Jupiter Research expects the U.S. online advertising market to double to $22.3-billion by 2009 from $9.6-billion 2004, propelled by the paid-placement search business. Jupiter expects the market to see double-digit annual growth until the end of the decade, which can only be good news for Google, Yahoo and all the other paid-placement wannbes (Ask Jeeves, etc.) that want to capitalize on the Internet's gold rush - notwithstanding the current investment frenzy in China what with the Yahoo-Alibaba.com marriage earlier this week. I wonder how much of the online advertising market will be allocated to blogs by 2009?
Going back to search engine for a moment, Rupert Murdoch plans to expands New Corp.'s Internet presence by launching a portal and buying a search engine. Rumors have it Looksmart and Montreal-based Mamma.com may head the list.