President Obama has once again decided to turn to the Internet to reach his people, only this time the White House is using the online approach to run a Q&A experiment that will go live on the White House’s official website tomorrow.

The idea, as explained by President Obama, is to open up the White House to Americans as much as possible so that people know what’s going on at all times. And in today’s economic turmoil it’s only natural citizens feel worried, have increased fear for the uncertain and are particularly keen on knowing how the world’s strongest economic power will go about putting things back on track.

Using the Web to bring everyone together is the main focus in this experiment. Obama is inviting everyone to go into whitehouse.gov under the feature ‘Open for Questions’ and submit questions about the economy or vote on other people’s submissions.

So far, 14,450 people have submitted 17,419 questions and casted 538,210 votes (these numbers keep changing by the second).

How will the White House determine which is the most important submission(s) out of all?  The Google Moderator: a tool that helps groups determine which questions should be asked at all hands meetings, conferences and Q&A sessions will be the indicator of the most relevant questions President Obama will be discussing during the live online session from Town Hall tomorrow.

The top question so far is: “As a student, who like so many others works full time and attends school full time, only to break even at the end of the month. What is the government doing to make higher education more affordable for lower and middle class families?”

Tomorrow, don’t forget to tune into ‘Open for Questions’ to watch President Obama answer the most important submissions live at whitehouse.gov.

The conference, which was dedicated to e-Commerce in the consumer electronics sector and the shift between online versus offline consumption, opened up with Antonio Besana, GFK’s Director, giving a brief sum up on the latest findings and emerging e-commerce trends.

He explained how there’s an increasing number of consumers who are now shopping online in a more frequent manner, which is resulting in that the Internet remains the fastest growing sales channel.

e-Commerce itself rose significantly in 2008, a growth which is primarily attributable to the fact that more people are shopping on the net than ever before. In 2008, the number of online purchases rose by 12% to 29.5 million out of an estimated spend of 252 million euros in Europe, according to a study by casaleggio.it.

Amedeo Guffanti (see image below), 77Agency Partner and Business Strategist, intervened by explaining that despite the economic crisis the world is facing today, e-Commerce is proving to be a great opportunity for branding and having online presence, especially for companies that had never before considered the Internet as an alternative marketing strategy, making particular reference to the fashion and luxury goods sector. Some brands 77 is currently working with that have decided to tap into the online world include Athlete’s World, Miss Sixty and Dimensione Danza.

In conclusion, we can say that today’s crisis has helped businesses expand their horizons and marketing strategies. Some more than others have in fact realized that the integration of the different channels- online, offline, mobile- serve as great contribution to improving customer loyalty, client interaction and the overall availability of products and services. In this sense, it is of great importance companies begin jumping on the bandwagon in order to survive the economic downturn and seek for innovative, non-traditional marketing methods.

Statistics show an increase in the global advertising market of nearly 3% versus the same period last year. In Asia Pacific, growth was mostly driven by China, Indonesia and Hong Kong with 16.9%, 16.7% and 13% respectively.

North America surprisingly displayed a 3.1% growth boosted by to two major events; US Elections and the Olympics.

Print media presented a 2% loss to television which seems to be benefiting off this rise in ad spend by enjoying an overall 8.1% increase compared to last year’s.

On the online advertising frontier, the drop between Q3 ad Q4 2008 was of 3.7%.

We can only hope the panorama clears up by 2010, in the meantime, online advertising got enough of a boost before, during and after the holiday vacation therefore it’s still holding steady.

To close on positive note, Michele Strazzera Deputy Managing Director of Global AdView tells us that “there is fairly strong evidence showing that companies which increase their ad spend in a financial downturn experience exponential increases in their ROI.”

Taking this fact into consideration, it’d be interesting to see Q1 results on the ad industry after the full effects of the financial crisis.

Advertising Age’s White Paper presents us with a complete study on recession-time case studies along with some of the most iconic online marketing campaigns that have succeeded during downturns from all industry sectors. Why am I saying this? Just so we can keep our chin up a bit and realize that there’s also a good side to the story.

Yes, it is indeed a dull period, however, we can say the Internet has been a soothing instrument for us and companies themselves in times of economic suppression especially in the midst of the Holiday Season. As Mike Sachoff from WebProNews puts it, holiday shopping has become a bright spot in the woeful economy.

According to comScore, through the first days of this year’s holiday shopping season up to Dec. 7th, online spending has reached up to $15.63 billion dollars. Just between December 1st and December 7th sales summed up to $4.45 billion- 7% more than last year.

“The online holiday shopping season has picked up noticeably since Thanksgiving as consumers have given in to the holiday spirit – and very attractive retailer discounts,” said ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni, in a statement. “While this growth is certainly a positive development in this tough retail season, it also needs to be put into perspective.

This sudden awakening in spending is definitely good news and it’s bringing us all a little bit of hope regardless of the current situation. Not only that, but websites are becoming more interactive and user-friendly since Internet usage has increased.

Multiple testing of online stores has become critical for retailers. Today, most online stores have added rich-media content like videos, photos and made their sites more interactive and less complicated for users to enjoy hassle-free online purchases.

To read more about comScore’s Holiday shopping research visit www.comscore.com.