By Masha Geller

During a rich media discussion at MediaPost's third annual Forecast conference in New York on Thursday, Jupiter Analyst Nate Elliott presented a set of stats that show how poised the rich media landscape is for expansion.

Elliott presented the numbers, which are based on an executive survey of 579 online marketers and the numbers on which rich media ad formats advertisers use, and those numbers are encouraging.

According to the survey, rich media ads are projected to grow to 8% of total online spend in 2003, up to 11% next year and up to 25% by 2008. Streaming media, which Jupiter tracks as a separate category, is set to grow much faster than the rest of rich media, and reach 3% of total online spend this year, 4% in 2004 and a promising 14% by 2008.

In the survey, Jupiter also asked marketers, "Which of the following rich media and streaming media advertising types does your company plan to use in the next 12 months?"

According to the findings, marketers plan to increase their usage of on-page ads - banners/skyscrapers/rectangles using Flash, Java, Pointroll, Enliven, video, etc. - from 56% this year to 67% next year.

Over-page advertisements, which include Eyeblaster, Shoshkeles, Ad4Ever, DHTML, as set to grown from 15$ to 22%.

Marketers also plan to increase their usage of Between-page advertisements such as Superstitials, Ultramercial, and interstitials from 11% to 19% and Pre-roll video advertisements (video ads that play before, during or after user-initiated video content ) from 9 to 17%.