It was a busy week in digital – with new numbers on mobile adoption among ad execs, a report from SearchIgnite that shows a 14% increase in paid search spend year-over-year, Twitter’s first @earlybird deal (with partner Disney) and the meteoric rise of Old Spice Man. Get caught up on all these stories and more in our roundup below.

Study: Mobile is Fastest Growing Media Among Ad Execs

Above: Kraft Foods’ new iPad app

According to a new report from Advertiser Perception Inc. (API), 46 percent of ad execs on both the marketer and agency side are leveraging mobile as part of their advertising plans – a number expected to jump to 60 percent within the next year. API projects mobile to grow at a faster rate than any other medium.

At present, the most common ad formats on mobile are banner ads (62 percent of advertisers surveyed), and text ads (60 percent) – though video is the fastest growing and is expected to grow from 28 percent to 43 percent within the next 12 months. As for mobile search, 41 percent of respondents are currently utilizing the channel, and API projects this number will increase to 50 percent in a year.

When it comes to mobile media platforms advertisers overwhelmingly favor smartphones (87 percent of respondents), though the iPad will rise the fastest. About 22 percent of respondents currently utilize Apple’s new tablet in their advertising plans, but API predicts this number will grow to 49 percent in the coming months.

To learn more about emerging opportunities in mobile, be sure to follow our summer POV series that focuses exclusively on mobile marketing. You can read our first five reports below:

• Mobile Marketing Overview
• Mobile Search
• SMS (Text Messaging)
• Mobile Social Marketing
• Mobile Applications

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Happy July! This week’s roundup runs the digital gamut — from the engines (is Google working on its own social network?) to Facebook (guess which beloved cookie brand is launching a global Facebook page?) and everywhere in between. Find full recaps of these and other stories in the post below. And of course, you can follow 360i on Twitter for insights from our team all week long.

‘Google Me’ Rumors Swirl as Details of Facebook Competitor Take Shape

A tweet from Digg’s Kevin Rose (since deleted), a confirmation from a former Facebook exec and a story on TechCrunch were all it took for rumors to fly that Google is working on its own social platform to go head-to-head with Facebook. This week several outlets began speculating about Google Me, which according to former Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo (he’s now heads up Q&A service Quora) is a very real project to build a “first-class social network” modeled off of Facebook.

Though none of this has been confirmed by Google, the company did begin integrating Google Buzz updates within Google Social Search this week (via Search Engine Land). Social Search, launched in January, displays search results based on individuals you’re connected to per Google.  As Danny Sullivan notes, if all this represents a larger overhaul of Google Profiles and/or Google Buzz, we can expect that Google Me (if and when it exists) will also be integrated into Social Search.

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Mashable has declared today, June 30, as Social Media Day – #smday if you’re on Twitter – to celebrate the revolution of media becoming social. And while everyday is Social Media Day here at 360i, we’re getting in on the action by bringing you the all-time top 10 social media posts from our blog.

10. 10 Social Marketing Resolutions for 2010
9. REPORT: Nielsen and Facebook’s Advertising Effectiveness Study
8. Forrester Unveils New Segment of Social Technographics – The Conversationalists
7. A Look at Notable Social Shopping Sites: Social, Wired & Fashion Forward
6. The SEO Implications of Social Check-in Sites
5.  REPORT: Twitter’s Promoted Tweets Platform
4.  REPORT: Twitter for Marketers
3.  100 Ways to Measure Social Media
2.  REPORT: Social Graph Ad Targeting
1. 360i Publishes Social Marketing Playbook

For more information on Social Media Day you can follow @mashSMday on Twitter or check out a list of events on Mashable’s Meetup page.

How do you plan to celebrate Social Media Day? Let us know in the comments below.

Whenever mobile social media comes up in conversation, I tend to hear a lot of f-words. Hopefully they won’t be censored here, as the ones I’m referring to are Foursquare and Facebook.

Perhaps I’m part of the problem. When I’m not writing about all the mobile check-in apps I use or what it’s like to be a Foursquare Super Mayor, I’m making overblown claims about Facebook gaining a universal following thanks to growth in its mobile user base. The f-words play important roles, but mobile social media is much bigger.

To give a sense of how much bigger it is, below you’ll find various forms of mobile social media that may be relevant when developing a marketing program. Perhaps mobile social media is part of the core idea, or it comes up specifically when assessing mobile or social media. However the plan comes together, the tools and tactics should come last, but understanding them provides a sense of what’s possible.

Much of the information below has been adapted from a guide to mobile social media that I’ve been working on and has just been published on 360i’s blog. The guide has much more information overall, while I’ve added some color in here that you won’t find in the official perspective.

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Today, we released the fourth POV in 360i’s summer mobile series – a comprehensive report on Mobile Social Marketing.

Mobile social media, any form of social media accessed through mobile devices, has much in common with online social media: the power of building relationships with consumers, the large and rapidly growing user base, and the potential to incorporate sharing and community functionality into every form of content. In this report we dive into the new opportunities created by mobile social media and how marketers can make the most of them.

360i POV on Mobile Social Marketing

Key Takeaways

• Introduction to Mobile Social Media: A look at what mobile social media is, as well as the challenges and opportunities it presents to brands
• By the Numbers: Social networking is the fastest growing mobile content category – here we take a look at some stats on consumer adoption rates
• Categories of Mobile Social Media: There are many different kinds of mobile social media, including extensions of online social networks (like Facebook for mobile), mobile-central social networks (like MocoSpace), location-based check-in services (like Foursquare) and more
• Location-based Check-in Services: We take a deeper dive into one emerging field within mobile social media that has garnered significant attention from consumers over the past several months
• Developing a Mobile Social Strategy: So, where should marketers begin? Hint: It’s time to bring back the strategic lens as described in our Social Marketing Playbook

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Social media is driving much of the growth of mobile media, just as it has fueled much of the growth in online pageviews and content. New sites and applications seem to sprout daily, while business models of existing players continually evolve to meet marketers’ needs. Marketers should continue to turn to the strategic lens to evaluate opportunities, as it can increase the chances of success for any social marketing program, mobile or otherwise.

Read the blog and follow us on Twitter all summer to learn how you can make the most of mobile social marketing in the future.

It’s Thursday and we’re bringing you the digital week in review. Catch up on the biggest headlines in our recap below, and follow us on Twitter for insights all week long.

Jobs: Apple Has Inked More than $60MM in iAd Commitments for 2010

At Apple’s Worldwide Developers conference earlier this week, Steve Jobs announced that the company has signed mobile ad campaigns for several large brands, including AT&T, Best Buy and Chanel, among others. TechCrunch also reports that in just eight weeks, Apple has garnered more than $60 million in iAd commitments for 2010 – or half of all mobile advertising spend forecasted for the second half of the year (according to Apple).

Image via The First Post

The iAd platform will allow users to interact with ads from within an app – without disrupting their primary mode of engagement, whether that be playing a game or watching a video. The platform debuts in less than a month, on July 1.

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We’re proud to announce that 360i and Universal Studios Home Entertainment have been honored with two Awards of Distinction at the 16th Annual Communicator Awards.

In the Public Relations category, 360i and Universal Studios Home Entertainment won an award for a Digital Word of Mouth campaign to drive awareness of its “Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas” DVD among a new generation of children – and inspire parents to relive their own childhood memories with the classic character.

To cut through the noise of the busy holiday season, Universal Studies Home Entertainment partnered with 360i’s digital publicity team on a high-impact DWOM effort that provided busy moms with digital assets (like exclusive trailers) and Curious George “Monkey Madness” packs that allowed them to host special viewing parties for their children and their friends.

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