Facebook, YouTube execs whine about slow online ad adoption
Nicholas Carlson · 09/24/08 09:00AMYouTube's Jordan Hoffner, a content dealmaker for the site, told a conference in San Jose yesterday that it's "disturbing" how little advertisers spend online, considering how much time people spend online now. On an Advertising Week panel here in New York, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg shared the complaint, telling the audience: "We are getting a smaller share of budgets than the time consumers are spending would say. Consumers are spending something like 28, 29 percent of the time online, but online spend is like 8 percent of global advertising spend and about 10 percent in the U.S." Maybe the squeaky wheels will get some grease. But Jordan, Sheryl: the big reason online spending is so low relative to how much time consumers are spending online is that those consumers spend much of their time on Facebook and YouTube, which haven't come out with ad products media buyers consider worth their money yet.