InternetU.K.'s Online Ads Rake In More Than TV

Britons also accounted for the highest revenue per head in Web advertising globally, according to a new study by the country's communications regulator.

Spending on online ads overtook advertising on mainstream TV in Britain last year, growing 40 percent to $5.3 billion and accounting for 19 percent of all advertising, U.K. communications regulator Ofcom said. In its annual report on Britain's $95.6 billion communications industry, the watchdog found that TV advertising remained flat at $6.6 billion. Ofcom also said it found that Britons spent four times as much time on computers, or 24 minutes a day, and twice as much time on mobile phones in 2007 as in 2002. "We are spending more and more time with our communications devices but spending less on them," Ofcom's strategy and market development partner, Peter Phillips, said in the report, which covers TV, Internet, mobile and fixed-line telephony and radio. Online advertising spending was dominated by search ads, in which sponsored links appear as Internet search results. Search accounted for $3 billion, with the rest split equally between display and classified ads. RELATED ARTICLES Google Search Ads Stronger Amid Slowdown? For Search Engine Use, Glass Almost Half Full TiVo Embraces Ads for Amazon Yahoo Offers Murky Look at Google Search Deal Advertisers Get More Social For more stories on this topic: According to Ofcom's comparative figures for 2006, the latest available, Internet advertising in Britain generated more revenue per head -- $62 -- than in any other G7 country. The share of total TV advertising... [ Read more on www.internetnews.com ]

InternetWikipedia founder aims to break Google stranglehold (AFP)

AFP - Watch out Google -- Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales hopes that Wikia Search, a project he spearheads, will break Google's domination as the world's most widely used Internet search engine.

InternetItaly blocks Swedish file-sharing site (AP)

AP - An Italian judge has ordered the country's Internet service providers to block access to The Pirate Bay, a Swedish file-sharing Web site, as part of a probe into copyright law violation, officials said Thursday.