According to new research from GroupMInternet, Internet advertising rose 16% to $84.8 billion in 2011, which accounts for more than 17% of all global measured media spending. North America had the highest level of digital ad spending, with a marketing investment of an estimated $34.5 billion, followed by Asia Pacific with $24.8 billion and Western Europe with $21 billion. Furthermore, the WPP Group media agency holding company predicts digital ad spending this year will climb almost 16% to $98.2 billion, representing nearly 19% of all media spending.

Facebook’s Timeline profile format is now available for brand pages. Furthermore, all Facebook brand pages will automatically convert to Timeline on March 30th. The new page layout shares many features with the user profile, such as the vertically oriented content timeline and addition of a widescreen image at the top of the page, but adds features not previously available to brands. Companies can now expand their appearance to widescreen and pin posts to appear in the Timeline’s top-left area for days.