Some sites, like Discovery’s Planet Green, have already been playing around with the new OPA ads, but if you haven’t seen them yet, you can do it with a little bit of imagination. Think of a traditional Web ad as the equivalent of a yard sign. The new ones are billboards.

Like your descriptions more literal? Here’s the technical description of the new formats. By way of comparison, the column of text you’re reading now is 350 pixels wide.

The Fixed Panel: 336 wide x 700 tall, remains constant as the user scrolls to the top and bottom of the page.
The XXL Box: 468 wide x 648 tall, opens for seven seconds to 936 wide x 648 tall with 1/24x frequency.
The Pushdown: 970 wide x 418 tall, opens to display the advertisement and then after seven seconds, rolls up to 970 wide x 66 tall, with 1/24x frequency.

And um, here’s what a really big ad might look like on your desktop (click to enlarge).

If you’re knee-deep in the online advertising business, you’ll be interested in why these ad formats are being pushed by the Online Publishers Association instead of the better-known Interactive Advertising Bureau. I have heard some baroque/petty descriptions of squabbling between the two groups, whose membership overlaps but isn’t identical. But maybe we’ll come back to that some other time.

For now, let’s see if these deliver as advertised–that is, whether they get marketers to spend more money on the Web, without just plowing the money into Google (GOOG).

That’s one takeaway you can draw from a new study commissioned by an Internet publishing trade group, which concludes, astonishingly, that Internet publishing is an important and vibrant industry.

The data are being served up via the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which tells us the advertising-supported Web industry “directly employs more than 1.2 million Americans with above-average wages in jobs that did not exist two decades ago, and another 1.9 million people work to support those with directly Internet-related jobs.”

Note the “advertising-supported” modifier in the above paragraph, because that’s the real thrust of the IAB’s study/press release: The trade group is trying to get Congress and Washington to let members like Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL regulate themselves when it comes to hot-button issues like behavioral targeting.

Hence this quote from IAB boss Randall Rothenberg: “By understanding the total contribution of the Internet to the U.S. economy, we can more accurately assess the impact of potential legislative changes on the Internet’s operations, particularly the consequences of any actions that would alter ad-supported business models.”

OK. Fine. But regulation is tomorrow’s problem. Today, let us celebrate the fact that some of us have jobs! And also, according to the IAB, we’re providing the following:

• Universal access to an almost unlimited source of information
• Increased productivity (output per unit of capital or labor, or increased consumer utility at a lower cost)
• Innovation in business practices, consumer behavior, commerce and media
• Empowerment of entrepreneurs to start small businesses, find customers and grow
• Environmental benefits derived from saving natural resources lowering pollution through the reduced use of petroleum-based fuels and paper

Cool, right? And all this time I thought I was just blogging. You’re welcome! And please keep reading.

[Image credit: respres]

And I think that gap is going to trip up a lot of big players in the years to come.

For a reminder, head on over to NebuAd’s Web site, which no longer works. That’s because the targeting firm, which once employed 60 people, closed up shop on Friday, according to MediaPost.

NebuAd was supposed to work with various Internet service providers and track Web surfing behavior of the ISPs’ customers, then sell that data back to the ISPs. That plan blew up last summer when the company became the subject of congressional hearings, and by last fall just about all of its former clients had run screaming from the company.

The standard response here from ad folks is that NebuAd was a bad apple that practiced a particularly noxious version of targeting. And that the press, lawmakers and the general public don’t really understand how targeting works.

And all of that may be true! But even if it is just a perception problem and the online ad business has only the best intentions when it comes to collecting and using personal Web data, it’s a perception problem that the industry has done a lousy job of fighting.

So said my lunch date today, who’s a veteran of several big online publishing companies, and who tells me that the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the industry’s trade group, is petrified of more NebuAds because they will likely lead to regulation.

Recall that Rick Boucher, a conservative Democratic congressman from Virginia, has already promised to regulate behavioral targeting at the likes of Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL. If the thought of that sort of thing is so distasteful to the ad guys, they’re going to have to start selling much more persuasively than they’re doing right now.

The cable giant had planned on charging customers in four locations on a “consumption” plan in which they’d pay between $15 to $150 a month based on the amount of data they hoovered via the Web. But noisy opposition to the plan surfaced immediately and has been getting louder over the past few weeks.

Instead, the company says, it will spend time on “customer education” to clear up “misunderstandings” about the plan, which it still believes “may be the best pricing plan for consumers,” etc. Translation: We need more time to figure out how to do this without getting our heads ripped off. Or handing over customers to the competition.

That’s what was already happening in Rochester, where Time Warner’s plans were supposedly driving customers to Frontier Communications Co., which offered a (presumably slower) DSL service. From the Associated Press:

“‘We have gotten hundreds of calls from Time Warner customers into our call centers,’ said Ann Burr, the head of Frontier’s Rochester unit, in an interview with The Associated Press. ‘I guess it’s been a public relations crisis for Time Warner.’”

This doesn’t affect other pipe guys’ plans to institute similar caps or consumption-based pricing plans: Comcast (CMCSA), for instance, has a monthly cap on its broadband plans, and threatens to cut off customers who exceed it (thanks to Business Insider’s Dan Frommer for the fact-check).

And as of yesterday, at least, the cable guys’ trade group was pooh-poohing people who complained about the idea. Here’s Kyle McSlarrow, CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, on his group’s blog:

“Hundreds of billions of dollars have been and continue to be invested by our industry in the deployment of broadband and now the deployment of next generation broadband; speeds have doubled or tripled in just the last few years; new and spectacular applications keep getting launched; no anti-competitive conduct has remotely occurred; and, in fact, compared to many other industries, the Internet ecosystem seems to be one of the few really healthy, growing, and creative parts of our economy with continued investment and innovation taking place every day. At a time of economic and financial challenges for our country, I for one would rather Congress spend its time on real problems, not fictional ones.”

[UPDATE: McSlarrow just put out a new post discussing Time Warner's move.]

By the way: McSlarrow, Time Warner Cable, Comcast other pipe guys with similar plans, like AT&T (T), may not have a terrible idea. But they’re going to undergo a lot of public whippings before they get this one through.

NEW YORK–Time Warner Cable today announced it would alter plans to test Consumption Based Billing, shelving the trials while the customer education process continues.

Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Officer Glenn Britt said, “It is clear from the public response over the last two weeks that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about our plans to roll out additional tests on consumption based billing. As a result, we will not proceed with implementation of additional tests until further consultation with our customers and other interested parties, ensuring that community needs are being met. While we continue to believe that consumption based billing may be the best pricing plan for consumers, we want to do everything we can to inform our customers of our plans and have the benefit of their views as part of our testing process.”

Time Warner Cable also announced that it is working to make measurement tools available as quickly as possible. These tools will help customers understand how much bandwidth they consume and aid in the dialog going forward.

Britt added, “We look forward to continuing to work with Senator Schumer, our customers and all of the other interested parties as the process moves forward, to ensure that informed decisions are made about the best way to continue to provide our customers with the level of service that they expect and deserve from Time Warner Cable.”

That’s not what the release from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Pricewaterhouse says, of course. It notes, instead, that the industry notched 11 percent year-over-year U.S. revenue growth in the third quarter of this year, and two percent growth compared to last quarter, which it says indicates a “stabilized” market.

But when the trade group for an industry known for go-go growth says things have “stabilized,” you know things are grim. Here’s what “stabilized” growth looks like in graphic form (click to enlarge):

But here’s the really disturbing thought for everyone who depends on Web ad revenue, or the promise of Web ad revenue (and yes, I’m talking about my employer as well): What would that chart look like without the contributions of Google, which grew 31 percent in the last quarter (and two percent compared to the previous quarter)?

By the IAB’s own count, search revenue makes up a little less than half of its total (44 percent in Q2), and Google (GOOG), of course, accounts for the majority of that market. You do the math. Or better yet, spend that time figuring out how to stay afloat for the next year.