These yearly and quarterly ad spending gains point to a sea of change in media usage among marketers, reflecting how the Internet has become an essential element of daily life for more and more individuals.

In fact, in 2009 or 2010, I think Yahoo is the stronger company. I think the general media consumption favors them.

Behind search advertising's great success is self-targeting — users revealing their interests by the keywords they enter. As with search, self-targeting rather than media manipulation is the key to engagement marketing or behavioral advertising.

The spending growth is impressive, but shouldn't come as too great a surprise. These dazzling increases are possible in part because growth came from such a small base. And in the last few years the Internet has truly become a mainstream medium.

Behind search advertising's great success is self-targeting — users revealing their interests by the keywords they enter. As with search, self-targeting rather than media manipulation is the key to engagement marketing or behavioral advertising.

The growth will be driven mainly by search.