Internet ad spending is expected to reach $61.98 billion and become the #1 advertising channel by 2011, according to a recent article on MediaPost.

With technology constantly evolving and consumer behavior shifting more and more towards the Web, marketers are adapting their strategies accordingly to leverage the media channels that best reach their prospects.

In 2006, consumers spent an average of 1,631 hours in front of consumer-supported media such as the Internet, an increase of 19.8% in comparison to 2001 figures. Time spent with ad-supported media such as television and newspapers unsurprisingly dropped to 1,899 hours, a 6.3% decrease from 2001. All evidence indicates that time spent with consumer-supported media will continue to grow while time spent with ad-supported media will further decline.

The largest growth is expected for RSS, blog and podcast advertising, forecasted at a whopping 70.9% annual growth rate between now and 2011. Large annual growth is also anticipated for social network advertising (50%), rich media (17.4%) and paid search (19.8%).

Read the full article “Internet Ad Spending Expected to Overtake All Other Media by 2011: VSS” over at MediaPost.

It’s hardly surprising that search engines, Google and Yahoo, topped the list of online brand favorites in a recent JupiterResearch survey published on August 2.

3,500 people were surveyed by Jupiter analysts and the results communicated a definite brand bias by age group and gender. MySpace unsurprisingly snagged 32% of the 18 – 24 age group, while 21% of users 55 and older responded that they didn’t have a favorite online brand.

The Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus split came into play here with Google being the most popular choice among men and women voting instead for number 2 favorite, Yahoo.

Here are the top 8 results from the JupiterResearch survey:

1. Google
2. Yahoo
3. Amazon
4. eBay
5. MySpace
6. Microsoft
7. AOL
8. Apple

I can’t say there were any real surprises in the list above. I too would choose Google as my favorite (even though I’m female!)

What do you think? What’s your favorite online brand?