For the first time ever, advertisers will spend more on digital than print, according to a new study by Outsell released today titled “Marketing and Ad Spending Study 2010: Total US and B2B Advertising.” But mobile marketing isn’t quite ready for the spotlight yet, and will see a spending decline in the coming year. The study finds that advertisers will spend 16% less on mobile in 2010.

Of the $368 billion marketers will spend this year, 32.5% will go toward digital, 30.3% will go towards print. “It’s a watershed moment,” lead author of the study and Outsell vice president Chuck Richard told Forbes.com. However, in regards to mobile marketing, “the proof isn’t in yet that mobile spending is all that effective,” Richard adds in the article. He gives the example of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit iPhone app which was the 33rd-highest-grossing mobile app in the iPhone store — 32,000 people paid $2 to download the app, netting $64k. However, one page of advertising in the issue makes $135,000. Richard obviously isn’t a fan of mobile marketing. “It’s time for a reality check,” he says.

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It’s a headline that will certainly inspire more than just a few double-takes. But the reports are, indeed, true. There are, at this very moment, more books available in Apple’s App Store than there are games. It’s a significant shift of content momentum that has taken place in a surprisingly rapid fashion.

This reality represents the first time the game category has taken a back seat to any other. According to a report from Mobclix, an ad exchange provider for iPhone apps, the App Store currently offers approximately 26,5000 books. All told, that represents approximately 19% percent of the total apps available in the App Store (142,0000 in all). On the other hand, Only 25,000 games are now available, a figure representing roughly 18% of the App Store’s total offerings.

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A new report published yesterday by the UN indicates that 67% of the world’s population, or two-thirds total, are mobile subscribers- far outweighing Online access.

67% of the world’s population represents around 4.6B people, up from only 1B in 2002, indicating staggering continued growth.  In developing nations, however, the uptake is even more substantial with 57% of the total population in these nations being mobile subscribers, even though other technologies are scarce.

To compile the report, the UN tallied mobile phone, land-line telephone and internet usage in 159 countries, which ranged from the most advanced European nations to the least developed nations in sub-Saharan Africa.  The report also found that Internet use has grown, but at a much slower pace.  It’s no secret that mobile devices are replacing computers in many parts of the world, and that a large majority of Web usage is attributed to mobile.

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When thinking of SMS messaging, you probably don’t think of its usefulness for the blind. But that kind of thinking is exactly what visually impaired Barry Dickinson proved wrong when seeking ways to contacting friends and family on the go. Pairing TextMagic’s email SMS technology with talking screen reading software, he was able to use SMS messaging to get in touch.

Barry turned to TextMagic to keep in touch with his children originally, but later discovered that the service worked for him to contact friends and other family members who wouldn’t check their email as frequently as text messages.

Textmagic offers an Email to SMS service which lets anyone send and receive text messages from their email account. This may be useful for a mobile marketer, who is seeking to contact a few special users via SMS messaging without the hassle of sending SMS messages from a mobile phone. It likely wouldn’t be ideal if you wanted to contact hundreds of users via SMS.

The company charges approx $.1 to $.15 per SMS message sent from email through their program depending on which program you choose. They also offer products such as TextMagic Messenger, which lets the SMS sender use a desktop program to send text messages and receive replies, or TextMagic Online, where you can send SMS messages from any internet-connected device.

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Day three at Mobile World Congress saw the launch of location-based ads (LBA) for CloudMade’s map-based platform for mobile apps and mobile Web development, along with Shazam announcing a partnership with Augme Mobile to launch an innovative “Audio Recognition Advertising” solution.

Millennial Media published a unique 2009 “year-in-review” version of its S.M.A.R.T report detailing quick facts about the mobile advertising ecosystem over the past year, and why they refer to 2009 as the “year of mobile,” while Opera’s recently acquired AdMarvel debuted the latest iteration of its Android Advertising Toolkit, version 1.5.

Rounding out the day’s news, from a mobile marketing and advertising perspective, was Roamware revealing future plans for its mobile payment solution to combat interoperability issues head-on, while Loopt announced more content partnerships and revealed its strategy to take on performance-based hyperlocal mobile marketing.  Stay tuned to MMW for more updates.

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Day two at Mobile World Congress saw the launch of “Ping” from a startup called SEVEN, which aims to bring cloud-based push-messaging to smartphones and feature phones alike with its simple platform aimed squarely at wireless operators.  Continuing the focus on wireless carriers, Openwave also debuted its new “Analytics: Data Media Edition (DME), which aims to help operators effectively monitor, manage and monetize mobile data traffic.

With a heavy emphasis on mobile apps at this year’s event, Bango shifted focus with its release of interesting mobile Web usage numbers- revealing a 600% usage growth over the last 12 months.  Even so, mobile apps again stole the spotlight today with such announcements as mOcean launching the industry’s first “comprehensive ad-managment platform” for mobile applications, and Portland-based Urban Airship landing $1.1M in funding for it’s unique in-app purchase technology.

Rounding out the day was T-Mobile and Blockbuster’s announcement that they’ve joined forces to provide downloadable movies via mobile devices, allowing access to Blockbuster’s library from any connected device.  Stay tuned to MMW for more updates from day three and four of Mobile World Congress.

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As part of our continued coverage of this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC), we’re taking the opportunity to recap the day’s events, and the most important announcements, introductions and developments thus far.  Here’s a quick recap of day one:

Orange expands its mobile advertising initiatives to all of Europe, with localized programs designed around SMS and MMS, while Samsung debuted its new “Bada” smartphone OS in addition to expressing its vision for a “non-feature-phone” mobile ecosystem.  Sony Ericsson, not to be left out, debuted its new mobile content creation platform dubbed “Creations,” along with three new devices, while Adobe debuted a new mobile AIR platform to bring unified Flash development to mobile devices.

Finishing out the day’s news; Mobixell launched an innovative “RSS gateway” solution, Airwide targets prepaid subscribers with real-time loyalty and profiling solutions, and Xtify debuts new geo-targeted mobile messaging platform.  The biggest news of the day, however, was the announcement by 24 wireless operators and device makers who have formed the “Wholesale Applications Community,” in an attempt to unify mobile app development and distribution.

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