eMarketeer released a report showing that global ad spending on social networks is expected to reach $445 million in 2006 and nearly triple to $1,125 billion in 2007. They predict that the US will account for about 80% of the ad spend.

Socnet adspend 06-11-01

In a related article, Google announced that Its 2006 UK revenues are expected to surpass Channel Four’s (*) predicted £800m ($1.5bn) returns.

Since much of the advertising on social networks are contextual text ads like Google’s AdSense (Google owns the ad space on MySpace which eMarketeer estimates to account for 60% of social network ad spend) this all seems to indicate that

1. Social networks are real businesses – some are here to stay;

2. Broadcasters really need to start developing their response to user/viewer migration online.

(*) Channel Four is the UK’s second largest network, with about 9% share of viewers, that airs advertising in the UK (the BBC is paid by though a TV tax).

tags: social networks TV