After years of seemingly limitless growth, the search industry is now maturing to the point that it's growing sideways as well as upwards. At least that's what Greg Jarboe claims in an interesting post over at Search Engine Watch that dives into 6 key issues that are playing a role in the future of Internet marketing.

Jarboe's article aims to summarize the more than 425 pages of information in Piper Jaffray & Co.'s recent report "The User Revolution: The New Advertising Ecosystem and The Rise of the Internet as a Mass Medium," and it's take on how advertising and online media models can succeed in the next couple of decades.

A few of those points:

The full report covers 12 key issues that Piper Jaffray analysts feel will shape the face and progress of online marketing. In fact, Jarboe quotes analysts Safa Rashtchy and Aaron Kessler as stating:

"Our team has focused on this report for more than a year, in part because our research kept uncovering new and important trends at a dizzying pace. It was clear that we were virtually reporting live a major upheaval unfolding in the media world, one that appeared revolutionary in magnitude. Consider this report as a warning of a storm that has already formed, a storm that will destroy many models and create new ones. Luckily, the full cycle of the storm will still take a few more years to complete, and there is still time to react."

Hmm....remember back when people claimed that "this Internet thing" was going to be a "passing fad." Funny how times change, isn't it?