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TWST: Let’s start by taking a closer look at the e-marketers. What is left in this sector? To what degree has this sector disappointed investors?

Mr. Mastin: This sector has been a significant disappointment. If you just rewind back to the peak about 15 months ago, the combined market capitalization of this sector was about $50 billion versus about $3-$4 billion today. So the expectations were obviously very high, perhaps because the market thought that at some point in the next five years these companies, as a group, would be generating as much as $10 billion in revenue. What’s left today is DoubleClick (Nasdaq:DCLK) and a lot of small companies that aren’t executing very well.

TWST: What is the outlook for DoubleClick through the balance of 2001 and looking out into 2002?

Mr. Mastin: The outlook is relatively good, all things considered. The company will be a survivor and probably a strong competitor in most of what they do. The outlook for growth, however, is not very positive as the Internet advertising market is terrible and visibility is almost nonexistent. So I guess you have to look at it across two dimensions. The first one is how dominant they will be in the sectors in which they compete. I’m pretty confident that, at this point in time, they will be the dominant player in most of the areas they compete in. The only question there is whether you believe that Internet advertising will be a very viable and robust field, and I still believe that it will. So I think the outlook for DoubleClick is pretty positive. With no visibility on growth, people scratch their heads and try to decide what the right valuation is for the company.

TWST: What will the future of Internet advertising consist of?

Mr. Mastin: I think you’ll see a combination of many different things, such as a lot of textual advertising. That’s where you wrap advertisements into the actual content that individuals are receiving so it’s not as standardized and not as easy for consumers to ignore. There has to be method to fund all of this content on the Internet, and if banner advertisements aren’t working effectively, then other forms of advertising will be found. I think that rich media has a bright outlook. Rich media tends to be more television-like and is frequently delivered in pop-up windows. While I know much of this advertising is despised, a balance will be required to keep the medium valuable to consumers. Eventually the right formula will emerge and an equilibrium will be achieved.

TWST: Overall, what’s your message to investors who are looking at advertising and marketing services companies and who are concerned about what they read in the press regarding the decline in advertising spending?

Mr. Mastin: While these companies have had some slowdowns, investors need to recognize that these companies are not being compensated directly on the raw advertising spending. Most of their revenues come from fees, and the fees for creating and employing advertising campaigns go largely unchanged. The extent to which those are deployed is where actual advertising spending or media spending comes into play. So these advertising holding companies are still creating nearly the same amount of new material as they have been in the past. However, instead of running a commercial 20 times, they may be running a commercial 18 times or 17 times.