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The latest research compiled by IAB Europe and analyzed by Pricewaterhouse Coopers has shown that European online ad spend has grown by 40% over the past year, reaching €11.2bn/£8.9bn (from €7.2bn/£5.7bn)

Predictably, the UK, Germany and France were the key markets - accounting for two-thirds of the spend. However, other markets are growing significantly - Greece grew by 91%, Spain by 55% and Slovenia by 49%.

The IAB forecasts that 10 of the 16 European countries studied will spend over 10% of total advertising budgets online by 2010 - currently 7 nations have reached this.

If these current trends continue, it is predicted that the online ad spend in Europe will overtake that of the US by 2010, which only grew by 26% to €14.5bn over the past year.

New research by the Advertising Association and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) has shown that the total online ad spend in the UK reached a record high of £3bn for the first time over the last year.

Online now accounts for 16% of the total UK advertising market, growing 39.5% last year and remaining the UK’s fastest growing sector.

Ad spend across all media in the UK over the last year grew 4.2% to £19.4bn. The UK cinema advertising sector saw great growth, rising by 10.1% - although, at £207m, this is only worth 1.1% of the UK’s total advertising market. Outdoor advertising also grew by 4.6%, to £1.05bn, which gives it a 5.5% share of the UK advertising market.

Press is still the largest single sector in the UK, accounting for £7.7bn, which is around 40% of the UK advertising market. However, there was some bad news for press advertising as it saw a decline of 1.6%. Direct mail advertising also saw a decline, but a much greater one, at 6.5% taking its total spend to £2.17bn.

Many analysts have long predicted that online would soon be stealing market share from newspapers, magazines and direct mail - and these figures seem to prove them right.

New research by the IPA has shown that almost a third of people between the age of 15 to 25 have watched TV via the internet. And around 18% of people aged between 25 and 64 (a very broad ‘old people’ category or what?!) had too.

The IPA Touchpoints report surveyed over 5,000 people and also looked at mobile behaviour. It was found that 30% of 15 to 24 year olds watch video clips on their phones, with 13% of all mobile users doing so.

Jim Marshall, chairman of the IPA Media Futures Group, said, ” the young are still driving the take-up and use of digital media and new technology, however, the older age groups are also moving steadily towards greater adoption.” Personally, I would have thought that more than a third of 15 to 25 year olds would have watched TV online, but I suppose if this statistic was expressed as a number than a percentage it would seem greater.

Just as an extra update - overall broadband penetration now stands at 73% of all UK adults, with internet usage at an average of 45 minutes on weekdays and just over an hour at weekends.

Viacom’s legal battle with Google over YouTube’s alleged copyright infringement has developed further since my first installment. Viacom, which owns MTV and Paramount Pictures, alleged that YouTube is guilty of massive copyright infringement after finding around 160,000 unauthorised clips of its programmes on YouTube.

The latest news from the lawsuit is the ruling by a US court that Google must hand Viacom a YouTube viewing log with details of everyone who has ever watched any video on YouTube (so basically everyone on the planet..) The viewing log will contain the log-in ID of millions of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details - and will total more than 12 terabytes of data - bad news for everyone out there who may have watched some copyrighted videos (so again, basically everyone on the planet…)

Viacom say they want the data to “compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing video with that of non-infringing videos”. But, digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (the EFF) are arguing that the ruling is a “set-back to privacy rights” and is potentially unlawful because the log data will contain personally identifiable data. They are urging Viacom to “back off this overbroad request” want Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users. I can’t see it happening though, and I think there are going to be some pretty harsh words towards Viacom - and the Judge that ruled the decision.

The court have also ruled that Google must divulge the details of all videos that have been removed from YouTube for any reason.

The top 5 social networks in the UK (Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Flickr and Hi5) had a combined total of 38.84 million monthly unique users in April, according to research firm comScore. Yet they have struggled to turn their user popularity into pounds, and recent research by eMarketer has revealed that advertisers will only spend £115m on social networks this year - which is a tiny figure when compared to the overall ad spend online.

However, although they are not reaching their full potential, there has been a healthy 77% growth in ad spend on social networks in the UK since last year, which saw it reach £65m. Advertisers forecast that the growth in ad spend will remain high over the next couple of years at around 52%, but they estimate that this growth rate will slow to 28.6% in 2010, 15.6% in 2011 and 9.6% by 2012.

The main reason suggested for the low ad spend numbers is due to the companies behind the social networks being so young that they have not had time to work out a business model to monetise users.  Looks like they better get a move on…

For more info on the research, visit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/05/advertising.digitalmedia

The team and I will be at various events this month, including:

• Facebook Developers Garage - 4th June
• D&AD Presidency Lectures: Experimental Jetset - 5th June
• Being Digital - 10th June
• FUEL - 13th June
• D&AD New Blood - 23rd June
• Online Marketing & Media 08 - 24th/25th June
• Plus, 20:20 Cricket at the Oval - 11th June

Let me know if you’ll be coming down to any - it’s always great to catch up!

Borders has gone solo, after its 7 year web sales tie in with Amazon. David Runk of the AP announced that Borders has returned to being an independent online bookstore, with a major facelift designed to increase interest in its brand.

I’ve had a look around the site, borders.com, and think its a really cool and easy to use site. The storefront has rich visuals, with ‘The Magic Shelf’ centrepiece - a browser window that users can interact with to view highlighted books, music, and movies. Users can operate this menu several ways. If you choose on option from the lefthand menu, it will take you to your desired shelf. You can then toggle the arrows at the edges of the window to see all new and/or recommended picks. Or you can simply grab the window and drag your way about the shelves. Whichever way, its great to be given the choice of how you want to browse.
Borders claim that it is refreshing its online storefront not just to compete combating with the likes of Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but also to create a more interactive experience for its customers, with author-contributed shortlists, interviews, and other content. Borders also states that, even with the launch of its new website, it remains open to a sale of the business. According to the AP, Borders announced some two months ago that it might put itself up for sale, and that Barnes & Noble very recently “confirmed it put together a team to study the feasibility of a deal.”

Another project this week sees neoco working on a really cool digital showpiece for Puma and the 2010 World Cup. It’s an internal comms projects which brings to life the strategic positioning of their Puma football brand. The animated showpiece is being developed closely with GBH (Puma’s Brand Design Agency) so it reflects their offline work. The project highlights what makes Puma different from the other brands involved in football (or soccer as some people still insist on calling it).
The showpiece will feature in upcoming Puma keynote presentations.

The details of 200,000 Old Bailey trials have been published online, naming and shaming many of history’s black sheep…So now you can easily search for your ancestors and see what trouble they got up to!

Records covering trials between 1674 and 1913 have been published and the site claims to provide access to “the largest single source of searchable information about ordinary British lives and behaviour ever published”.

Read a full article on this at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7361701.stm

iGliss has just relaunched its redesigned beta, labelled as a ‘media content management service’.

We all know that often there are just too many steps to sharing media online with friends - but iGliss provides one convenient place for you to share all your favorite items including videos, pictures and blog posts.

With iGliss, you can choose to do the traditional uploading ‘by hand’, or you can download their PC content manager, which locates your media for you and automatically uploads it - basically taking all of the human interaction out of it for you. Once your media is uploaded, other users can search the site for your content, using it’s tags and descriptions, and then share it with even more people.

As well as sharing your own content, you can share videos from YouTube and RSS feeds - basically anything that can be shared on the web can be shared here - great for people who do a lot of sharing!