Economic Value of the Advertising-Supported Internet Ecosystem.

Interactive advertising is responsible for $300 billion of economic activity in the U.S., according to the study released by the IAB. The advertising-supported Internet represents 2.1% of the total U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). It directly employs more than 1.2 million Americans with above-average wages in jobs that did not exist two decades ago, and another 1.9 million people work to support those with directly Internet-related jobs. A total of 3.1 million Americans are employed thanks to the interactive ecosystem. These are the key findings of the first-ever research to analyze the economic importance, as well as the social benefits, of the Internet.

The study, commissioned by the IAB was produced by Harvard Business School professors John Deighton and John Quelch, along with Cambridge, MA-based Hamilton Consultants. The study was designed to provide an impartial and comprehensive review of the entire Internet economy and answer questions about its size, what comprises it, and the economic and social benefits Americans derive from it.
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In two decades the Internet has become central to social and economic life and is, today, a mature and integral element of the U. S. national economy. It is not only vital infrastructure, it is a spur to entrepreneurship and social change. It has changed the way firms find customers, customers find information, and people manage social relationships. It contributes significant value to the U.S. economy by creating and maintaining jobs, facilitating the rapid flow of information, and generally enabling the growth and prosperity of businesses. The Internet is not just a resource for large corporations: it has created unprecedented opportunities for growth among small businesses and individual entrepreneurs.

Originating as a project funded by the Department of Defense, the Internet grew to maturity without either major public funding or monopoly protection, unlike other categories of infrastructure such as the interstate freeway system, the national defense system, the telephone service, the postal service, and most public utilities. Payments for Internet marketing and advertising services are important sources of revenue that enable the Internet to function. The first contribution of this report is to demonstrate just how important Internet advertising—construed broadly as all those activities that help firms to find and keep customers—is to the maintenance of the Internet and, by extension, to the operation of the United States economy. Further, public policy toward the Internet has largely been defined by the absence of central planning. Perhaps as a consequence, there is little information on the scope and scale of the Internet resource. A second contribution of this report is to map the firms associated with the Internet and to identify the economic and social benefits that flow from it.

To read study CLICK on link below:
http://www.iab.net/media/file/Economic-Value-Report.pdf>