Fascinating Fact

UPDATE: This fact was so fascinating, there's probably no way it's correct, as Martin Langeveld points out in his comment that kindly doesn't say, "You moron." (I had tried to view the original document, but couldn't find my way to it without having to pay for it.) Let's just say, as Martin says, that what the original document was trying to say was... and leave it at the fact that the original original document actually didn't say what the original document seemed to read as saying. The only way it made sense to me, I admit, was that the cost of most online advertising had been driven down so low that real estate was some sort of exception.

The great thing about blogs is you get to completely embarrass yourself once or twice a year, as opposed to simply making a fool of yourself with every post.

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It really is. And so, before we get to the professionalization of reporters:

Three out of every five dollars spent on online advertising is for real estate.

Think of that.

Sixty percent of online advertising is real estate.

This same report says newspaper real estate advertising, which everyone, literally everyone, calls outmoded, will rise 16 percent this year (after falling 34 percent last year) while the amount spent on online real estate advertising, while still "pivotal," will decline further.

I don't know enough about this to really put it in any context, other than that so much help wanted and private party advertising that went into classifieds is now free that it probably explains part of this. The story notes that as more real estate advertising online becomes search-based, it will cost less.

Still.

Sixty percent of online billable ads are from one industry.