In a report released today, eMarketer estimates that 16 million Americans will book travel from their mobile devices this year, increasing 33 percent from 12 million in 2011. Even more people — roughly 37.8 million — will use their phones to research travel this year.

It’s no wonder that big online travel agencies, like Priceline and Expedia, are quickly expanding into mobile. One common mobile strategy is to build an app that gives deep discounts to people who book a hotel room from their phone for the same night.

Travelers who may not have access to a computer are an obvious market for hotel information, flights, maps, reviews and other services.

EMarketer said despite mobile’s rapid growth, total spending on online travel is growing more slowly than overall online retail sales. This year, online travel spending is set to increase 11 percent to $120 billion in the U.S.

But clearly all the trends spell bad news for travel agents and physical travel agencies. EMarketer expects a majority of Internet users to research and book via the Web.

EMarketer predicts that the apparel and accessories category is expected to grow by 20 percent to $40.9 billion this year, up from $34.2 billion in 2011.

That beats the sale of books, music and videos, which have historically been considered the most dominant e-commerce categories — those are now expected to grow by only 18 percent to $20.4 billion this year.

The report published by the Internet market research firm today is the first time it has broken down its forecasts by category.

EMarketer attributed the gains in apparel to retailers’ improved methods for displaying products online that make purchasing clothes, in particular, less of a guessing game.

Some of the visual innovations are stunning.

For instance, Amazon.com’s MyHabit, a private sales clothing site, produces animated videos of models wearing the clothing for sale. The representations are so realistic, the fabric sways as the model struts and turns as if walking down a catwalk.

On the more whimsical side of innovations is eBay’s augmented reality app that allows users to “try on” a pair of sunglasses by layering them over a picture of their face.

But in addition to new display technology, there are also many more apparel sites for consumers to choose from. Over the last two years, the idea of private sales or flash sales — offering expensive, high-end fashion at steep discounts — has spread like wildfire.

Free shipping also plays a role since it removes some of the risk for consumers: If they don’t like a shirt or pair of pants, they don’t have to pay a fee for delivery back to the retailer.

Overall, the report is predicting another big year for e-commerce. It expects U.S. retail sales to grow 15.4 percent to $224.2 billion in 2012, which is higher than eMarketer’s previous forecast that called for e-commerce to grow 11.3 percent to $209.3 billion in 2012.

The biggest category in 2012 is expected to be computer and consumer electronics, which have a higher price point, and are expected to bring in a total of $48.6 billion.

When you add other sources of revenues, including lead-generation offers, which are incentives for filling out a survey or signing up for a subscription, and advertising dollars, the social gaming industry is expected to break $1 billion this year for the first time, according to eMarketer.

In 2012, revenues will rise to $1.32 billion, with a majority of sales still expected to come from virtual goods.

Still, as the audience for social games is expected to rise, so are advertising revenues. EMarketer forecasts that advertisers will spend $192 million in 2011, a 60 percent rise over last year, and in 2012, advertising revenues are expected to jump another 41 percent.

The success of virtual goods and the rise of advertising will lead to more branded virtual goods, said Paul Verna, author of the eMarketer report. “This is the largest segment of the social gaming economy, and one that marketers are increasingly turning to as a branding vehicle. We expect to see more branded virtual goods as social gaming matures over the next two years.”

Still, these figures appear modest in comparison to the turbocharged bets companies are making on the space, and the revenues that the leading companies are achieving.

Two acquisitions over the past year and a half easily exceed this year’s revenue projections alone, bringing into question whether the projections are modest or the industry is overhyped.

Disney purchased Playdom for upward of $700 million, including earnouts, and in late 2009, Electronic Arts acquired Playfish for $400 million. Those together value the space at more than $1 billion, and that doesn’t include Zynga, which remains independent and is the largest social games company on Facebook. Its revenues were estimated at more than half a billion dollars last year–up from about $300 million in 2009.

So says eMarketer, which predicts that Web ad dollars will hit $25.8 billion in the U.S. in 2010, while newspaper ad dollars, for both print and online, will get to $25.7 billion.

As always, it’s worth noting that because eMarketer’s online numbers include search, these charts are really about Google more than anything else*. In fact, at $28.8 billion, Google’s projected worldwide revenue for 2010 will eclipse the U.S. newspaper business all by itself.

*To be specific: Google’s projected net U.S. revenue makes up 40 percent of eMarketer’s forecast, says senior analyst David Hallerman.

Display ads, the eye-catching banner ads that appear atop and alongside most Web sites, have been under pressure as marketers question their effectiveness. Spending on banner ads fell 2.3 percent last year to $4.77 billion, according to eMarketer.

Google is championing a new stock market-like system for buying display ads. Using its exchange, ad buyers and sellers are matched to ad spaces in a real-time auction, allowing ad buyers to tailor where their ad appears based on the type of viewer they want to reach–and how much to pay for the space–on the fly.

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Research firm eMarketer reported that U.S. online advertising dropped by 4.6 percent in 2009, the first decrease since 2002.

However, recent news coming from three Internet start-ups shows not everyone dependent on advertising shed tears on their financial statements.

This week alone, local online advertising provider Yodle Inc. announced a $10 million funding round on the back of a 135 percent revenue climb in 2009; female-focused ad network Glam Media Inc. said it grew revenue by 35 percent and raised a whopping $50 million Series E; and online video ad network BrightRoll Inc. declared it doubled revenue and raised $10 million.

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MySpace, which is holding a conference this week for its global ad-sales staff, needs to lure visitors back and kick-start advertising revenue, ad executives say. Research firm eMarketer estimates U.S. ad spending on the site will be $495 million this year, down 15 percent from $585 million in 2008.

The basic challenge is similar to the one facing big Internet companies, such as Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL and Yahoo (YHOO), that are under pressure to reinvent themselves for fickle audiences.

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The firm plans to release on Wednesday its revised projections for global ad spending on social networks. It forecasts an increase this year of 17 percent, to an estimated $2.3 billion. While any growth in the otherwise dismal ad market is a bright spot, the projection is just over half the 32 percent growth rate the research firm previously projected. In the U.S., ad spending on social networks is expected to increase 10.2 percent, reaching $1.3 billion this year.

Rivals Facebook and News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace, the two largest social-networking sites by visitors, continue to dominate. The two companies will account for two-thirds of total U.S. social-network ad spending and will hold a smaller share outside the U.S., attracting 40 percent of world-wide spending in 2009, eMarketer says.

Note: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.

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MasterCard Advisors, a unit of the credit card company, says sales in categories like apparel and electronics have dropped more than 19 percent in the first two weeks of November compared to the same time a year ago. E-commerce sales are comparatively better, but they’re still grim–down 7.5 percent, the company says.

Bad news, obviously, for Amazon (AMZN), eBay (EBAY) and everyone else who sells stuff online for a living. If you’re looking for a sunnier take, you can cling to more optimistic predictions from the likes of eMarketer, which thinks that e-commerce will eke out a four percent gain in November and December. UPDATE: Fresh prognostication from Barclays Capital (i.e., the investment bank formerly known as Lehman): three percent growth during the holiday season, which is down from the eight percent the research group had previously predicted.

Too unpleasant to contemplate early on a Monday morning? Agreed. Let’s think about something more upbeat. I’m pretty sure, for instance, that I am going to be able to buy a very nice television for not much money in the next couple months. I just hope I have a wall to hang it on.

[Image Credit: woohoo120]