Here are a few of the top stories in which eMarketer data and analysis were featured this week:

9/1: WSJ.com – What Bubble? Google’s Ex-China Chief Raises $180 Million for Tech Incubator
Kai-Fu Lee, former China chief for Google Inc., raised $180 million from a group of prominent investors for his company aimed at helping Chinese tech-industry startups, a sign of continued interest in the sector despite a range of recent challenges that have pushed down share prices for Chinese Internet firms listed in the U.S. Read more.

9/1: TechCrunch.com – Mobile Ads Could “Theoretically” Absorb Online Display Spending This Year, But They Won’t
With more than 600,000 apps available for an estimated 350 million Apple and Android mobile devices, it’s not difficult to see how mobile app advertising could soon eclipse online display advertising. Read more.

9/1: MediaPost.com – Mobile Ad Networks Scramble To Save Biz
Velti Mobclix Exchange, MdotM, Jumptap, InMobi and other mobile ad networks are collaborating on developing a strategy to track impressions and target advertisements on devices running Apple iOS 5. Read more.

8/30: paidContent.org – Older Facebook Users Click On Ads, Younger Ones Only ‘Like’
A good deal of the double-digit growth rates behind display dollars this year and next is due to rising interest in Facebook as an ad medium. Clearly, Facebook’s growing member base of 750 million users is even greater than the kind of mass that advertisers are accustomed to through TV and magazines. Read more.

8/30: Forbes.com – Google+ to Use Personal Data in Services
Google intends to use personal information gleaned from Google+ to add value to other products, including advertising, sparking debate among privacy advocates. Read more.

8/30: MediaPost.com – TV’s No-Freeloader Manifesto
To all you advertisers, marketers and media buyers out there — Have you ever considered the fact that at least a portion of your audience hates you? Read more.

8/30: VentureBeat.com – Index shows that cost of acquiring new mobile users dipped slightly in July
The cost of acquiring a new user for iPhone mobile apps declined slightly in July, according to an index monitored by mobile app user acquisition platform Fiksu. Read more.

8/29: paidContent.org – The End Of Social Media 1.0
I would like to talk about an inflection point in social media that requires pause. I am not suggesting that there will be a social media 2.0 or 3.0 for that matter. Nor do I see the term social media departing our vocabulary any time soon. Read more.

8/29: ClickZ.com – Using Mobile Applications to Improve Email Acquisition
The pervasive presence of smartphones in our society today presents the email marketer with new opportunities to improve email acquisition. Explosive mobile device adoption with its ubiquitous array of applications is swelling mobile advertising spending, which eMarketer predicts to reach $1 billion in 2011 in the U.S. Read more.

For more of eMarketer’s recent news coverage, click here.

In the spirit of AT&T’s just-announced location-based advertising program, ShopAlerts, today’s stat of the day focuses on the small but growing US mobile advertising market.

eMarketer estimates spending on US mobile ads reached just $743.1 million in 2010, up 79% from $416 million in 2009. This year, mobile advertising spending in the US is expected to grow 48% to $1.1 billion. Text messaging makes up the largest portion of the US mobile ad market. eMarketer estimates spending on text message-based advertising reached $327.3 million in 2010, accounting for 44% of overall US mobile ad spending last year.

When Apple introduced its iAd platform back in April, it promised to raise the bar for rich media mobile display advertising. To show off the platform’s capabilities, Apple demonstrated an ad for Disney’s “Toy Story 3,” complete with games, video and in-ad purchasing. So with iAd now poised to finally reach the iPad, it seems fitting that Apple would once again turn to Disney to debut the larger-format ads on its larger-format device.

Because iAd won’t officially roll out for the iPad until early next year, Disney’s “Tron Legacy” iAd has the limelight all to itself, just in time for its blockbuster release on Dec. 17.

The ad itself, activated from a typical iAd banner, is visually stunning. Like its “Toy Story 3″ predecessor, it comes complete with trailers, a theater locator and character profiles as well as a helpful explanation of the film’s convoluted plot (helpful for those who cannot remember back to or did not see the original “Tron” of 1982). The ad also enables viewers to purchase the movie’s soundtrack from iTunes without leaving the ad.

It’s a tour de force, and although by no means the first interactive rich media ad for the iPad, it is nonetheless an impressive harbinger of what is to come in terms of tablet advertising. Moreover, the “Tron Legacy” iAd is very much in line with a trend I noted in a previous post, which is, the combined effect of bigger screens and richer, more engaging ads, including video, is slowly changing consumer attitudes toward advertising on mobile devices.

Nielsen’s research among connected device owners suggests that iPad owners are more receptive to ads than other mobile device owners, particularly when the ads contain video and other interactive features. These findings square with the general purpose of the device. After all, the iPad shines when it comes to video and multi-media consumption.

But even if mobile device users are becoming more receptive to advertising, how much time they are willing to devote to viewing ads is still an open question, especially when much of the more useful content, such as trailers and showtimes, are readily accessible through other means. To the extent that brands that have built iAds have been willing to comment on the record, they have indicated satisfaction with metrics such as dwell times and interaction rates.

Apple has made no secret of the fact that it expects mobile users to reach content such as movie trailers through applications, including in-app advertising, rather than search engines, so it may be a question of finding the right balance between the richness and layers of the ads and the amount of time marketers demand from their target audience. At the very least, if some early reviews are to be believed, the “Tron Legacy” iAd might very well be more entertaining than the film itself.

The re-emergence of the tablet has been a major storyline in 2010. Thanks primarily to Apple, tablets have gone from also-ran to overnight success, creating a market that could see sales of as many as 41 million devices in the US alone by 2012. The category-redefining iPad will drive the majority of sales, in the US and worldwide, through 2012, according to eMarketer estimates.

Adoption of this new generation of tablets has been far brisker than other related device categories. Tablets will blow by e-readers in total sales in 2010, and by 2015, Forrester projects that tablets will account for a greater share of PC sales than netbooks or desktops. To say that tablets are changing the face of both computing and mobility is putting it mildly. Big tablet sales projections mean significant opportunities for marketers.

The big question is: will advertisers adapt to this whole new way to be mobile? Results from an August 2010 Nielsen survey suggest that they should. It found that iPad owners are considerably more receptive and, in some instances, significantly more excited about ads than other mobile device owners.

A case in point: 39% of iPad owners consider ads on their devices as “new and interesting,” according to Nielsen, compared to 19% of all connected device owners. And 35% say they actually enjoy viewing ads (especially multimedia ads), double the rate of all connected device owners. The iPad remains the standard-bearer for now, but it also functions as a benchmark for other tablets.

Anytime the word “excited” appears in relation to consumer attitudes about advertising, marketers should take note. Interviews with publishing industry executives suggest that awareness of the tablet advertising opportunity is growing.

Philip Whitney, VP of online marketing and product development for American Express Publishing, told eMarketer:

“Based on the price of the iPad itself and the fact that most magazine apps have a fee associated with them, you’re getting a select group of people who are really engaged with the advertising. In a world in which there are a lot of undifferentiated audiences, advertisers are very happy to get their message in front of a group of people who very ready, willing and able to engage with their ad.”

Publishers are understandably excited about the tablet opportunity, particularly tablet owners’ seeming predisposition to purchasing titles optimized for their devices.

But from the marketer perspective, the opportunity goes deeper than traditional publishers trying to make the transition to digital. Some of the most interesting innovations have come from companies such as streaming-music service Pandora, which launched interactive rich media advertising for the iPad in June 2010, and The Weather Channel, which has worked with high-profile sponsors such as Toyota on similarly interactive ad inventory.

Both beat Apple to the punch in providing rich media interactive ads, although with Apple’s iOS 4.2 now available for the iPad, iAds should soon start appearing on the iPad as well.

The bottom line: The combined effect of bigger screens and richer, more engaging ads, including video, is slowly changing consumer attitudes toward advertising on mobile devices. It’s up to marketers to continue fulfilling their end of the value exchange, but as more tablets flood the market, this evolving dynamic bears watching.

For more information on tablets, look for a new report coming out this month, written by my colleague, Paul Verna, “Tablets: New Screens for Marketers.”

What a difference a year makes. eMarketer’s September 2009 mobile advertising report carried the optimistic subtitle “Change Is in the Air.” Well, it’s safe to say that in 2010, change happened, and mobile advertising ramped up at a quicker pace than predicted.

eMarketer now predicts $743.1 million in total mobile ad spending in 2010, a more than 25% increase over last year’s forecast. Our projections are up on the order of 25% to 35% per year through 2014.

In my new report, “Mobile Advertising and Marketing: Past the Tipping Point” (full version available here to Total Access clients only), I explore in detail the key factors behind this increase in spending. They include:

• Major acquisitions of mobile ad networks by Google and Apple
• Rising adoption of super-capable multimedia smartphones
• The launch of the iPad and the rapid revitalization of the tablet market

Cautious optimism about economic recovery can take some credit as well, but it is really the injection of a new dynamic in the mobile space that is prompting marketers to overcome their reluctance to embrace mobile as a channel to connect with consumers.

Much of this new dynamic is attributable to the high-profile (and high-dollar) acquisitions by Google and Apple and the ways both companies have sought to redefine the mobile device and advertising markets. Google’s promotion of Android has made it a powerful alternative to Apple’s popular iOS platform. And Apple, in turn, has countered with the launch of the iPad, a new iPhone and iAd, the company’s own advertising platform exclusive to Apple devices.

As I noted in a previous blog post, iAd has generated its share of controversy. But in a recent address at the iMedia Breakthrough Summit, I shared the results of nearly a dozen interviews I conducted with industry executives over the past two months. Everyone I spoke with, including some of Apple’s competitors, agreed that iAd has been hugely beneficial to mobile advertising.

Google’s acquisition of AdMob is no less significant, because it will help bring scale to mobile advertising. In the report I write:

Part of what has made Google so successful is the degree to which it has helped demystify and simplify the media buying process. If it can achieve a comparable result with mobile and provide an equivalent level of tools, reporting and accountability, the effect will be significant in both the number of advertisers it will be able to attract to mobile and the amount they spend.

The importance of scale should not be underestimated; it is vital for the long-term viability of mobile advertising.

There is more detail in the report, but the bottom line is this: with consumers spending an ever-increasing amount of time in front of their mobile devices, marketers can scarcely afford not to pay closer attention to mobile. To the contrary, brands need mobile more than ever to stay relevant. And with more capable devices, faster carrier networks, ubiquitous wireless broadband and the availability of richer ad units, marketers have more possibilities than ever to deliver immersive experiences.

This shift is already well under way on the desktop. Starting with the rich media ads proliferating today, the next five years will see more interactivity, higher-powered creative and yes, perhaps even more emotion in mobile advertising.