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It's Digital Mission time in the Big Apple and we're delighted to formally announce the 21 companies who'll be joining this year's Digital Mission to NYC.

Thank you to everyone who applied, we really appreciate your time and effort. Don't be downhearted, the applications for the Digital Mission to South by South West interactive open next week.

Congratulations to the companies selected for the Digital Mission to New York: BandCentral, Bizk.it, Box UK, Can Studios Limited, Cognitive Match, coull, Digital Clarity, ipadio, Ixaris Systems, KMP Digidata, LAMP Digital, learn2lingo, Martingale, Mobilized, Open, ShareMyPlaylists.com, Stylescape, SubHub, The Filter, Type 3 and Wolfstar.

Hello again to those of you who went along to Chinwag Live: Search is Dead, Long Live Search event last Tuesday. If you were otherwise occupied, don't worry. You won't be missing out on the night's eureka moments; our podcast from the evening is now available online.

It may never actually die but there's no doubt that search is certainly changing. Twitter has changed search, mobiles have changed search, our terms and how our findings are communicated to us, the early incarnations of which we're seeing in the iPhone with location-based tools, have changed search too.

Figures released from the Internet Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) bi-annual online advertising expenditure study, carried out in partnership with Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC), makes for enlightening reading.

For the first time in the UK the internet has surpassed TV to become the single biggest advertising medium in the country.

Online adversiting spend overtook TV to become the UK's biggest advertising medium in the first half of 2009. It grew 4.6%, to £1.75 bn in H1, giving it a record market share of 23.5%.

Even as advertising experienced a 16.6% decline overall, online's ability to engage audiences, its measurability and a sturdy ROI is keeping the sector above water, where TV and other mediums have floundered and sunk.

The deadline to apply for a place on the Digital Mission to New York is this Friday (18th Sept).

If you've been putting off filling in the application form - don't worry I procrastinate with the best - then dive right in. It's a very short form that shouldn't take more than a few minutes to fill out.

After all, we just need to know what your company is about, and what you'd like to get out of going on the Digital Mission. Things you're thinking about every day, right?

The jury might be out on the success of Microsoft's Bing reports of modest rises in search traffic share and Google cage-rattling punditry aside, their TV spots hit the nail on the head about semantic search (see below).

The application deadline for our NYC Digital Mission is fast approaching, September 18th to be precise, and here at Chinwag Towers we thought we’d give you a flash back to one of our most popular panel debates, Transatlantic Troubleshooting held during our Digital Mission at SXSWi 2009.

It’s bound to get those of you who’re waiting until next week to get your details over to us to get a wriggle on.

Chinwag is chuffed to be working with the BIMA crew as social media partner for the 2009 BIMA Awards.

November might seem a way-off, but the deadline to enter is only a few days away. 7th August to be precise. The committee have been hard at work to re-vamp the format including more categories, more transparent judging and important these days, a more affordable event.