As a conduit for advertising, either on PPC pages, through affiliation arrangements or direct sales to advertisers, domain owners are in the media business. That fact makes increasing

forecasts that the U.S. media business will face tougher times in 2008 something worth keeping an eye on. Reuters reporter Michele Gershberg wrote about this in a new article released yesterday headlined U.S. Media Face Troubling 2008. However if a downturn does arrive, Gershberg's article indicates that those who operate online will have much easier sledding than traditional media outlets. She wrote "Experts say advertisers need to remain competitive in a tightening market while keeping costs down, making them likely to boost spending in areas more directly linked to commerce, such as Web search queries."  

She quoted Sanford C. Bernsteinanalyst Jeffrey Lindsay as saying “We see continued strength in paid search and continued strength in retail e-commerce, and possibly an acceleration of online video."

Web search leader Google remains confident it  will remain unscathed. “We feel that we're not too sensitive to those macroeconomic fluctuations,” Google's chief economist, Hal Varian, said in an interview. “If there is a macroeconomic downturn, people will be a little pinched. We think that would be to the benefit of online sales.”
(Posted Nov. 27, 2007)