• Bloomberg, Monday, September 13, 2010 10:36 PM

The Asia-Pacific region will overtake North America as the largest advertising market "soon after 2014," according to eMarketer Inc. and Starcom MediaVest Group, which issued a joint report. The economic slowdown accelerated the shift of ad dollars to digital media in China, India and Brazil, The Middle East and Africa will grow 11.4% this year, faster than any other major region, they said. Increased consumer spending in China and India helped Asia-Pacific fare better in the economic slowdown than the rest of the world.

Online spending in Asia-Pacific in 2014 will account for $22.2 billion, or 22.9 percent of the worldwide total. By contrast, North America, the largest ad market in the world, will account for 33.8 percent of the total, or $190.6 billion, in 2014.

>A new infographic from Flowtown notes Facebook now has 50% of the words social media ad revenue at $1.76 billion in 2010, that's up 165% from 2009, while reducing MySpace's market share from 32% in 2009 to just 19% in 2010.  U.S. advertisers will spend nearly $1.7 billion on social sites this year.

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