• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, May 19, 2010

Market research firm IDC predicts U.S. online advertising will almost completely recover from the "great recession" this year, forecasting 19% growth to $31.5 billion from $26.4 billion in 2009. It projects the biggest gains will be in mobile online advertising (up 97%) and online video ads (40%). Worldwide online ad spending will increase 18% to $72 billion in 2010.

Over the next five years, search advertising will enjoy the biggest increase in actual dollars, going from $13.8 billion to $27.3 billion between 2009 and 2014. By comparison, mobile ad spending will grow from $220 million to $1.8 billion.

But IDC warns that companies that don't jump into mobile advertising now won't be able to catch up later in terms of traffic and ad market share. Even so, the firm concludes mobile won't be a decisive factor in the race among online publishers in the next five years.