THE Irish Internet Association put on another good show this year at its annual conference in Killiney.

Besides boasting a heavy output of intellectual capital each year, its worthiness as a networking venue can't be underestimated. Case in point . . . this year's keynote speaker Mark Charkin, now head of sales in Europe for the social networking giant, Bebo. He attended the 2006 IIA conference as a speaker, but representing Microsoft's MSN. It was at the IIA conference, he told delegates last Thursday, that he got introduced to Bebo and started the series of conversations that led to his current job. So it pays to come along to these events . . . if you can convince your boss, who's probably paying, that you're not out job-hunting.

One of the more interesting bits of research in the 'State of the Net' report presented by Aileen O'Toole's Amas consulting pointed to an apparent disparity in the advertising spend split between "online" and "newspapers" (see graph, right).

According to research from PricewaterhouseCoopers in the UK, consumers were spending nearly four times as much time online as with newspapers . . . 7% of 'media time' with newspapers vs 27% with online. Yet the advertising spend was disproportionately high for newspapers . . . 37% of all the advertising spend. Online punches well below its apparent weight.

Combined with mounting evidence that, particularly in the 15-24 age group, audience members increasingly spend more time on Bebo or other social networking sites than watching TV, it would seem online isn't getting the ad-money love.

How to explain it? Some believe it boils down to the way advertising budgets are controlled and spent - a lot more relationship selling, which favours agencies employing human beings and not just software. Others point to the fact that audience is a lot more sloshy . . . 'online' is a term that covers everything on the web. While social networking sites manage to hold an audience for longer than other kinds of websites, it's still hard for the advertising to find the audience. Then there's the thinking of big research brains in multinational ad networks . . . who couldn't give a fiddler's fart for your 'relationships' but note the stubborn persistence of print as a medium of authority that aggregates a pretty consistent, measurable audience of affluent, intelligent readers. Like yourself.

Okay, you're blushing now. We'll stop.

RTE DEBATABILITY

WHO says people don't care about politics? An average audience of 941,000 and a national audience share of 63.3% tuned in to watch El Bert go mano y mano with Earnest Enda on Thursday. We didn't see the quarter-hour figures but we suspect they would show a higher rating for the first half-hour, before decent people were headed to the leaba.

The debate audience was an increase on debates in 2002 (835,000) and 1997 (757,000). While immensely more entertaining . . . the Wednesday night ultimate fighting championship-style debate between Michael McDowell, Pat Rabbitte, Trevor Sargent and Gerry Adams garnered only 581,000.

UP THE POLE

WE were privileged to be among the gaggle at the farce that was the PD poster unveiling Wednesday, with special guest stars John Gormley and Lucinda Creighton.

BEST. PHOTOCALL. EVER.

40 SHADES OF POD

PODCASTING is still an infant medium, with data still sparse on who is listening, and information that can be kind of important to advertisers. Like when and where podcasts are consumed . . . 80% of audio podcasts are listened to via the PC's speakers rather than on an iPod according to most research.

Also bits about whether a podcast . . .

that's just a digital MP3 audio file you download to your computer and listen to at your leisure - that is merely downloaded counts as 'listened to'.

One of our daily listens is the podcast from Slate. com, a US-based online-only magazine specialising in comment and analysis on politics, culture, business and the arts. In 2004 it was bought up by the Washington Post company. Its audience is heavy on af"uent urbanites who get its irreverent take on the world and like its dumbingdown-proof content.

It seems that advertisers are starting to take the risk, however, as lately the podcast is preceded by 15second spots from luxury carmakers, financial services firms and. . . CIE Tours, hawking "vacations" to "Oireland - de perfect vacation spot", complete with tin whistle accompaniment to the voice over with the slightly OTT accent.

28 PINTS LATER

IS IT just us or does the Guinness hurling sponsorship campaign produced by Irish International BBDO, which starts tomorrow, make hurling look, well, just a little bit creepy? Publius loves the clash of the ash as much as anybody, despite hailing from a county (Suffolk, in New York) not known for its hurling prowess.

The face of current campaign (see above) just reminds us a little too much of a zombie-type victim in full "ight of 'Infection' with the 'Rage' virus in '28 Days Later'. (We haven't seen the sequel yet. )