A top Microsoft executive said Thursday that in three years, the bulk of its nearly $1 billion in U.S. ad spending will be in the digital sphere.

“We’re actually pretty confident that by 2010, the majority of our media mix will shift to digital,” said Mich Mathews, senior vice president of the company’s central marketing group, at the AAAAs media conference.

The announcement bodes well for podcasts, video podcasts and other forms of Internet media that have recently begun to draw attention away from more traditional media sources.

Mathews said the company is simply following its consumers, who are increasingly migrating to the Web and an array of nontraditional outlets for information and entertainment. Microsoft is also attracted to the accountability that digital marketing can provide.

Microsoft has allocated 3% of its current ad budget for a multi-continent experiment to test a series of emerging media, Mathews said. Mobile and IPTV are being gauged in Europe, interactive and out-of-home in Asia, and the effectiveness of satellite radio and RSS feeds in the U.S.

via MediaPost