The average online consumer in the United States is now spending as much time on the Internet as he or she does watching TV offline. This is according to Forrester Research's annual study "Understanding the Changing Needs of the US Online Consumer." If this information, released last month, is indeed correct, it's a notable milestone. But is it true?

Jay-Z isn't just a rapper -- or The New Sinatra as he boasts in Empire State of Mind, or The King of America, a title bestowed on him by Rolling Stone, He is also a successful businessman behind ventures ranging from Rocawear to the New Jersey Nets and he's known for his creative and innovative approaches to marketing his products: the artist created all sorts of buzz and excitement last October when he promoted his autobiography "Decoded" through a location-based scavenger hunt with Bing.

Vodka brands are tapping a diverse cast of endorsers as the industry fights to keep its lead as the most popular liquor sold in the United States. Pushed aside are old marketing pitches about a brand's proud Russian heritage and treasured traditions. Now it is about the party culture, fame and sharing.

Welcome to 2011 and say "hello" to predictive sentiment and social search on PC and mobile. Look for Google to not only add a sentiment layer on search results, but continue to add social signals and features on the engine that drives query rankings. Similar rankings will make their way into social networks.

One of the most interesting aspects of the new wave of location-based social networks is the wide disparity in adoption rates by men and women: in November a survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that men outnumbered women 2-to-1 on location-based networks, with 6% of online men participating versus 3% of online women.

Underneath the sugarcoated veneer of the $15 billion North American confectionery market lurks a brutally discouraging nougat: a dependency on volatile commodities like cane, cocoa and peanuts, and a stubborn audience that doesn't like brands to change. So it comes as no surprise that top candy powerhouses such as The Hershey Company and Nestlé are among the Web's most sophisticated marketers, fluent not only in linear media, but in destination Web sites, data marketing, word-of-mouth and social advertising. Examples of groundbreaking next-generation candy campaigns abound - Cadbury's epic drum-playing gorilla garnered nearly five million views on YouTube, and Skittles' anarchic, …

Only a few years ago, Kenny Tomlin sat in a doctor's waiting room thumbing through a copy of Inc. with the magazine's notable "500" list. Rockfish was still just an idea in his head (Tomlin worked for Walmart at the time), but reading about the successful start-ups on the list, he knew where he wanted to be...on that list with Rockfish. Four years later when Tomlin picked up the latest installment of Inc.'s list, the company had made it.

At 360i it's all about following consumer behavior and supporting it with technology. The strategy organizes campaigns, giving clients a balanced online presence. Once called "search-informed marketing," John Ragals, 360i chief operating officer, says it's not about allowing markets to remain in a silo, but combining mobile, social and display to listen and hear the buzz across channels.

"I was sitting at home one weekend," says John Moore, chief media officer at Mullen's mediahub, "and I was thinking, 'What are the 35 or 40 media questions that I would ask or want insight to that MRI, Simmons, Nielsen and all these syndicated databases that we rely way too heavily on, don't answer?'"

"For us, 2010 was the year of integration," says PJ Pereira, co-founder and CCO, of Pereira and O'Dell. "Not that we ever had things too separate, because we were born from this idea of combining digital, advertising, design, PR - all under the same process."