Here are a few of the top stories in which eMarketer data and analysis were featured during the past week or so:

The Economist – Cheerio to the Chief
Fond of his informal title of “chief Yahoo”, Jerry Yang has been an influential figure at the internet firm for many years. But on January 17th Yahoo! announced that Mr Yang, who co-founded the business in 1995 with David Filo, had resigned from its board of directors and would also step down from all other positions he holds at the firm. Read more.

The Wall Street Journal – New Display Ad Push Adds to Bag of Tricks
Google Inc., long labeled as a one-trick pony that sells Web-search text ads and little else, is quickly learning another trick: selling online display ads. Read more.

The Wall Street Journal – Hulu to Create More Original Shows
Online video site Hulu LLC is increasing its output of original shows, the latest in an escalation of TV-like programs being made directly for the Internet, further blurring the lines between the Web and TV. Read more.

NPR’s – Co-Founder Jerry Yang To Leave Yahoo!
Jerry Yang has resigned from Yahoo’s board and severed all ties with the company that he co-founded 17 years ago. Yang is leaving at a time when the Internet behemoth has struggled to remain relevant. David Hallerman tracks Yahoo’s ad sales at eMarketer. He says for many investors, Yahoo has lost its luster. Read more.

USA Today – Yahoo Co-founder Yang Exits the Company
Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s oft-criticized co-founder and former CEO, resigned from the board and will no longer be a part of the Internet pioneer, Yahoo said late Tuesday. Read more.

Advertising Age – Online Ad Spending to Pass Print for the First Time, Forecast Says
Online advertising spending will cruise past print in the United States this year for the first time, according to a new forecast by eMarketer. Read more.

Advertising Age Age – Trying to Decide on a Cause-Marketing Category? Consumer Location is Key
Purpose marketing, cause marketing — the phrases are among the biggest buzzwords in the industry today, and with good reason. Read more.

Bloomberg – Facebook Said to Weigh Doubling Size of European Headquarters in Dublin
Facebook Inc. is seeking to more than double the size of its European headquarters in Dublin as the most popular social-networking site prepares for a possible $10 billion initial public offering, three people with knowledge of the matter said. Read more.

Bloomberg – Accel Facebook Bet Poised to Become Biggest Venture Profit: Tech
A few months after struggling to raise a new fund in 2005, Accel Partners bet $12.2 million on a website run by a college dropout. Seven years later, that wager is poised to be the most profitable ever for a venture firm. Read more.

Business Insider – Online Ad Spending To Rival That Of TV By 2016
Most of the business press is leading with the news that this year, for the first time, internet ad spending is set to eclipse total spending on all print media. That is news for sure. Read more.

The Hollywood Reporter – Forecast: U.S. Online Ad Spending Will Outpace Print This Year
U.S. online advertising spending will grow 23.3 percent to $39.5 billion this year, pushing it past spending on newspapers and magazines, according to the latest forecast from research firm eMarketer. Read more.

CNBC – Online Advertising, Led By Google, to Pass Print Officially This Year
After a steady transition over the last decade, total U.S. online advertising revenue will officially surpass spending for ads in newspapers and magazines this year, according to forecasts from multiple research firms. Read more.

To listen and watch playback of the webinar, Buying Display Ad Inventory, click here. You can view the PowerPoint deck below.

What you’ll learn:

• The primary methods and channels for buying display ad inventory (premium direct, ad networks, exchanges, DSPs, RTB) along with an overview of benefits and drawbacks for buyers
• Different approaches to targeting, and how they influence where marketers buy their ad inventory
• The difficulty and necessity of integrating ad inventory purchases across channels

About David Hallerman

David Hallerman is eMarketer’s expert in US online advertising and marketing, covering search and display advertising, internet ad targeting, email marketing, online video advertising and ad spending across media. He is frequently quoted in top business publications and broadcast programs.

Sponsored by TRUSTe.

To listen and watch playback of the webinar, Integrating Search and Display—Tactics for More Effective Advertising, click here. You can view the PowerPoint deck below.

Join us for:

• Tips on optimizing your online ad spending through effective integration of search and display
• Best practices to increase conversion
• Techniques for creating an attribution model that enables you to build and measure holistic display and search campaigns
• Why it’s important to analyze the combined effects of display and search through the traditional purchase funnel

About David Hallerman

David Hallerman is eMarketer’s expert in US online advertising and marketing, covering search and display advertising, internet ad targeting, email marketing, online video advertising and ad spending across media. He is frequently quoted in top business publications and broadcast programs.

Sponsored by Knotice.

When Steve Jobs first announced the iAd platform back in April, the clever analysts at Juniper Research put up a blog post asking “Will iAd Generate iAdspend?”

Following yesterday’s somewhat glitch-ridden introduction of the iPhone 4, the answer appears to be yes. Steve Jobs told an enthralled audience that Apple had over $60 million in commitments for 2H 2010 from the likes of Nissan, Sears, JCPenney, GEICO, Target, Best Buy, GE and Unilever, as well as longtime partners Disney and AT&T. Those commitments represent 48% of mobile display ad spending the second half of the year, according to Apple (which clearly based its calculations on more optimistic projections than eMarketer’s, below).

Of course, we have to factor in the Apple effect. Combine a new, slicker and seemingly more capable iPhone with a revised OS and a new ad platform and you have the potential for a rising tide. Apple’s entrance into the mobile advertising market in such a high-profile fashion undeniably serves as a validation of the medium. But whether it will lift all mobile advertising—or just mobile display—remains to be seen.

The iAd examples Apple demonstrated yesterday certainly looked impressive, as they should given how high Steve Jobs has set the bar. The bar for performance has likewise been set high, commensurate with the cost of participating in the iAd program. The awareness Apple has generated about iAd, which transcends the marketing community at this point, should work in favor of iAd advertisers, who will also get to bask in Apple’s glow.

The novelty factor associated with the first round of iAd likely could contribute to high levels of consumer engagement. Wired magazine saw a huge boost in sales when its iPad app was released, thanks to the considerable hype associated with the app’s engaging, touch-friendly content. The same hype could be applied to engaging, touch-friendly iAds, which launch July 1.

The question, however, is whether Apple’s halo effect will last with the iAd platform. The proof ultimately lies in the effectiveness of the campaigns once they are in-market, not in the flashy demos.

(Image Credit: James Martin/CNET)

Several recent reports have drawn some interesting conclusions about the online advertising market in the Asia-Pacific region. The takeaway: Things are heating up much faster than expected.

The Nielsen Company recently reported double digit growth for Q1 2010 advertising spending in Indonesia, Taiwan and Thailand over the same period in 2009. Ad spending in the first quarter of 2010 totaled IDR13.2 trillion ($1.27 billion), NT$9.9 billion ($299.5 million) and THB22.79 billion ($664.4 million), respectively. Out of those three countries, Indonesia recorded the highest growth at 26%, followed by Taiwan (22.8%) and Thailand (10.8%).

Online ad spending led the rebound in Thailand, growing 68.29%, mostly due to lower levels of investment. It’s important to note that Nielsen Indonesia did not include online advertising and Taiwan did not separate out figures on Internet ad sales from its total advertising spending.

Nielsen’s Hong Kong office also recently reported that online ad revenues reached HK$255 million ($32.7 million in US dollars) in Q4 2009 to boost full year spending to HK$869 million ($111.4 million US). The total number of advertisers and campaigns more than doubled from Q4 2008 to Q4 2009, signaling an acceptance of online ads among advertisers in Hong Kong.

The Interactive Advertising Bureaus of Australia, New Zealand and Singapore also recently released their latest data for total advertising spending, with the Web leading the way. Online advertising in Australia was up 17% in the first quarter of 2010 year-over-year, propelled by a surge in search and directory spending. In May, IAB New Zealand reported a 12.3% increase in Q1 2010 and IAB Singapore estimates that online spending grew 30.2% from the first half of 2008 through the first half of 2009.

I know it’s quite a bit of data to digest in a short blog post, but it boils down to one point: Online advertising saw sustained growth throughout Asia-Pacific, compared to a 9.8% contraction in total advertising spending worldwide from 2008 to 2009 as estimated by ZenithOptimedia.

It’s not anything new to say that Asia is a huge opportunity for marketers looking to reach out overseas to seemingly untapped masses. The region’s exploding mobile market, for example, offers plenty of potential for advertisers. (There are more mobile Internet users in China right now than there are people living in the United States. If that’s not potential I don’t know what is.) What this data does show, however, is that online advertising is booming in the Asian market, and for the first time, marketers won’t be able to count on Asia being “untapped” much longer, at least online.

Note: All currency conversions were made using the average 2009 exchange rate.