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In spite of global recessions and a rapidly growing middle class in China, our consumer nation is still the world’s largest advertising market for U.S. and international companies. Yet as advanced as we are, the U.S. is not the most connected.

In Ciarán Norris’ article, “A Letter to Facebook From the Rest of the World,” he notes that while the U.S. is often the test market for new technologies such as Facebook’s geolocation service, Places, there are other countries whose connectedness would make them ideal beta testing grounds.

For instance, Facebook is now the most popular media brand in the U.K. and Sweden has a 92% internet penetration rate compared with the U.S. at 77%. Indonesia is the fourth largest market for Facebook, yet only 12% of its population is online.

As stated in Morgan Stanley’s “Mobile Internet Report,” 96% 0f Japan’s residents will have 3G mobile access this year. It is estimated that there will be more users connected to the internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within the next five years. China and India lead the world in terms of users, with over 600 million mobile subscribers in China over 300 million in India with major growth rates expected by 2014.

So while U.S. consumers purchase more than other nations and marketers will continue to test and launch products and services, it is not the only market that should be considered for product feedback. Other nations have higher mobile and internet penetrate rates and house highly active users with unique perspectives on the social media services rooted here in the U.S.

The economic downturn has decreased revenues in nearly every sector of business, including digital advertising. Yet, because of the shift, the digital sector has quickly become a haven for more traditional ad budgets. The Internet is viewed as the most measurable medium and its performance-based ad models are becoming increasingly attractive for offline campaigns that lack the deep metrics and engagement factor that digital media provides.

Local advertising deserves ample attention in this shift since it accounts for 55% of all ad spending. The total ad market in 2009 was over $235 billion; more than $130 billion of that was spent on local ads, as reported by BIA/Kelsey in its new report: “U.S. Local Media Annual Forecast.”

By 2014, local advertising is predicted to account for 25 percent of all digital media advertising. A “steady shift toward digital media” will cause online spending to increase to $37 billion by that time, up from $15 billion in 2009. While local will grow, the BIA/Kelsey report also foresees larger than previously forecasts declines in newspapers and direct mail.

Mobile will drive a good deal of the local advertising growth. Most people now have Internet access via their mobile devices and when we’re on the move, we’re thinking and engaging at a local level. Thus, cohesive mobile campaigns will not only help businesses, it will serve the mobile subscribers directly or indirectly seeking local products and services. As more mobile ad formats are delivered, the mobile ad market could see even greater gains.