The global advertising industry has rebounded more quickly from the worldwide recession than eMarketer and other analysts had anticipated. According to updated eMarketer data published in June, advertisers will spend nearly $500 billion in 2011—a growth rate of 4.5%. Online ad expenditures of $80.2 billion are fueling the recovery, with internet ad spending increasing 17.2% this year.

A complete report, Worldwide Ad Spending: Online Drives Growth, is available for eMarketer Total Access subscribers. Learn more here.

As Twitter is rumored to have bought TweetDeck, here’s eMarketer’s outlook on the microblogging service’s ad revenue.

Global advertising spending on Twitter reached an estimated $45 million in 2010, and is expected to hit $150 million this year, according to eMarketer’s first full forecast of ad spending on the service. By 2012, Twitter ad spending could reach $250 million, but this forecast is dependent on Twitter growing its user base substantially.

A complete report on Worldwide Social Network Ad Spending is available for Total Access clients. Click here to learn more.

Recent weeks have brought a raft of estimates and forecasts for UK advertising spending in 2010 and 2011. For digital media, the news is excellent; for traditional channels, more sobering.

Spending on internet ads grew 10% in the first half of 2010, the UK’s Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) declared in October. As reported by MediaTel, online spending came to almost £1.97 billion ($3.09 billion), or 24.3% of all UK advertising during the period.

According to the IAB, online display returned to healthy growth in H1 2010, with spending of £381 million ($598 million)—a rise of 6.4% compared to the first half of 2009. Banner ads accounted for 72% of the display market, or £272 million ($427 million), while pre- and post-roll video ads shot up to £20.7 million ($32.5 million), and display placements on social media sites contributed around £41 million ($64 million).

Display ad impressions (excluding video) rose even more steeply than spending between Q3 2009 and one year later, to judge by figures from comScore Ad Metrix. This suggests that advertisers were getting much better value for their display budgets in 2010, which doubtless encouraged more committed spending.

Classified ads also staged a comeback in 2010, the IAB reported, climbing 11.4% to £379 million ($595 million) during the first half of the year. Paid search marketing rose by 8.9%, to claim 59.9% of all online ad spending, or just over £1,180 million ($1,853 million).

The IAB saw the double-digit rise in online ad spending as part of a more general recovery; by its calculations, total UK ad spending reached £8.1 million ($12.7 million) in H1 2010, 6.3% higher than spending in the first half of 2009.

The Bellwether report, issued by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) and accountancy firm BDO LLP, was less upbeat, noting that the ad budgets of UK marketers rose by an average 0.5% in Q3 2010—a marginal gain, though a welcome contrast to the 4.6% fall registered in Q2.

Like the IAB, the IPA found that the internet delivered the outstanding success stories, with spending on search up 9.9% in Q3 2010, and display spending up 13.3% compared with the previous quarter.

The IPA did point out that most of the 300 or so firms polled for the report were less optimistic about the financial prospects for their industries than in Q2. Moreover, the report’s author ventured that the strong economic performance in Q2 “likely marked the peak of the recovery cycle.”

Looking ahead to 2011, the latest Consensus Forecast from the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) projected that worldwide ad spending will rise by 4.5%, following a gain of 4.4% in 2010.

Most of that growth will be driven by emerging markets, such as Brazil (where ad spending is predicted to leap 11.4% in 2011), China (13%), India (14%) and Russia (16.3%)

The UK and most other major European countries can expect minor gains by comparison. UK ad spending will rise 2.7% in 2011, said WARC, or just over half the 5% growth anticipated for 2010.

France and Germany will see 2% growth in total ad spending, while Spain will register a gain of 2.2%, after a decline of roughly 1% in 2010.

Globally, WARC foresaw average 2011 increases in Internet ad revenues (13%) far outpacing growth rates in traditional media (5.2% in TV, for example).

The UK, long a leader in internet advertising, will show the lowest growth rates, according to WARC. But even then, online ad spending will be an estimated 6.2% higher in 2011 than in 2010.

Most recently, key companies in the WPP Group, including agencies Ogilvy & Mather and Mindshare, raised their overall forecasts for revenue growth in 2011. According to CEO Sir Martin Sorrell, the revisions were based in part on WPP’s own 4.5% growth between January and October 2010. Group companies had earlier suggested that they anticipated expansion of between 3% and 4% in 2011.

Where does this leave UK ad spending, and online ad spending in particular? Some key aspects to keep in mind:

1. The economic situation remains volatile. In the past week alone, the UK has been buffeted first by news of another national financial bail-out in Ireland (the UK’s number one trading partner) and then by claims that the economy grew by 0.8% in the third quarter, and that spending cuts by the Conservative/ Liberal Democrat coalition government will not have as drastic an effect on public sector jobs as previously feared. The arrival of good and bad economic news in quick succession has been a hallmark of 2010, and looks set to continue as 2011 approaches. This uncertainty will weigh on advertisers, but most have little choice but to maintain spending at or above current levels. After the declines of 2009, further trimming might affect their market shares.

2. For the moment, the consumer mood is largely positive, buoyed by the prospect of Christmas. Many high street retailers—and several online players, including Amazon—are already offering mark-downs, and sales are healthy in many sectors. In the week ending November 13, the John Lewis group recorded sales of £76.93 million ($120.78 million), up 11.5% on the previous week, and 6.8% higher than the corresponding week of 2009. January may bring a less happy mood, however, as the holiday spirit recedes, some jobs are in jeopardy and value-added tax on most purchases goes up to 20%.

3. While growth in total ad spending may languish in the low single digits, there is little doubt that digital will again outpace traditional media, as in 2009 and 2010. Industry observers are unanimous in predicting that display (driven by sharply higher spending on video ads and social media placements) will gain further momentum, while paid search also thrives and mobile marketing moves up a gear.

eMarketer’s CEO Geoff Ramsey presented at IAB Mexico’s yearly conference, IAB Connecta, last month, just as I was getting into the thick of my research for our Mexico Online report (available to Total Access clients only). Working together, we came up with a new way of looking at the data that went beyond estimates of internet users and penetration or spend by marketers.

Dividing the estimates of online advertising spending from the various country branches of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) by eMarketer’s own internet user estimates for the same countries allowed us to calculate the amount advertisers are spending online per user—and the results varied widely.

We compared Mexico and Argentina to more developed markets and found that online ad spending per internet user drastically lagged behind that in Canada, the UK and the US.

One thing this data indicates to me, and hopefully most marketers, is that there remain nearly boundless opportunity for online ad spending growth in the Mexican and Argentinean markets. Already, opportunity for engagement online is high—approximately 90% of internet users in Mexico look for information on brands and products according to one report from IAB Mexico.

Several industries have a chance to capitalize on this rising opportunity. Two of the historically largest industries in the country—financial and automotive—pulled back online advertising spending in 2009 but have seen success online in the US and other developed markets. As the Mexican economy rebounds in 2010 and 2011, these industries are expected ramp up spending online locally, hoping to replicate that success and meet pent-up demand in Mexico.

The potential for online ad spending will only get bigger, as the number of internet users in Mexico is expected to continue its strong growth. eMarketer estimates that users will increase from 29.5 million in 2009 to 56.4 million in 2014, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.4% through the period.

To learn more about eMarketer’s coverage of Mexico and online advertising spending, please click here.

BlackBerry owns a commanding 42% share of US smartphone subscribers (and a 9% share of the total subscriber population), according to July data from comScore, and globally, BlackBerry shipments rose 45% from Q1 2009 to Q1 2010. So why has the introduction of its newest smartphone, the Torch, and version 6 of its proprietary operating system been described as a make-or-break moment for BlackBerry?

First off, Research In Motion (RIM) may hold the lead among US smartphone subscribers, but it certainly isn’t gaining share. At best, RIM is managing to tread water while other platforms, most notably Android, surge ahead. Globally, Canalys projects 169% year-over-year growth in Android smartphone shipments in 2010 and 100% year-over-year growth in total market share. RIM, by contrast, is forecast to lose six points of market share.

Second, and perhaps more worrisome for RIM, is BlackBerry users’ lack of loyalty to the platform. In findings released this week, Nielsen revealed that only 42% of current BlackBerry owners would opt for another BlackBerry as their next smartphone, while 29% want an iPhone and 21% have their eyes on an Android device.

Now, had Nielsen’s survey sample included only dedicated business users, who constitute the core of the BlackBerry faithful, the results might have looked somewhat different. But that highlights the very challenge BlackBerry faces in the market today: with more mobile users, including both consumers and business users, consolidating their communication, media consumption and social networking activities on a single device, the line between business and personal is rapidly eroding. And that means smartphones need to be really good at many things, not just really good for e-mail, which has historically been BlackBerry’s strong suit.

When the competition includes the iPhone 4, HTC EVO 4G, Motorola Droid X, Samsung Galaxy S and others in the annoyingly termed “superphone” class, BlackBerry devices seem desperately short on the “wow” factor: good enough for the faithful, but not appealing enough to attract new users to the fold. That was the consensus among analysts polled by FierceWireless. Leading tech journalists had a mixed reaction, but at best, RIM seems to have caught up with its rivals. There are few voices to suggest this latest BlackBerry surpasses the other leading smartphones on the market.

It will be interesting to watch whether the Torch and OS6 light the way as a new direction for RIM or whether the BlackBerry platform will continue to suffer from the perception that it is stagnating in the face of increasingly fierce competition in the smartphone market.