The usual round of ad spend surveys and forecasts have been a bit gloomy lately. GroupM, looking back over the past four years and ahead to the next one, finds a reason to smile: by 2009, the share of ad dollars spent on the internet, mobile and gaming will reach 15 percent, double what it was in 2004. Last year, interactive’s share was 11 percent, GroupM said in an email release, noting that despite a weak U.S. economy, growth in the other 34 countries the WPP agency studied will help pick up the slack. Other findings in the GroupM forecast included:

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—Growth with demos: Demographics will fuel growth in the digital space for at least another generation, and possibly two, as under-25 year-olds carry their habits into middle age and beyond.

—Display trends down, search up: A number of recent ad forecasts have questioned display’s growth recently. Roughly 45 percent of 2007 interactive ad spend counted as display, a figure that is expected to fall slightly. Paid search ads clocked in at 38 percent and is expected to grow.

—GroupM joins search, social media practices: Separate from its forecasting activities, GroupM is creating a social media practice that will be aligned with its existing search tools. The Social Media Marketing unit will be run by Outrider, the St. Louis-based agency that’s under GroupM Search. SMM’s offerings will be shared among GroupM’s media networks—MindShare, Mediaedge:cia, Maxus and MediaCom—to use for crafting campaign strategies.