Google leads the online advertising game

Via I Want Media: The New York Times reports on the growing trend of keyword online search with such search engine giants as Google and Yahoo, and how it has affected the online advertising market. Google, the Web's top-rated engine, announced this week that it had sold over $1 billion worth of advertising during the last three months of 2004--a new record. While paid search isn't necessarily a novel idea, the influence it's pressing on the Web and online advertising is significant. "In the past, advertising has been hard to track and hard to make accountable," said Google vice president of advertising sales Tim Armstrong. "Now advertising has become a dialogue with the consumer." Other trends in online advertising include rich media ads that feature interactive audio and visual capabilities.