Despite the current state of the US economy, the online advertising business is still going strong. According to a poll done by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers, online ad spending will increase by roughly 8.9% in the coming year. Despite the fact that this number is down from the previously reported 14.5%, the findings are good news for most nouveau ad men who have been clutching their wallets in fear for the past two months. Individually, the IAB reports that sponsorship spending will take the biggest hit in 2009 (-12.9%), while the video advertising sector will see the biggest gains (44.9%).

In other advertising news, Google has made a few upgrades to TV Ads, the Free Line all-star designed to get your advertising campaign on television with the least amount of pain possible. The new update lets users have greater control over when their respective ads actually take to the airwaves. Previously, the ad keywords could only be matched by using the “exact match” variable. In addition to “exact match,” advertisers now also have access to “broad match,” which will allow them to view programming by category. “The great thing about broad match results is that it does the work for you,” writes Associate Product Manager David Wurtz on Let’s Take It Offline, the official TV Ads blogs. “Program targeting is a great way to reach your target audience when your message is most relevant. If your ad is relevant to the programming content surrounding your ad, you’re likely to see better results.” TV Ads, complete with broad match technology, is available now to all users.

Sticking with Google for a moment, the company is currently in talks with popular Russian social network Odnoklassniki about adding a Google-branded search box to their network. The deal would not only give Google a sizable share of the Russian market, it would put them within striking distance of reigning search czar Yandex. At press time, Yandex holds about 46% of the market share in Russia and neighboring states. Neither the exact terms of the deal, nor where the proposal stands with Russia’s hard-line Federal Antimonopoly Service, are known at this time.

Elsewhere, popular business-based social network LinkedIn has introduced a new way for you to search for others on their service. Called the Streamlined People Search, the new service employs a series of auto complete menus designed to help you find exactly who you are looking for in the least amount of time possible. The new feature also searches profiles, automatically matching your keyword with the pertinent information found therein. While it isn’t exactly original — both Facebook and Google offer similar functionality –the Streamline People Search is an improvement over the previous “shot in the dark” method of searching through the network.  Streamline People Search is up and running now.

And finally: On the last edition of Browser Extension Friday, we took a visit to the wonderful world of browser emulation. Today, we take things to the next level with Lunascape.  Lunascape is a Japanese browser that has the Trident (Internet Explorer), Gecko (Firefox), and WebKit (Safari and Chrome) rendering environments built right in. This essentially makes Lunascape three different browsers in one. Even though the translation from Japanese to English has been a tad “rough” at points, the fundimentals of the program show promise. According to developer Lunascape Corporation, nearly 10 million instances of the browser has been loaded since 2004. Surpringly original and definitely intriguing, Lunascape has all the tools (and rending environments) needed to make a big splash worldwide.