Global Internet advertising prices have taken a plunge in the past 12 months, with Web ads now selling over 30 percent cheaper than last year, Jupiter MMXI said.
"Advertisers paid 30 euros ($26) on average for 1,000 page impressions in June 2000, while they now pay 20 euros," the research company said.
The reasons given for the sharp decrease are the ample supply of space on numerous sites and sales networks which largely exceed demand for online advertising.
The surplus of unsold ad space is worth between 60 million and 70 million euros every month, Jupiter said. Most European publishers have more than 60 percent of their ad space unsold.
To make matters worse, a recent executive survey conducted by Jupiter MMXI shows that 25 percent of traditional advertisers find the online medium too expensive, and lacking in real value.
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Here comes L-mode: Nippon Telegraph and Telephone said it will launch L-mode, which allows e-mail and Internet access over phone lines without a personal computer, on June 29.
Its regional units NTT East and NTT West recently won approval for the L-mode service after providing assurances that other Internet service providers would handle information traffic between a user's local access point and NTT's gateway linking to the Internet.
L-mode compatible telephones, which will come equipped with a large screen to display Web content and services, are already available and applications for the service will be accepted beginning June 6.
Each telephone number signed up for L-mode will receive an e-mail address and will have access to an initial 200 Web content providers.
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Sacked by Sachs: Goldman Sachs has fired 150 investment bankers as part of its plans to cut its existing work force by around 5 percent.
A spokesman for the bank said the job cuts were across the group and included some senior bankers at the level of managing director.
The job cuts at Goldman (GS) underline an overall weakness in mergers and acquisitions activity and a dip in equity fund raising by companies industrywide.
Recently, rival Morgan Stanley (MWD) cut 1,500 jobs, most of them at its investment management and securities division. Merrill Lynch (MER) has cut jobs and so has Citigroup (C).
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Hey, big spenders: AOL Time Warner (AOL) said AOL members spent a record $6.7 billion shopping online, including travel, in the first three months of 2001, up 70 percent from the same period a year previously. That figure even surpasses the $6.4 billion spent during the December holiday quarter.
"It's certainly a good number, but I'm surprised their members spent more in the (first quarter) than the holiday quarter," said Ken Cassar, analyst at Jupiter Media Metrix.
The typical trend has been a small increase sequentially from the second quarter to the third quarter and a larger increase in the fourth quarter.
Shoppers' experience during the holiday season has created momentum into the first quarter, a company spokeswoman said.
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Deal du jour: EXcelon and C-bridge Internet Solutions said they would merge in a stock swap valued at some $73 million, joining their consulting services and software products for the Internet.
In a joint statement, the companies said that each outstanding share of C-bridge (CBIS) common stock will be converted into the right to receive 1.2517 shares of eXcelon (EXLN) common stock.
The combined company, which will conduct business as eXcelon, will be owned 50-50 by the shareholders of each company.
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An urge to buy: T-Online, a German ISP, was reported to be interested in the European portal business of its U.S. counterpart, ExciteAtHome (ATHM).
Citing people close to both companies, Wall Street Journal Europe said talks had been largely exploratory so far, and T-Online -- a unit of Deutsche Telekom -- had not yet decided whether to open full-scale negotiations.
T-Online, Europe's largest ISP, declined to comment on the report.
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Not just fast, but really fast: Deutsch Telekom and Lucent Technologies (LU) tested a fiber optic network that is capable of running at 40-gigabits per second over a 72 mile-region -- the equivalent of sending 8 million single-page e-mails in one second.
The system, which will be commercially available later this year, is four times faster than any other system of its kind today, both companies said.
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Reality bites: Two television stations have pulled a commercial for an aquarium in Newport, Kentucky saying the ad looks too much like a real news report about shark sightings in the Ohio River.
The commercial shows a fictional television reporter being knocked into the river, supposedly by a shark. It was made to promote a new shark exhibit at the Newport Aquarium.
Television stations WLKY in Louisville and WTVQ in Lexington both pulled the commercial during the past two weeks. Neither station received complaints from viewers, but general mangers at both said they worried the format was too close to that of a real breaking news report.
Reuters and AP contributed to this report.
