The figures are in for 2007, showing that online passed the £3bn threshold last year and now makes up 16% of the UK's ad market. In Europe online adspend grew 40% during the year and is on course to overtake the US by 2010. These trends are only set to continue with some analysts now predicting that online budgets in the UK could overtake TV this year.

The long-running Microsoft-Yahoo! saga has also come to a close with the clearest winner seeming to be... Google. Yahoo's determination to avoid being acquired has strengthened the search giant's position even further. It remains to be seen if and when their new ad deal will be rolled out worldwide.

This month also saw Facebook overtake MySpace with astonishing annual growth of 162%. Facebook is clearly no longer the underdog rebel upstart though at present its users seem to be staying loyal.

The latest US online adspend data shows continued strong growth as brands continue to move budgets online. New research is also continuing to identify online's specific strengths and role in cross-media campaigns.

Days away from the launch of Apple's new model iPhone it's no coincidence that this month we have focussed on developments taking place in the mobile phone sector. Recent trends and developments suggest the mobile web is clearly on course to reach its tipping point - mobile-based IM and social networking are set to make us more connected than ever before. No surprise then that key players including Microsoft and Vodafone are jockeying for position to give consumers and advertisers the tools they didn't even know they needed a year ago.

As the e-retail economy forges ahead, this month's summary of new research reports upbeat figures for the US and UK, along with a similar lifts in online advertising in spite of the wider concerns about the ad market.

Opinion polls suggest a gradual change in consumer attitudes towards some of the more advanced forms of targeting, endorsing the strong financial results from leading media owners such as Google and Yahoo, as well as middle tier UK publishers.

There's more on the click-throughs we've added, with deeper commentary in our Digital Insight Reports.

The outlook for digital advertising growth remains strong with new research putting online at 10% of all adspend in the US, and here the UK market topping £5bn by 2012 - that's on top of our own forecasts that now put UK online adspend ahead of TV by the end of next year.

We said that 2009 would be the year mobile advertising accelerates, and new forecasts are already sizing that sector at $4.8bn within five years. Also in our round-up of the last month's research and announcements, we look at MySpace entering the downloads market, how Brits are tuning into TV on the web (even though 22m homes now have digital TV), and the OpenSocial initiative.

Read March 2008

The acquisition frenzy continues this month with some of the world's biggest internet brands still in battle for taking over each other (and still finding time to buy more smaller internet companies along the way).

The economies of scale mean a service like email or photo-sharing once developed can be rolled out worldwide at very low cost, economics that pressure online services that are only national and trigger the race for growth.

At Digital we said that 2008 was the year television programming would hit the web, and here in the UK the BBC's iPlayer is making headlines with 2.2m people a month watching TV through the player. MySpace has launched video advertising (pre-roll and post-roll formats), helping create a framework for brands to reach video watchers, and with Joost and the IPTV pureplays growing fast, this year is the crossing point for television programming on the web.

For mobile telephony the middle of the year will a big crossing point as the volume of calls made on mobile networks overtakes those on fixed networks according to the latest predictions.

Read February 2008

January saw a great start for the digital marketing, media and retail sectors.

Consumer spending was even greater at Christmas than most e-retailers had forecast with a leap of around 50%, online advertising looks set to overtake television spend in the near future as budgets are pulled from classic channels, and the switch to digital marketing is accelerating in Germany and across Central and Eastern Europe younger digital markets.

Our first international projects of the year confirmed the enthusiasm of marketers in New York to boost their integrated strategies with more online activities, and next month we are back in Sweden and Eastern Europe to see if the same trends are strong in those markets.

For details of new digital training and strategy programmes in your country e-mail me back, and in the meanwhile we all hope you enjoy this edition of Digital Intelligence. If you'd like to give a colleague access this year, then simply e-mail us back and copy them in, and we'll do the rest.

Read January 2008

Your final news download as we wind down and wish you the best for the holidays.

The mince pies and mulled wine are waiting, we're almost finished for the year, but I did want to send you the final newswire to complete your archive. 2007 was a transformative year for the digital media and marketing industries, and having coached marketing teams in more than twenty countries since January, we've seen the pace quicken as the latest ideas from the UK , USA and Scandinavia get picked up in Central America, South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East . In our 'flattened' world the best ideas are only a click away.

Digital Intelligence tracked hundreds of the 'crossing points' in the sector's growth this year and this final edition rounds up some of the strongest evidence about how shoppers have switched to the web, the saturation levels of broadband, and the continued acceleration of key companies. We'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who took part in the Christmas appeal - you can still donate to your favourite charity here - and there's details of our charity here: http://www.digitalstrategyconsulting.com/about/merrychristmas.

Wishing you a relaxing 'unplugged' Christmas from all of us @ Digital, and the best of health for 2008.

Read December 2007

Another massive month for product development at the search engines, as the migration to the mobile web quickens.

Strong financial results from indicator stocks are giving investors greater confidence in the online media sector, and retailers are looking forward to a Christmas that will again break e-commerce records across Western Europe and North America; with the web's role in direct retail dwarfed by its role as the primary place for purchase research.

In this Digital Intelligence we're tracking these trends and sifting through the noise to give you the click-throughs and data that matters. Retailers, consumer brands and media groups who are finalising their plans for 2008/9 are bringing us in as architects and strategists - and through this we're consistently seeing four themes emerge: the challenges in making sense of the landscape are getting worse, social media is moving to the core of every agenda (not always for the right reasons), the risks of getting it wrong have amplified, and there is now an acceptance that training and coaching for senior management is essential to make strong digital decisions.

Read November 2007

Another cracking month for the internet sector and we held back this round-up of September research to include the two new records set for online adspend in the UK and the US.

Online is taking almost 15% of the adspend cake in the UK and crossed $5bn in a single quarter in the US. The tide of migration to free content is pulling hard and this month we look at how the New York Times, the FT and probably the Wall St. Journal are all getting seduced again to ad funded models; questioning the role of subscription barriers that block audience growth. In our sector focus there's more on the music industry as the Charlatans give away their latest CD and Radiohead let you chose how much their music is worth.

Read October 2007

Online retail took a major leap this summer, breaking the £4bn threshold for July alone. That’s a staggering 80% growth year-on-year, and well above seasonal expectations (we’re thinking the British ‘Summer’ had something to do with this one).

In the social networking stakes Bebo pipped MySpace in the UK, as both saw audiences swell along with FaceBook and YouTube. Meanwhile in the US the crossing point for online ad spend overtaking newspapers is in sight as latest research suggests 2011 as the date when it happens.

Follow the links for the stories behind the headlines, and we've included extra links to some of our Digital Insight Reports that are now being opened up to clients, friends and partners.

Read September 2007

At Digital we continue to try sifting the research and news that matters most for executives in the digital industry, and in this month's edition we're tracking how European and US adspend data revealed major leaps forward, as consumer and business brands upped their budgets.

The Google family of companies continued to broaden, there was another wave of acquisitions, and the virtual world of Second Life swelled to more than 6 million residents - with over 1.3m of them active in the month.

In Europe '1 day a month' is the new magic number. Across the continent the average internet user now spends 24 hours online each month helping put in perspective the scale of the shift in time and focus. UK audiences take pole position, clocking up a staggering 34 hours with the most entrenched online community.

Read June 2007

Online adspend is already topping 10% of the media channel mix in several countries, and ZenithOptimedia are predicting that worldwide it's now on course to top radio by next year.

In the UK our own analysis now puts online above direct mail, and we remain confident in our 2005 prediction that online would overtake TV adspend in the UK by the end of the decade.

Although online can build brands as powerfully as it can generate direct sales, the success of search engine advertising continues to be a key driver in the refocusing of marketing towards the web across Europe. That's why this month our Company Focus looks at Google, with a round up of the top ten news stories from the search giant.

Read April 2007

Online adspend broke the £2bn mark here in the UK and closed 2006 with 12.4% of the total advertising cake. Almost exactly in line with our prediction in the Autumn (12.5%), the growth in search continued to fuel web ads (paid for clicks account for 58% of the total), alongside a broadening of the firms using graphical and banner formats. The increase of 41% sees web adspend overtake national newspapers, and cross the threshold of being half the size of the TV market. With total advertising spend rising only 1.1% year on year, it's clear that the web is now the main driver in the wider advertising economy.

The UK may be the largest online advertising market in Europe, but growth has been strong in France, Spain, Scandinavia and Germany. The audit of the Spanish market - also published this month - revealed another massive leap: online marketing in Spain grew 91.38% in 2006, reaching €310.5m and taking 4.25% of all combined Spanish adspend. Search marketing in Spain rose 132,41% (46.58% of all online adspend).

Read March 2007

In five years 6m of us throughout Europe will go online to find love. In just over ten years nearly half of all purchases will be made online in the UK. Sometimes the predictions can be hard to picture - and they don't always come right - but one thing is certain: the internet will be an even bigger part of all our daily lives. Of course online marketers know this already and the developments in the UK and Australia we cover this month just remind you how fast the digital world is growing.

Carrying the internet is our pockets is also increasingly common and the mobile stories cover both Vodafone and Yahoo! working to integrate our online activities into mobile handsets. It's hard to predict what those will look like in ten years!

Read February 2007

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In the Digital Intelligence publication we focus on research data, industry trends and key steps in the development of the digital networked society. If your company is generating news that could contribute to this then why not get in touch? Email Research@DigitalStrategyConsulting.com.

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If you are from a research company and would like to regularly contribute to Digital Intelligence, then why not get in touch? We work with a number of leading providers to help spread news about the growth of online, mobile, iTV and other digital markets in Europe and North America.

Series editor: Danny Meadows-Klue

Many Digital Intelligence readers have invited us in to deliver training and development workshops based on the content. There are now more than 100 Digital Training Academy courses covering everything from blogging and social networks to in-game advertising and European media trends. Our editor and the trainers here at Digital can help your firm learn about what this means for your business and how you can apply the knowledge to get the most from the digital networked economy.

Senior researcher: Ben Le Foe

Ben moved into online in 1989 as a channel producer for AOL. His work began with the creation of content and quickly expanded to include the development and nurturing of communities in a pioneering publishing model we now know more familiarly as 'Web 2.0'. Ben joined Digital in 2001 and has been researching and writing for Digital Intelligence ever since.