not. For the last few years, I spent a lot of time understanding the Asia digital advertising market and doing business there has proven a very different challenge of US companies. Currently Baidu doesn’t seem interested in launching in any other market so partnering with a second tier search engine seems unlikely. Google’s power has already changed the advertising field in most markets which has essentially left no competition in search. This may however push other countries to rethink how much free reign they want to give Google. This will be an interesting year for Google with the fastest growing market now out of their plans.

Online Advertising Predictions for 2010

1. The success of Apple and Google phones will force Microsoft to buy a mobile ad network. I know, not shocking.
2. CPM prices will rise again. The recession pushed premium inventory prices down, but it pushed traditional ad dollars down more. Online surpassed TV for the first time in Europe in 2009 and this year, we’ll see digital make a comeback in volume and pricing
3. Social media hype will cool down. Yes, I know it’s popular and the amount of hours spent on Facebook are absurd, but no one has been able to truly measure how impactful advertising on social sites really are. All media buyers should turn social media spending over to the PR team. They are more closely aligned with how to measure the success of social.
4. The end of the search battle. In case it wasn’t clear by now, Google has won the search battle. With roughly 80% of the global search queries and growing and a decreasing battled Yahoo and Microsoft, it’s safe to end the standing 8 count. Baidu however, will be the world’s number 2 search engine by 2012.
5. Twitter reaches the crossroads. They will either get acquired, see a new competitor or just go away. The jury is still out on how valuable twitter really is, click here, but the honeymoon phase is over.
6. The tradeoff on free content will hit a pivot point this year. Advertising supported website will be impacted by online privacy changes. And challenge all publisher’s ability to monetize content without charging.
7. Large advertising agencies will acquire technology companies versus other agencies. The increase in online advertising will force ad agencies to think about growing more efficient versus just topline growth.
8. 3D advertising will become a norm on the Internet. After all the hype of TV moving to 3D channel following the success of the Avatar movie, digital ads will be the first to the new format a standard.
9. Online video will make its way to television. It’s the next step of reality tv, user generated TV.  I know Apple TV does this now with YouTube, but I think Time Warner, Comcast and DirectTV are all looking for one leg up in innovation.
10. 2010 will go down as the year of data. Who has it, who owns it, what they can do with it.