By: Senior staff writer – Easton Ellsworth

According to TechCrunch, the online advertising industry is going to change dramatically on January 1, 2009. That’s less than 36 hours away from where I’m sitting.

Why? Because many medium- and large-sized advertising buyers will cut their annual budgets drastically in response to the flailing economy, leaving online publishers starving for cash.

TC predicts a 50%-ish drop in ad revenue for content sites over the next quarter or year.

As a former blog network editor with a couple of years’ experience selling and managing ad inventory, I’d say that’s probably about right. Well, maybe a tad too pessimistic, but only just a tad.

What will this mean for startup companies? Here are a few ramifications:

1. Cheaper advertising means easier exposure – Your technology startup or Internet startup will find many ad spots cheaper to buy than in 2008. As publishers get desperate for whatever revnue they can grab, you may find some amazing discounts. I’d recommend that you try to lock in low rates for 6-12 months ahead if you find a really well-performing placement.

2. Web visitors will get used to fewer ads – Which means they’ll expect less annoying, more relevant ads. So if you’ve still got that flashing “Pull My Finger” banner ad in your inventory, you might want to scrap it.

3. Content will become advertising more than ever - Startups will have to work on making their content itself more viral, to save money on advertising costs.

How else will the upcoming new year change online advertising and tech startups’ response to it? What are your thoughts?