Internet advertising revenue reached $693 million for the first quarter of 1999 - almost doubling the $351 million reported for the first quarter 1998, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau's (IAB) Internet Ad Revenue Report. This is the thirteenth consecutive record-setting quarter for the online advertising industry.

The increase in revenues is due, in part, to the way all the individual components of online business are working together to improve the online experience for users.

The categories leading online spending for the fourth quarter were consumer related - 27 percent, financial services - 21 percent, computing - 20 percent, retail and mail order - 13 percent, and new media - 8 percent.

Banner advertising is still the dominant type of advertising, accounting for 58 percent of advertising, the report says.

Pricing models are also tracked in the report, which comes out quarterly and represents data from over 200 companies representing more than 1500 web sites. Hybrid pricing accounted for 51 percent of 1999 first quarter revenues. Impression-based deals came in at 43 percent and performance-based deals account for 6 percent of revenues.

So what does all of this mean? It looks like online advertisers are increasing their confidence in the medium, especially consumer advertisers. To learn more about online advertising trends, visit the IAB web site at www.iab.net.