Yahoo Warns of Slowing Internet Advertising Sales

narramissic writes "Yahoo chairman and CEO Terry Semel warned that a slowing U.S. economy is starting to impact ad sales, particularly in 'autos and financial services.' But Yahoo was careful to note that it cannot tell whether the current slowdown is a sign of broader trouble or is limited to ads from the auto and financial sectors."

Comments

Less auto/finance ads ... are bad?

[UbuntuDupe]

Sorry for being a cynic, but I don't see how a decrease in financial services or car ads are a bad thing.

1) Cars: auto sales are currently a big cartel. Every state has regulations stopping or significantly shackling internet sales of new cars. All that auto dealerships now offer you is the degrading process of "oh, gee, I dunno, I'm gonna have to talk to my boss about that offer you just made" and "here is a payment plan we can offer you in which I'll only talk about the monthly payments and hide the effective 14% interest rate that amounts to".

2) The financial services industry basically revolves around convincing people to invest with them to "beat the market". They thrive on artificially increasing the complexity of investing. I've had a financial advisor tell me that my investment plan is going to look "totally different from the guy in the next cubicle". Yeah, same age, same investment horizon ... whatever, dude. In reality, most of them can't "beat the market" and all you get is the honor of paying them usurious fees for their stock-picking "wisdom".

We really do need less of these ads. Is there something bigger I'm missing?

auto and finance both subject to rate pressures

[StandardDeviant]

Hmm, ad sales slowing down in sectors that are strongly sensitive to interest rate changes, at a time when interest rates have been ramped up by the Federal Reserve (who are only now starting to talk about slowing this rate hike campaign)? Color me somewhat unsurprised. A sharp dip in a few sectors is less worrisome to me than a shallower dip across the board. If the broader ad market begins to slump and does so for a few quarters in a row, yeah, it might be time to rethink all those old-but-new-again ad revenue dependent business models out there.

Hmmmm

[jasoneisen]

Sounds like someone's sales are slumping, and they want to bring the market down with them.

Gads, where does one begin?

[Penguinisto]

IANAE (and thank Heavens - my social life is geeked-up enough as it is), but why the doom-and-gloom over what IMHO is basically a short-term shift? (the US economy grew at 5+% the first quarter of this year, and 2.5% 2nd quarter)... (ref: here . I mean, seriously - if they were relying on year-to-year results to get a trend, okay... but quarter-to-quarter for a long-term forecast? Maybe I just don't grok economics so well, but it seems weird to me, to say the least.

Also, US Economy != World Economy, influences be damned. Is the global economy slowing overall, or no?

After RTFA, I think someone was trying to short some Yahoo stock more than make an accurate forecast...

/P

Re:Gads, where does one begin?

[TopShelf]

Don't take this story for more than it is. Yahoo is adjusting their guidance for the quarter downwards (at the low end of their range, not below it), and they note shortfalls in a couple major advertising sectors. There's nothing long-term about it, and they're tossing up a broader slowdown as a possible reason for their shortfall. That sounds like speculation more than anything else...

And yes, IAAE (at least that's what my degree is in, I don't work professionaly as one).

Re:Gads, where does one begin?

[Trailer Trash]

Whoever posted the article forgot to add that the terrible economic outlook is Bush's fault.

My fault

[misleb]

Sorry guys, this is all my fault. See, I block all ads. I'm antisocial. Forgive me?

Re:hmm

[Frag-A-Muffin]

Anyone have google's ad revenue relating specific to these areas?

Here's some data you can look at. Google looks to be doing quite well actually :) Maybe Yahoo is just losing to google more than they thought? :)