Sick of hearing about layoffs, bankruptcies, and — dare I say it — cut ad budgets?

Here are few bright spots among all this doom and gloom:

• Interpublic Group (holding company for McCann Erickson, Universal
  McCann, Initiative and Lowe) posted  organic revenue growth of 6.2%
  last year, despite the downturn. That's $6.9 billion in annual revenue, but more importantly, $265.2 million in net income, up from $133.3m in 2007.
• Tech companies are going green. That is, using solar energy to power their massive, power-hungry server farms.
• Brands are figuring out how to do Facebook up right.
• Advertising is still sexy, politically-incorrect, and can be totally dangerous. My favorite: Mad-Men-style ad execs "doing nothing," from JWT Manila.

FYI, Google added the ability to see how many of your site visitors are coming from iPhones — a metric that may not seem so key for short-sighted people, but could hold some serious weight in the future. Thinking of introducing an iPhone app for your brand? Might want to see if your customers or demographic are using them to access your site first.

Instructions from the Analytics blog: Click on the drop down menu at
the top right of any report next to the text "Advanced Segments", and
select "Visits from iPhones" in the list of default segments. (They suggest turning off "All Visits" when viewing the iPhone segment if the percentage is relatively small, for better visualization.)

Also, If you've got an AdWords campaign going, you can the new iPhone and high-end mobile targeting feature, Google said.

Everybody's doin' it — why aren't you?

Indeed, what is preventing marketing executives from moving more funding into the online space?

eMarketer has the answer, via an iMedia survey: Dependence on traditional
measures, corporate culture, departmental inertia or fear, and a lack of
metrics.

Here's what we have to say about these, in that order. Get over it, get over it, get over it, and whaaat? Online marketing does not provide "enough metrics" for you? Are you joking.

The behavioral advertising debate goes a little like this:

YES, do it! People want personalized ads. According to ChoiceStream,
41% of US Internet users pay more attention to
advertising that was personalized. Some 39% said they were more willing to click on such
personalized ads.

Of course, nonsensical Belgians provide exceptions to this rule. Hans recently asked me, shocked, how does Yahoo know that I want a cheap flight home to Europe? Are they reading my mail? And web pages? That's unacceptable. And I said, well, don't you want one? I mean, would you rather they served you ads for breast enhancement surgery? Okay, Ana, bad example.

Here's the other side: NO, Don't. People – like Hans – can be seriously uncomfortable with website policies that allow behavioral targeting. 57% of respondents in a TNS Global and TRUSTe poll said they were worried about advertisers using their browsing history to serve them relevant ads.

So whatcha gonna do?

While American journalists are racking their brains for new ways of saying "recession" — "tight" or "shrinking" economy, the "downturn," and my favorite, "tough economic climate" — analysts are trying to find new ways to tell the advertising industry of the effects of the, um, recession.

"There has been a yearly shift in marketing budgets," write some. "A moderate slowdown in ad spend." "Downgraded long-term projections."

Sometimes, they just tell it to us straight: Ad spend down 1.7% in first nine months of 2008. Thanks, TNS.

In case all that honesty starts making us feel bad about 2009 and start collecting funds for Hawaiian vacations for disenfranchised CDs, all we have to is check out eMarketer charts on online ad spend. Yep, still lookin' good. I don't care if it's not 30% anymore. Fifteen, sixteen percent still smacks of growth and and good old fashioned revenue.

Granted, big groups like WPP's GroupM, Enders Analysis, and E-Consultancy, all of which say they'll be happy if they end the year with a 10% growth from 2008.

But as Forrester's Nate Elliot
told ClickZ: "Online will be hurt, just with all channels during a
recession, but the fact is that online is in a better position than
offline." Indeed it is.

By 2013, 155
million of US Internet users will consume some form of user-created
content, up from 116 million in 2008 — and the number of user-generated
content creators will grow by similar proportions, reaching 115 million
in 2013, up from 83 million in 2008.
according to eMarketer.

And everyone loves it. I mean, it's cheap, it drives traffic and engagement, and it can be darn fun to play with. Like putty. This of course assumes that you don't look too deeply into it and try to analyze the psychological identity of the creator, that is, the American public — which I don't recommend doing, ever.

But not everyone, apparently. Advertisers, fearing its "inherently unpredictable" nature, tend to steer clear of it, which puts a lot of pressure on site publishers and social media channels to give them safe havens. But do those really exist? How do you juggle "true" UGC with the need to moderate for quality and relevance?