US spending on online and mobile advertising rose to $29.94 billion in 2007, according to PQ Media's "Alternative Media Forecast: 2008-2012" report.

The company included 18 digital and non-traditional media segments in its definition of alternative media.

PQ Media put new media ad spending at 16.1% of total US advertising spending in 2007, up from 7.9% in 2002.

“By 2012, we anticipate one out of every four dollars spent on advertising and marketing will be earmarked for alternative media,” said Patrick Quinn, CEO of PQ Media.

There is general consensus among researchers that US ad spending outside the four dominant traditional media (television, radio, newspapers and magazines) continued to grow throughout 2007. PQ Media appears a little more bullish about total spending in 2007 than some other researchers.

eMarketer tracks US online ad spending estimates and projections from 23 companies. Estimates of total US online ad spending in 2007 range from $10.9 billion (Universal McCann) to $30.5 (Veronis Suhler Stevenson).

So PQ Media is at the high end of the range. However, assuming that the mobile portion of their 2007 estimate was at least $2 billion, their 2007 figure for US online ad spending is certainly not an outlier.

Having examined the data from all the researchers, eMarketer estimates that US online ad spending was $21.1 billion in 2007.