Yahoo’s CEO, Terry Semel, has spoken out aobut internet advertising and how its potential growth has been vastly underestimated – given that people never factored in video, social websites and mobile internet content.

Speaking at the Internet Advertising Bureau Engage conference, Semel said

Video as you all know will become a major factor on the Internet. It will be everpresent throughout the Internet and it will find its proper way to advertise. So whether it’s mobile or whether it’s video or whether it’s more and more community (social networking sites), these factors have not gone into those numbers, so we think the actual growth potential of advertising online is really being understated.

This is an interesting point as I feel, and YouTube feel, that mobile advertising from online media sources is seriously underdeveloped. Full integration and operation of the likes of Bebo, YouTube and MySpace into the mobile web, particularly in handset form, offer huge gateways for advertisers, particular amongst younger age groups.

God knows theres enough people sending around funny videos by mobile phone – why not a funny advert?