According to a new piece of research, global ad revenues will grow 5.2%, a faster clip than the global economy. The surge from ad buyers is to be helped by the Big 3: the UEFA Euro 2012 footy tournament in June, the London 2012 Olympic Summer Games in July and August and the U.S. Presidential election. That’s the good news.

We’re actually being slightly conservative here, given the new data from comScore. Incredibly, Facebook served up about one in every three online display ads served in the U.S. And that was just for Q1, a seasonally slow quarter.

Last month we went in-depth looking at the trends, activities and passions driving the U.S. online market in 2010. Today, we look at Europe as comScore publishes its 2010 Europe Digital Year in Review. Like in the U.S., there were some big winners and losers.

Why $495 billion? That’s the all-time high for global ad revenues reached waaaay back in 2008 just before the full effect of the financial meltdown hit. It’s now projected that we will return to that plateau at some point in 2012, a new rosier-than-expected projection from ZenithOptimedia says.

The Internet Advertising Bureau released its latest audit of the U.S. online ad market and – surprise, surprise – it’s more record growth for the sector.

In today’s “you win some/lose some” category we have, yep, Facebook. We reported earlier about Facebook’s troubles in Japan as it is Twitter who is challenging the local incumbent there for top spot among social networks. But fear not. In the all important metric of “making money,” Facebook is doing just fine, padding its lead as America’s largest online display ad publisher.

Yes, web users do view online video ads in their entirety, says a new study from a TV network that is trying to make money from online video ads. Well, most of the viewers do. Okay, the CW Television Network study may sound self-serving, but there are some interesting findingsthat point to what we already know: viewing online video (and the accompanying ads) is becoming a growth industry.

Online advertising continues to set new records, this time in the United States where the digital spend for the first half of 2010 exceeded $12.1 billion, reports the Internet Advertising Bureau. We reported earlier this month that in the UK spending on social media helped propel the total online ad spend. In the US, it was a different catalyst: online video.

Global online advertising spend is rebounding in spectacular style. Latest forecasts say businesses will pay out $98.6 billion in 2014 – a huge rise on the £55.2 billion they spent in 2009. Breaking down those big numbers, two points emerge – the biggest growth is in the Asia-Pacific market, and social remains a small part of the online ad scene.

The leash on the UK’s advertising watchdog is being loosened and it will finally get its teeth into social networks, with an expanded remit covering Facebook, Twitter and advertisers’ own websites. It’s a move which is long-overdue, though it won’t take effect for another six months.