The subtext in all the negativity surrounding Yahoo is that online advertising just isn't working, and therefore this is the beginning of the end. It's true, as we detail in our special report, that online advertising has not yet lived up to its promise. Mainstream advertisers and their agencies, disappointed with early results, are not persuaded that the Web is a viable medium. TV and print remain the kings. Yet the fact is that all media are becoming relatively less effective as advertising vehicles.
Network television draws nowhere near the audience it did a decade or two ago.
Direct-mail response rates continue to fall. But this, in itself, doesn't mean very much. It also may be true that the ability to carefully target messages on the Net, and to generate instant response, has not been the silver bullet that many expected. But people have been at this for only a few years, and it's going to take some time to figure out what works. And neither can I understand why people would now think it's going out of business.