Online Ad Spending Obviously Still Lousy

No surprise, this: The econalypse continues to weigh heavily on online ad spending.

Worldwide spending on Internet advertising declined by five percent in the second quarter of this year, slipping to $13.9 billion from $14.7 billion, according to research firm IDC. That’s the second consecutive quarter that revenue has dropped year-over-year, and IDC expects it to do so again in the current quarter.

“We think the industry will continue to see losses in the third and fourth quarters, but the growth rates–or the loss rates, if you will–will eventually begin to improve,” IDC analyst Karsten Weide said in a statement. “We believe the industry may have to wait until mid-2010 until we see real growth again.”

That’s a bit long to wait. Still, it’s nice to hear things will turn around some day, because the hits the online advertising industry has taken have been brutal. In this last quarter, classified advertising fell 17 percent and display advertising 12 percent, dragging Monster.com (MWW), Yahoo (YHOO), AOL and others with them. Only Google (GOOG) remained unscathed, posting low single-digit growth.

Typical.