Gloom heading online?

In what may be an early indicator of broader Web advertising trends, the New York Times announced today that it saw total Internet advertising revenues decline 3.8 percent.

The online falloff contributed to a 20.9% drop in overall ad revenues and a 13.9% decline in the company’s total revenues last month. It also signals a further chilling of the online ad market for newspapers and other Web publishers. The company is counting on rising digital revenues to offset the long-term decline in print advertising and circulation battering the entire newspaper industry.

BNET notes an even bigger online issue:

An entire wave of Web 2.0 players – YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Digg, Twitter, Flickr, etc. – have started losing their luster as it became clear they had not developed a sustainable business model. Although venture capital continued to fuel a vibrant sector of startups, the major question looming over these emerging companies was how they would attain the necessary scale to become profitable.

Cheap prices give Amazon a boost

Amazon.com is calling this holiday season its “best ever,” saying it saw a 17% increase in orders on its busiest day — a rare piece of good news in a season that has been far from merry for most retailers, including online businesses.

Amazon customers ordered more than 6.3 million items on Dec. 15, compared with roughly 5.4 million on its peak day last year, the company said. It shipped more than 5.6 million products on its best day, a 44% surge over 2007, when it shipped about 3.9 million on its busiest day.

Amazon’s best-sellers included the Nintendo Wii game console, Samsung’s 52-inch LCD HDTV and Apple Inc.’s iPod touch.
Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said Amazon’s experience shows the current economy is favoring discount retailers, both online and offline.