The drop in share price and panic selling by some investors has caused somewhat of a mini uproar on the Internet today. One thing to bear in mind in connection with Yahoo! (YHOO) and its ad model is that the two biggest advertisers on the Internet are automobiles and financial services. With Yahoo taking a hit on both of these, people starting selling off the stock fast.
Now one of the reasons, in my estimation, that Yahoo! took such a big hit was they termed it 'an unforeseen advertising shortfall.' This is starting to sound like the ignorance of the U.S. auto industry in being surprised that nobody wants to buy larger vehicles at this time. How could anybody say, especially concerning the auto industry, that they were surprised by advertising cutbacks?
Now having said that, for us online marketers...unless you're niche site is connected to the U.S. automobile industry - and to a lesser extant the financial industry - you shouldn't have too much to be concerned with. I'm not even sure that the financial industry slowdown may be nothing more than a simple, temporary blip in spending.
Advertising overall will continue to grow online for years. Even with the announcement by Yahoo!, the slow moving entertainment industry was talking about their efforts becoming more and more focused on creating content for the purpose of attracting advertisers.
Long-term, you will not suffer at all in the online advertising model. This is a good reason to make sure you market to more than one niche demographic as there are always going to be slowdowns in any one industry at all times.
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