What Retailers Need To Know About Online Holiday Shopping

There are signs that the economic recovery may be losing steam, but the outlook for online holiday sales remains upbeat. A new eMarketer report examines what retailers should expect this holiday season.

Men Get Social Too

Women are well known as the biggest social media users in the world, but men like to keep in touch with friends and family too—and they do it via Facebook.

Michael Jackson Is Nokia’s Most-Downloaded Musician

According to data collected by Nokia’s Ovi music store, Michael Jackson has surpassed Elvis Presley, Lady Gaga and a horde of the world’s most popular recording artists to achieve the title of the most-downloaded musician of all time.

Despite The App Invasion, Music Still Sets The Beat With iTunes Shoppers

According to NPD’s “iTunes User Report,” apps are garnering a lot of attention among iTunes users, but music is still central to the iTunes experience.

Mobile Devices A Must For Millennials

When asked about their technological necessities, Americans put mobile phones about midway down the list, but among the younger set, mobile is the only way to go.

Mobile Content Soars Thanks To Device And Network Advances

A new eMarketer report examines the mobile content ecosystem and where future revenues will come from, including gaming, music and video.

Acquisitions Signal Consolidation Of Social Gaming

As the social gaming market begins to show signs of maturity, major media and entertainment players are getting involved in the business and buying some of the most promising social gaming startups.

Older Adults Nearly Double Social Media Presence

A new study from Pew Internet found that between April 2009 and May 2010, social networking site usage grew 88% among Internet users aged 55-64, and the 65 and older group’s social networking presence grew 100% in the same time frame.

MySpace: Still Here

MySpace, remains big, attracting 61M unique users in July, according to comScore, second only to Facebook’s 146M among social networks measured by the researchers.

How iPad Usage Is Shaping Up

iPads flew off the shelves this spring and, along with the iPhone, helped lead Apple to a successful sales quarter. What are users doing with the device, and how satisfied are they?

Movie Industry Slouches Toward Digital Future

After a decade of strong growth, DVD sales began stalling in 2007. Will newer formats like Blu-ray and digital rescue Tinseltown?

Why Smartphone Adoption May Not Be As Big As You Think

Global adoption rates of smartphones have been steadily increasing over the past several years, but the overall penetration is still relatively low.

Vevo's iPhone App Quickly Hits A Million

The Vevo iPhone app has already been downloaded 1M times, according to stats shared by the company, and now holds the number one app ranking – both across the music and free App Store categories.

Number Of U.S. TV Households Climbs By One Million For 2010-11 TV Season

For the 2010-2011 broadcast season, Nielsen estimates the total number of TV households in the U.S. will climb to 115.9M, an increase of one million homes from last year.

The March Of Twitter: Analysis Of How And Where Twitter Spread

OpenHeatMap created a visual history of Twitter’s growth, including information on the earliest users for each region.

Nearly Three-Quarters Of Marketers Have Social Strategy

Industry watchers and pundits have advised marketers that social media requires a coherent strategy to perform most effectively, and companies have taken the hint.

Top U.S. Search Sites For July 2010

In July 2010, despite a slight drop in share from June 2010, Google remained the top search site, accounting for over three out of five searches (64.2%).

Radio Revenue On The Rise

Radio’s 2010 tally is expected to grow 5.1% to $14.4B, according BIA/Kelsey’s revised forecast.

Can Twitter Turn A Revenue Trickle Into A Stream?

It took Twitter some time to roll out a business model that involved revenues, but with Promoted Tweets and the @earlybird account well under way, eMarketer takes a look at how effective the microblogging service’s promotions have been.

The State Of The GeoSocial Universe

With constant news reports and studies regarding the adoption rates of social networking platforms like Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook, Loopt and SCVNGR, a clear idea of the big picture can get a little muddled. Behold the “GeoSocial Universe.” The graphic pits our social network usage against the huge adoption of mobile phones — currently at 4.6 billion worldwide.

20% Of The U.S. Population Reports Having Played A Game On A Social Network

According to Social Network Gaming, the most recent report from The NPD Group, 20% of the U.S. population ages 6 and older reports having played a game on a social network in the past three months. This equates to 56.8M U.S. consumers, which is a significant number for a relatively new gaming activity.

Cable TV Sees First Ever Decline In Subscribers

In the world of advertising and outbound marketing, TV has been the undisputed king in large part because of an ever-growing audience. For the first time in the history of cable television, the industry is seeing a decline in paid subscribers. This chart from Business Insider illustrates the decline as reported by the firm SNL Kagan.

What Will Hulu’s IPO Mean For Advertisers?

When it comes to online video advertising, Hulu rules. The site is the top online destination for broadcast TV shows, and each Hulu viewer saw an average of 27.9 ads in July, in contrast to only 4.6 ads per user on YouTube. But, will an IPO mean a new advertising regime?

Privacy Not A Problem For Savvy Millennials

Young adults may seem addicted to social media, but they are aware of the risks as well as the rewards inherent in making their private lives public. Marketers need to know that social-savvy millennials will go to lengths to protect their privacy.

YouTube Still Outruns Yahoo! And Facebook For Video Viewers

178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content during the month of July for an average of 14.7 hours per viewer. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property with 143.2M unique viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites, with 55.1M viewers. Facebook.com jumped one position to capture the #3 spot.

E-Commerce Retail Still Growing

The new comScore report, Q2 2010 U.S. retail e-commerce sales estimates, shows that online retail spending reached $32.9 billion for the quarter, up 9% versus year ago. This growth rate represented the third consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth following a year of flat or negative growth rates.

Why The Future Of Social Marketing Is Global

Ad spending on social networks is growing fast in the US, but even faster in the rest of the world. A new eMarketer report explores why.

12 Amazing SEO Infographics

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an industry and practice in constant flux. As search engines continue to work toward improving the results returned for their users, marketers must continue to optimize websites and create relevant content to build relevancy and authority. Check out these infographics for some visual instruction and information about SEO.

Mobile Users Prefer Coupons To Checkins

As mobile users become more acclimated to sharing their whereabouts via mobile devices, findings from JiWire’s Mobile Audience Insights Report prove that they’re also becoming more open to receiving ads and mobile coupons relevant to where they are. In fact, more than 50% of respondents indicated that they wanted to receive location-specific advertising, with mobile coupons a more appealing incentive than checkins. The report examines market trends around audience data over public Wi-Fi during the second quarter of 2010.

Twitter Users Get Up Close And Personal With Brands

A new study finds that consumers who are active on Twitter are three times more likely to impact a brand’s online reputation through syndicated Tweets, blog posts, articles and product reviews than the average consumer.

Targeting Parents With Mobile Alerts

It may not fit the typical early adopter profile, but mobile users with children—especially those under age 6—are more interested than other consumers in receiving SMS alerts and coupons as they use their phone to simplify their busy lives.

Branded Virtual Goods Revenues To Skyrocket

Virtual goods are rising in importance for online marketers, with revenues expected to more than double for the next two years. Research suggests the items are an effective way to lift brand metrics.

Why The Social Gaming Biz Is Just Heating Up

Social gaming, as a category, has grown incredibly quickly, becoming one of the dominant drivers of usage on Facebook, and an increasingly core component of people’s entertainment. This growth represents a real threat to other forms of entertainment, and has precipitated the three deals that we have seen so far.

Mobile Gaming Market Tops $800 Million In 2010

eMarketer forecasts steady increases in mobile gaming as smartphone adoption continues, with paid downloads accounting for the bulk of revenues. Ad support will increase in importance, however.

Web Most Effective Way To Reach Local Audiences Worldwide

Brand marketers have a hard time communicating a unified message to local audiences around the globe, but they agree that the most effective way to do so is through local website content. Many obstacles still prevent marketers from using social media to target local audiences, however.

How People Are Signing In Across The Web

Janrain has just released its latest usage study detailing what social networks and services people use to sign in and share activities across the web. As in its last report back in April, Google and Facebook continue to dominate websites that offer third-party login options. Across the 250,000 sites that use Janrain Engage, Google represents the preferred sign-in option for 38% of users.

Music Streaming Decreases Filesharing, Increases Music Discovery

A survey conducted in Norway this June for Aspiro Music concluded that streaming services lead to more music listening as well as an increased and more diverse music discovery. Of the those surveyed that use streaming music services 68% listen to more music and 72% say they often find music they didn`t know about before.

comScore Releases July 2010 U.S. Online Video Rankings

comScore released July 2010 data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content during the month for an average of 14.7 hours per viewer.

Going Global Means Going Mobile In Emerging Markets

In many developing markets, inexpensive and available mobile phones serve as a substitute pathway to the Internet. Rapid mobile phone adoption presents “reverse innovation” opportunities for clever marketers who leverage the trend.

Steady Gains In Blogging By Marketers

Blogging may not be the hottest form of social media marketing, but companies are increasingly turning to the channel to get marketing messages out to the public. eMarketer predicts nearly two in five companies will be blogging by next year.

Holiday Shopping Gets Another Early Start

In 2009, holiday season shopping got under way well ahead of the traditional Black Friday. With this year shaping up the same way, how should marketers prepare?

What’s The True Pace of U.S. Recovery? Follow The Consumer

Amid seemingly contradictory economic datapoints, manufacturers and retailers will need to focus on the habits of the consumer for clarity and insights into the pace of recovery. While consumer confidence in the U.S. improved modestly in the second quarter according to Nielsen, confidence is well below pre-recessionary levels. The rebound in U.S. consumer confidence is indicative of an elongated “L-shaped” recessionary recovery curve, which is characterized by a sharp slowdown, followed by a prolonged or slow recovery period where the return to previous levels of economic growth may be unattainable or longer term.

Why Companies 'Click' On Twitter

An ExactTarget survey examines the motivations, practical and otherwise, of people who follow companies on Twitter.

Social Network Ad Spending To Approach $1.7 Billion This Year

eMarketer expects US social network ad spending to continue its steady climb, growing more than 20% this year. Growth elsewhere in the world will be even more rapid.

Facebook Trumps MySpace On Ads

In the social media space, two vastly different ad stories are playing out: Facebook is soaring toward must-buy territory, while MySpace appears to have completely lost its mojo. Advertisers will spend $1.28 billion globally on Facebook this year and $347 million on MySpace — which just a few years ago was the hottest property on the Web — according to a new report issued by industry research firm eMarketer.

Email Dominates Mobile Web Time

Social networking may be grabbing the headlines as the most time-intensive activity for web users on their PCs, but it represents only a small portion of mobile internet time. Mobile email is still the main draw.

How To Get Tweetable Moments From Your Presentations

Twitter is here to stay but there is some science to creating a perfect, “tweetable moment” during a presentation. That is, a memorable moment that sticks in the mind of your audience long after the presentation is over. How do you get those moments to happen? How do you get an audience to tweet it? How do you fit it into 140 characters or less?

What Makes Social Media Trustworthy?

One thing that makes social media marketing powerful is consumers’ trust in “people like them”—their friends, family and other online peers. Marketers want to tap into that trust through the power of earned media or by engaging in a conversation with consumers, but where social conversations take place has an effect on their perceived trustworthiness as well as who is taking part in them.

Women Account For Bulk Of Online Buying

Women may be slightly outnumbered on the web compared with men, but their dollars aren’t. According to comScore’s “Women on the Web” white paper, women account for just less than half of US internet users but make up a disproportionately large share of online buyers, at nearly 58%.

Q2 2010 U.S. Retail E-Commerce Spending Up 9 Percent Vs. Year Ago

comScore released its Q2 2010 U.S. retail e-commerce sales estimates, which showed that online retail spending reached $32.9 billion for the quarter, up 9% versus year ago. This growth rate represented the third consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth following a year of flat or negative growth rates.

Marketing Budgets And Accountability Increasing

According to a recent study on the topic of measurement and accountability, companies are not cutting back on marketing despite the recent economic roller coaster. Three quarters of marketing executives who responded to the survey noted that they expected their marketing budgets to stay the same or increase in their 2010-2011 fiscal year, with fully one-third expecting an increase. And, measurement is not taking a backseat to the overall campaign development process. Marketers’ focus is split equally between the importance of the “big idea,” a core theme guiding all marketing initiatives and programs, and developing accountability metrics.

Book, Movie, Love: Best Sellers And The Hollywood Bounce

The August 13 release of the film version of Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 novel Eat, Pray, Love is the latest example of a popular book title moving to the big screen. While these books see success before their silver screen debuts, the buzz leading up to a film version can drive impressive sales.

How Affluents Use Mobile For Shopping And Buying

Affluent mobile users—and the ultrawealthy—have unique multichannel shopping habits and concerns, and could point the way to the future of mobile commerce.

What Nonprofits Can Teach Brands About Social

Charities have outpaced businesses in familiarity with and adoption of social media. How should brand marketers follow in the footsteps on nonprofits for the greatest social success?

Half Of Mobile Users To Be Web-Enabled By 2013

Because of the rising adoption of smart mobile devices, eMarketer forecasts rapid increases in the number of mobile internet users in the US, with the total surpassing 100 million next year.

Focusing On Analytics And Accountability

Marketers are more accountable than ever for their budgets and the return on their investments. More analytics are being done in-house, but the gap between current behavior and best practices remains wide.

Mid Age Radio Listeners Are The "Sweet Spot"

According to an analysis of key listening metrics included in Nielsen’s spring 2010 ratings within 51 U.S. markets, listeners age 25 to 54 continue to thrive as the “sweet spot” for radio, while consumers in cell phone only (CPO) households continue to listen at a higher rate than the 12+ population. Meanwhile, listening among persons age 18 to 34 remains consistent with their counterparts age 12 and over in the 51 measured markets.

Heavy Twitter Users Bring Social Activity To New Heights

Participation in social media is a staple of Americans’ online diet, but daily users of Twitter do more to contribute to every social realm—making them more valuable than ever to marketers.

Why Entertainment Will Drive The Next Checkin Craze

In recent months, a crop of services have popped up that re-purpose the checkin concept, popularized by Foursquare, and connect it to media and entertainment, as opposed to location. In practice, this alternative checkin behavior is one that is more cultural and familiar than anything the location checkin offers. In fact, it emulates the way we experience entertainment in our everyday lives.

Can MySpace Music Break Bands?

MySpace Music has typically been a starting point for bands and fans online. But can this site actually jump-start an artist career? This is a concern for any artist battling the clutter, and it has also become a greater focus for the MySpace Music team. Topline traffic declines at MySpace are certainly creating issues for the music property, but the traffic base for MySpace Music remains impressive.

Social Sites Get People Talking, But Marketers Must Earn Trust

Social media sites are the most talked about content category on the web, with internet users discussing them in person, via email and over the phone. But that doesn’t translate to loyalty, trust or confidence in marketer presence.

Social Shopping Draws Teens

A new eMarketer report analyzes how retailers can reach teen online shoppers, who often prefer the in-store experience and other ways to socialize with their peers.

Consumers Still Like TV Ads Best

While research has indicated that online video viewers “don’t mind” ads, and would even be open to watching a greater share of advertisements with long-form online content, television continues to make commercials most noticeable, helpful—and fun.

Report: How People Watch – The Global State Of Video Consumption

Video consumption across multiple platforms is a now a global phenomenon. Consumers in all regions are proving their insatiable appetite for video information and entertainment – thus far adding screens to their media mix, not replacing them.

Mobile Music's Upbeat Forecast

The mobile music market is expected to reach $676M in 2014, up from $143M this year, according to a report from eMarketer. With the number of mobile music listeners expected to grow from 21.7M this year to 52M in 2014, eMarketer estimates paid revenues from subscription streaming services and full-song downloads to increase 55% from 2009 to 2014 reaching $501M that year.

Boosting The Power Of Marketers’ Tweets

Marketers make up a small minority of Twitter users, and the proportion of tweets that mention brands may be dropping as the microblogging service grows. How can marketers increase their reach and effectiveness on the channel?

What Americans Do Online: Social Media And Games Dominate Activity

Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8% just a year ago (43% increase) according to new research released from The Nielsen Company. The research revealed that Americans spend a third their online time (36%) communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal email and instant messaging.

Mobile Video To Double Reach By 2013

eMarketer forecasts that nearly one in five US mobile users will be watching video on their devices by 2013, up from less than 10% this year. Revenues are set to grow even faster.

VEVO By The Numbers

Since its launch just 8 months ago, VEVO, the online music video partnership between the major labels (and WMG) and Google’s YouTube, has shown impressive growth. But this Media Beat comparison to other sites offers the clearest picture of the service’s massive reach.

Are You Being Served?

With the lousy economy having focused consumers’ attention on price when they spend their money, it’s easy to forget that other factors affect their purchase decisions. But, as a report released by American Express makes clear, customer service — or, often, the conspicuous lack of customer service — plays a large role in people’s choices and attitudes toward companies.

Poll: Concert Tickets Too Pricey

Conducted earlier this month among adults, the survey found 70 percent of respondents agreeing that ticket prices are “too high.” Eighteen percent said they’re “about right”; 1 percent said they’re “too low,” and the rest weren’t sure one way or another.

Geolocation Grows Despite Privacy Concerns

Check-in services like foursquare are still relatively small players, but two in five mobile users take advantage of geolocation features on their device. Worries about privacy and safety abound, but the cool—and usefulness—factor seems to win out.

The ‘New Normal’ In Consumer Shopping Behavior

The doldrums of summer arrived early, it seems. Several recent research reports on consumer sentiment and shopping behavior show that Americans are not ready to open their wallets any wider this year than last.

Social Networking Dominates Our Time Spent Online

Social networking now eats up twice as much of our online time as any other activity. According to new stats from Nielsen, sites like Facebook and Twitter now account for 22.7% of time spent on the web; the next closest activity is online games, which make up 10.2%.

Small Business Sees Increased Paid Search Conversions

Small businesses boosted their spending and shifted dollars away from Google and Yahoo! in Q2 2010, according to the “State of Small Business Online Advertising Q2 2010” report from WebVisible. Ask.com benefited, while spending on Bing was steady.

E-books Will Overtake Paperbacks By The End Of 2011

Amazon predicts that it will sell more e-books than paperbacks by the end of next year, and that they will eclipse both paperback and hardcover sales combined shortly thereafter.

How Women Use The Web

More women than men across the world visit social networking sites and spend 30% more time per month using them. As such, in the “Women on the Web: How Women are Shaping the Internet” report, comScore concludes that women are the digital mainstream, a group of savvy Internet explorers who are more engaged than their male counterparts, and are the primary drivers of online and group buying.

Act Fast! 3 Reasons To Nurture Leads Immediately

The early bird gets the worm. He who hesitates is lost. Strike while the iron is hot. These clichés may be just that, clichés, but it turns out that they also apply in the world of sales and marketing. In fact, a recent review of HubSpot customers’ lead nurturing statistics shows that open rates for nurturing emails drops off drastically over the course of three weeks.

Marketers Slow To Integrate Mobile Tactics

According to an April 2010 survey by interactive and email marketing agency eROI, less than a third of US marketers think optimizing the mobile marketing experience is important to their customers. Almost as many are unsure and nearly a quarter are testing the value of mobile optimization.

Social Gaming Market Begins To Mature

Social gaming revenues, which barely existed in 2008, have seen steep growth. Rising from just $76 mil. worldwide that year to $639 mil. in 2009, revenues are expected to climb to $826 mil. this year. This year’s 29% growth rate will slow to about 24% in 2011, and growth will continue steadily in the double-digits through 2014 as the market matures.

The Time For Foursquare Marketing Is… Later?

While it’s always a good idea to look forward and broaden your marketing mix when it comes to technology, a new study shows that expecting a huge, at-scale ROI from such cutting-edge location-based services as Foursquare might be a bit premature.

Would You Ever Pay For Twitter?

In a new study, researchers found that while half of all Americans surveyed have tried a free web app like Twitter, zero percent of them would be willing to pay to use Twitter or a similar service.

Marketers Put More Lead Gen Budgets Online

After slashing budgets in 2009, companies are ready to spend more on lead generation, with a major focus on acquiring new customers. Online channels are most effective, and rigorous monitoring of ROI brings even higher satisfaction with digital.

Ad Exposure On Both TV And Online Delivers Big Time

According to new data from Nielsen, airing an ad both on TV and online greatly increases its effectiveness. In a study of direct-to-consumer drug advertising, exposure on TV and online was more than twice as likely to prompt patients to ask their physician about the drug than on TV or internet alone. Compared to consumers who had only seen a TV ad for a specific drug, consumers who had seen both a TV and online ad were 100% more likely to ask their doctor about it.

Measuring The Buying Brain

Each year a trillion dollars is spent on communicating to and persuading the human brain, yet few understand how the brain really works—what’s attractive to it, how it decides what it likes and doesn’t like, and how it chooses to buy or not buy the infinite variety of products and services presented to it every day. Neuromarketing research is revealing a myriad of fascinating insights that help improve the effectiveness of every aspect of clients’ brands, products, packaging, in-store marketing, advertising, and entertainment content.

Reaching Online Video Viewers With Long-Form Content

Online video viewership has increased steadily in the US in the past several years, and eMarketer’s forecasts call for continued growth through at least 2014. As that audience grows, more and more viewers are watching not just short user-generated clips but also full-length professional content such as TV shows and movies.

Why Email Metrics Are In Decline

As email open and click rates continue to drop, marketers will need to put ever more effort into segmentation and personalization to seem relevant amid the inbox clutter of tired email recipients, research suggests. Open rates continued a steady decline around the world, according to MailerMailer’s “Email Marketing Metrics Report,” dropping from 12% in the first half of 2009 to 11.2% in the second half.

Facebook’s 500 Million Members

Facebook reached its 500 million member milestone yesterday. To commemorate the achievement, Facebakers.com put together a comprehensive infographic. The illustration breaks down the demographics of Facebook’s burgeoning population, and explores the international makeup of the site.

How The Internet Is Affecting Traditional Journalism

In a survey conducted over May and June this year, PR network Oriella asked media moguls how the Internet was affecting their business, their publishing formats and even the quality of the content issuing forth from their newsrooms.

11 Mind-Blowing Mobile Marketing Infographics

Smart phones, tablets, laptops and mobile broadband cards have all changed the way we access the internet. According to Pew Research Center, 59% of adult Americans go online wirelessly. With the proliferation of wireless connectivity and devices, online marketers have many more screens to worry about than just the standard computer screen. To better illustrate the growing mobile marketing opportunity, take a look at these infographics.

Summer Encourages 'Spontaneous Spending'

If the economic news isn’t encouraging Americans to spend, maybe the weather can take up some of the slack. A newly released American Express/Echo Research poll finds 26 percent of respondents saying the summer weather encourages them to “spend more spontaneously.”

How Are Email, Facebook And Twitter Audiences Different?

While more consumers are becoming fans and followers of brands on social sites, email remains the preferred communication method for the majority of web users. What determines people’s channel of choice, and what does it mean for marketers?

Small Change: Folks Still Cutting Back

We know, from economic data and polling responses, that consumers continue to be wary of making big-ticket purchases. But that’s not the full extent of their caution about spending, according to a Harris Poll released today. This survey also finds many people still cutting back on little things in order to save money.

Radio Grabs The Ears Of Key Demographics In Spring 2010

Listeners age 25 to 54 continue to thrive as the “sweet spot” for radio, while consumers in cell phone only (CPO) households continue to listen at a higher rate than the 12+ population, according to an analysis of the spring 2010 ratings in 51 markets released today by Nielsen.

Web Users Demand Control Over Ad Targeting

Consumers are known for sending mixed messages about targeted ads. They often enjoy having them tailored to their interests, but have privacy concerns. Educating the public tends to make their fears stronger, but advertisers could combat this by giving them control over their data.

Where To Reach Women Online

Women are a prime target of marketers, and with good reason: Estimates put their share of household spending at 80%, giving them control over about $1.7 trillion annually in the US. Marketers know they can reach the vast majority of these women online, and their top priority on the internet this summer will be connecting with family and friends (76%).

Six In Ten American Adults Online Wirelessly

According to the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans’ use of the Internet, six-in-ten American adults are now wireless internet users, and mobile data applications have grown more popular over the last year.

PC Game Digital Downloads Reaching Parity With In-Store Purchases

According to The NPD Group, in 2009, 21.3 million PC Game full-game digital downloads were purchased online in the U.S. compared to 23.5 million physical units purchased at retail during the same period. While NPD’s point-of-sale research shows that PC physical retail sales experienced a year-over-year revenue decline in 2009, it was still slightly larger than PC digital download sales on a unit basis.

Nielsen Economic Current Q2 2010: The State Of The Global Consumer

While global consumer confidence continues the slow but steady climb upward from the lows experienced in the first quarter of 2009, consumer spending is following a similar trajectory.

Email Still Driving Shopping Over Social Media

Several retailers can attest to the sometimes overwhelming power of promotional messages on social channels. But despite the hype of viral coupons testing retailers’ agility, studies suggest email is still the more effective promotional channel.

Facebook Among Web’s Worst In Customer Satisfaction

The 2010 American Customer Survey Index conducted by ForeSee Results gave Facebook 64 out of 100 points in a customer satisfaction survey; that’s lower than any other business in its category. However, it’s not at the bottom of the social media heap; MySpace received one point less.

Social Sites Lag In Customer Satisfaction

The rapid rise of online social networking must mean that social-media sites enjoy strong customer satisfaction, right? Not according to an American Customer Satisfaction Index report.

Customer Service Is Crucial To Repeat Business and Profitability

According to the American Express Global Customer Service Barometer, 61% of Americans report that quality customer service is more important to them in today’s economic environment, and will spend an average of 9% more when they believe a company provides excellent service.

Companies Throw Their Weight Behind Online Video

Recent studies have shown that growing numbers of retailers are adding video capabilities to their sites. When asked by Multichannel Merchant to identify rich media features that they used, 46% of US multichannel retailers picked video, making it the highest-ranked category in the survey. Another 42.3% of respondents said they planned to add video capability in the next year.

Mobile Banners Beat Standard Online Ads In Clicks And Conversions

eMarketer estimates the mobile ad market in the US will reach $593 million this year as evidence of its effectiveness mounts. A report examining the success of a variety of display advertisements found that mobile banners significantly outperform standard banners. Click-through rates, which were best for rich media formats like floating ads and commercial breaks, were twice as high for mobile banners than standard banners.

How Social Media Drives New Business: Six Case Studies

Businesses both big and small are flocking to social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Foursquare. The fact is that a presence on these platforms not only allows companies to engage in conversations with consumers, but also serves as an outlet to drive sales through deals and coupons. And while major brands like Starbucks, Virgin, and Levi’s have been participating in the social web for some time now, the rate of adoption among small businesses is increasing too.

Returning College Students Spending Optimistically

Findings from Alloy Media + Marketing’s 10th Annual College Explorer Study show 16 million college students between the ages of 18-34 matriculating this Fall with an unprecedented $306 billion in projected spending power, up 13% since last year’s estimates.

Why Marketers Can’t Afford To Ignore Baby Boomers

When it comes to marketing, the focus always seems to be on youth. What are they watching… what’s trendy? As a result media companies focus on reaching consumers age 18-34 or 18-49, who spend (or have a key role in spending) billions of dollars every year. But by solely focusing on these groups, advertisers and consumer goods manufacturers are overlooking a group that has tremendous buying power: the 78 million Baby Boomers in the U.S. today.

Web Merchants Keep Social Spending Low

Retailers seem to be working hard to socialize shopping; according to the e-tailing group, more than nine in 10 are planning a Facebook presence by the end of the year. But social media still gets only a tiny slice of retailers’ online marketing budgets. Smaller web outlets spent proportionally more on social, but it was still a small share of total budgets.

Bing Solidifies Growth As Yahoo! Loses Share In Q2

After coming back strong in Q1, US paid search spending continued to regain strength as 2010 went on. According to SearchIgnite, year-over-year paid search spending was up 14% in Q2, compared with a gain of 11% in Q1. Spending was down slightly, by 2%, quarter-to-quarter—considered a normal part of the summer slowdown in marketing activity. Individually, the major search engines each dropped in spending growth since Q1 but rose year over year, with the greatest gains made by Bing.

Anatomy of a Concert Ticket

Ticket prices seem so high, yet talent fees are often astronomical. The average Live Nation ticket price in North America increased 3% to $49.80 in North America in 2010. The talent percentage was 74%, down 1% from 2009. Internationally, the average price was $54.30, and the talent percentage 55% (down 1%). The drive to relax ticketing prices is on. Among the discounting weapons, 4-packs and $10 lawn seats were cited as the most aggressive sales drivers.

June 2010: Top Online Sites And Brands In The U.S.

Along with its listing of the top brands and companies on the web for June 2010, The Nielsen Company also found that the average time spent online in the U.S. grew more than three percent compared to the previous month.

YouTube Scores 101 Online Videos Per Viewer In May

New data from comScore shows that 183 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month of May. YouTube.com achieved record levels of viewing activity with an all-time high of 14.6 billion videos viewed and surpassing the threshold of 100 videos per viewer for the first time.

Why Consumers Connect with Marketers via Email and Social Media

Many email and social media marketers are beginning to realize that by combining the strengths of both tactics they have an opportunity to increase effectiveness, rather than compete with each other.

Apple OS Grows By 36 Percent In June, Android Up By 23 Percent

Millennial Media is reporting that globally, Apple OS requests are up by 36 percent in June, after dropping 33 percent in May. Android requests continued to rise, and grew another 23 percent month over month. Android is now up a whopping 439% since January. iPad requests are also increasing at a fast rate, growing 206 percent in June, after rising 160 percent in May. RIM ad requests increased percent month-over-month, posting a 41 percent increase in requests since January.

Ringing In A Cheapskate Holiday Season

If consumers won’t boost the economy by spending more on themselves, will they help it by spending more on holiday gifts for others? Don’t count on it. A new BIGresearch report, giving a foretaste of consumers’ holiday-spending intentions, finds many respondents planning to restrain their spending in that area as well.

"iTunes Usage Report" Finds U.S. Music Consumers Interested In Taking Music To The Clouds

The NPD Group, recently surveyed Apple iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPod Touch users to explore their reactions to various music subscription-model concepts. More than a quarter of respondents expressed strong interest in a free cloud-based music option, and many were willing to pay a subscription fee to access their own music libraries from multiple devices and platforms.

More Businesses Finding Customers On Social Sites

While many marketers struggle with how to measure social media marketing return on investment, some businesses are finding at least one hard metric where their efforts have paid off—customer acquisition. Smaller companies see the most success, with nearly half of small businesses around the world having acquired a customer through social networks. Large companies were less successful, but more than a quarter had seen social success through customer acquisition. This was despite large companies being more likely to devote budgets to social marketing.

Shopping Cart Reminders Drive Quick Email Clicks

A study of more than 40,000 messages in March 2010 discovered that, overall, almost half of transactions and about three-quarters of opens and clicks happen within a day of receiving a marketing email. So good results will often come fast. One of the fastest ways to get email recipients to open and click on messages is to send notices of abandoned carts.

7-8 Million "Strongly Interested" In Paying For An iTunes Cloud

According to the latest survey from NPD Group, a sizable percentage of iTunes users are willing to pay for some premium version of cloud-based access in the US – in the order of 7-8 million. That includes a subscription package involving existing collections and millions of on-demand songs, among the variations.

Women Feel Need To Be ‘Always On’

Research shows that many young women are staying close with friends, family and presumably work around the clock. More than a third of female social media users ages 18 to 34 had fallen asleep with their PDA in their hands or reported regularly checking Facebook first thing in the morning.

Netflix Edges Past Hulu In Total U.S. Traffic

As the great race to become America’s favorite source of full-length TV and movie streams gets underway, two of the favorites in that race are Hulu and Netflix. Hulu has a fairly large headstart. It is the No. 2 video site in the U.S after YouTube, and serves more than 1 billion videos a month. Meanwhile, Netflix, which is constantly adding to its catalog of streaming movies, only just broke into the top 20 last February. However, it is catching up fast, with serious streaming offerings on laptops, the Wii, and the iPad.

The Internet Is Most Influential Worldwide

According to the findings of the 2010 Digital Influence Index, when it comes to driving consumer decisions about a range of products and services, the Internet is by far the most influential media channel, but marketers have yet to capitalize on that influence.

Double-Digit Growth Again For Online Ad Spend

The economy suffered around the world in 2009, but the online advertising market showed its resistance to the recession. While total media spending dropped, online ad spending increased by 2% to $55.2 billion. eMarketer forecasts that 2010 will bring a return to double-digit online ad growth, with global spending set to reach $61.8 billion. Growth will continue at rates of over 10% each year through 2014.

New Music Sales Reports Send Mixed Signal

The U.S. single-track download market slipped 0.2% to 597.4 million tracks in the first half of the year according to Nielsen SoundScan. On a more positive note, download sales of the more profitable album format grew by 12.7% to 42.2 million. Digital albums now make up 27.4% of all album sales.

The Blogger Generation Still Dominates Blogging

After an analysis of more than 100 million blog posts, not surprisingly, the most active bloggers are younger people who have grown up during the blogging “revolution”, which started about seven years ago. Bloggers in the 21-to-35 year-old demographic group account for 53.3% of the total blogging population. This group is followed by the generation just behind them – people 20-years-old or under are 20.2% of the blogging landscape.

Why Many Teens Are Moving On From Facebook

There’s no question of Facebook’s position at the top of the social networking space. But among some teens, Facebook may be losing its stickiness. Nearly one in five teens with a Facebook profile had decreased or discontinued their use of the site as of April 2010. What’s more, the decreases seemed to speed up in recent months, with two-thirds of the lapsed users having turned away from the site in the past six months.

Gen Y Will Not Grow Out Of Social Networking

An overwhelming majority of technology experts and stakeholders believe that social networking and online sharing is more than just a fad for today’s youth. More than two-thirds of those surveyed indicated that the Millennial generation — otherwise known as Generation Y — will continue to use social networking tools as they mature into adult life stages and have families of their own.

Interactive Tool Reveals The Social Media Behaviors Of Your Audience

Trend Stream has released a mini version of its Global Web Index — a syndicated market research service on web behavior and social media — in interactive infographic form. The tool provides an insightful look at the social media profiles of various online users.

Social Media To Get Email Marketing Support In 2010

A survey of small businesses recently reported by eMarketer, found the most common email tactics implemented last year were tweeting e-mail newsletters and sending out blog entries to e-mail lists. Fewer than four in 10 small businesses were engaging in those activities, and only about one-quarter had e-mail sign-up forms on their social profiles or links within e-mail messages to follow them on social sites.

Android Continues To Gain Smartphone Market Share

ComScore just released new smartphone market share numbers and unsurprisingly the trend continues from previous months. Android phone saw the most significant growth in market share in May, up 4% to capture 13% of smartphone subscribers. Of course, despite Android’s gain, RIM and Apple dominated, with RIM taking 41.7% share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 24.4% share. Microsoft saw a 13.2% share and Palm rounded the top five out with a 4.8% share.

55% Of Online Video Viewers OK With Web Ads

As content providers look to monetize online video, they have a few basic options: ad support, fees or a combination of the two. While services like Hulu Plus add a pay wall to an already ad-supported service, research suggests more ads might not turn off users.

Simultaneous Viewing And Surfing Commonplace

If you never surf the Web while watching TV, you are in the minority. That’s according to a new study conducted by Nielsen on behalf of Yahoo, which found that three out of four Americans use the Web and TV simultaneously, and half do so every day. Indeed, multitasking is no longer the domain of fantasy football-playing males; it is now commonplace among most demographics. In fact, more women claim to multitask than men. The average multitasker spends over 2.5 hours per week using the Web and TV at the same time.

More Americans Access The Internet Than Play Games On Mobile Phones

The Pew Research Center is releasing the results of a survey that evaluates the mobile internet use of Americans. The most interesting findings centered around mobile connectivity. Pew found that more Americans are accessing the internet on their phones than playing games on their devices. Of course, both of these actions were dwarfed by taking pictures and sending or receiving text messages.

Foursquare Is Five Times Larger Than Gowalla And Growing 75 Percent Faster Every Day

Location-based social networks Foursquare and Gowalla are accumulating users with impressive momentum. While both companies have been vocal about reaching major milestones, here is a closer look at the data behind these accomplishments. Foursquare is not only bigger in terms of both users and venues, but it also is growing at a faster clip than Gowalla.

U.S. Venture Capital Fundraising Up 13 Percent In First Half Of 2010 To $7.5B

Following the recessionary drought of fundraising for venture funds in 2009, the amount raised has increased by 13 percent in the first quarter of 2010, with 72 funds raising $7.5 billion according to Dow Jones LP Source. For the same period last year, 68 funds raised $6.6 billion.

Who Spends Most Time On Facebook?

Despite Facebook’s growing appeal to older users, 18- to 34-year-olds spend the most time on the site per week, at 8.5 hours out of 22.4 spent online. Weekly Facebook time drops to 4.6 hours among users ages 55+, representing a lower proportion of that group’s average of 21.5 hours per week on the internet. Broken down by race and ethnicity, Morpace found Facebook usage heaviest by Asians. Hispanics spent the fewest hours on Facebook, and even compared with their low average time online came in last.

The First Thing Young Women Do In The Morning: Check Facebook

Young women are becoming more and more dependent on social media and checking on their social networks, according to a new study released by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research. In fact, as many as one-third of women aged 18-34 check Facebook when they first wake up, even before they get to the bathroom.

123 Million Americans Reading Newspapers On The Web

According to a new comScore release, more than 123 million Americans visited newspaper sites in May, representing 57% of the total U.S. Internet audience, as the New York Times Brand led the category with more than 32 million visitors and 719 million pages viewed during the month. The average visitor viewed 22 pages of content on the New York Times. Tribune Newspapers ranked second in terms of audience with 24.8 million visitors, followed by Advance Internet and USA Today Sites.

57% Of Android Apps Are Free Vs. 28% Of iPhone Apps

App store analytics provider Distimo last week published its report for June 2010, and zoomed in on the pricing of mobile applications across a variety of platforms once more.  The startup found that more than half of mobile apps are priced below or equal to $2 in Android Market, Apple’s App Store for iPhone and iPad, Nokia’s Ovi Store and Palm’s App Catalog.

Posterous Growing At More Than 700 Percent a Year

According to Quantcast, Posterous has 5.3 million monthly unique global visitors, with 2.2 million in the U.S. If you look at the Quantcast chart, you can see the different growth spurts Posterous has gone through. The first year after its launch in June, 2008, it’s growth was pretty gradual. But then, almost a year ago, it introduced an iPhone app which allows users to post their photos and thoughts directly to their Posterous blogs.

Mobile Users Ready For Location-Based Text Marketing

A survey conducted by Harris Interactive found that while most mobile users still have not signed up for any text alerts, there was a small rise in interest since a similar poll in 2009: 28% were at least somewhat interested in the alerts, up 2 percentage points, and 8% were extremely or very interested, up 3 percentage points. For under-35s, interest was significantly higher.

How the Web Is Affecting Social Relations

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center just released their fourth “Future of the Internet” survey, the topic of which was “The Future of Social Relations.” The opt-in study, which tapped 895 tech stakeholders and critics, essentially presented respondents with two differing world views – whether or not they will see the internet having been a positive force in their social world by 2020. They then chose one viewpoint, elaborated as to why they chose that stance, as well as pontificated on the subject more generally. The results are pretty interesting.

The Ultimate List: 100+ Facebook Statistics

With more than 500 million users Facebook has become the dominant player in the social networking industry. As marketers and business owners it is important to understand how potential customers are using Facebook in order to determine the best methods of communicating with them to build trust and facilitate customer aquisition. This post aggregates Hubspot statistics along with those from other organizations.

Data Integration Optimizes Advertising Media Mix

Portability. Rich content. Interactivity. User control. Preferred viewing environment. When it comes to media, consumers want what they want, when they want it. Advertisers can respond to this dynamically changing market by adopting a highly integrated approach to media planning. The key to efficient planning is aligning media inventory with precisely defined consumer segments that go beyond demographics to encompass client-specific profiles and evaluating media from a consumer centric, holistic fashion, to allow you to optimize your cross-platform plans.

Mixpanel’s Analytics Now Tracking 1 Billion Actions A Month

Mixpanel, an analytics-focused startup, has hit a big milestone: it’s now processing over 1 billion actions per month. To put that in perspective, a year ago the company had recorded 80 million actions cumulatively. Earlier this week, Mixpanel launched a new feature for its funnel tracking system, which allows developers to identify exactly where in their applications users are engaged, and where they’re leaving.

TV Forecast Raised Again

TV stations are enjoying a healthy recovery, so healthy that BIA/Kelsey is raising its forecast for the fourth time, adding more than 4 percentage points to its May predictions. The revised forecast predicts TV stations will pull in $18.1 billion in revenue this year, a 10.9 percent gain.

Two-Thirds Of Kids And Teens Now Mobile

For years, companies have watched the mobile youth population develop and grow, but aside from text messaging there have not been many clear-cut marketing opportunities on the mobile phone. However, now that mobile phones are nearly ubiquitous among teens and becoming ever more popular among younger kids, the opportunities are increasing.

10 Beautiful Social Media Infographics

Infographics help communicate information in a digestible manner as they creatively present data in an understandable and engaging format. With social media growing at an ever increasing pace, there is now a wealth of data about how people interacting with one another on the web. Naturally, infographics have proven an excellent aid in expressing high volumes of social web information in a clear, visually appealing manner. Here are 10 infographics that prove as beautiful as they are interesting.

Email Marketing Drives Cross-Channel Sales

Cross-channel shopping is a major force in total retail sales. According to Forrester Research, nearly half of all sales are influenced by the web. While online product research often begins with search engines, email marketing can encourage offline action.

Teens Experiencing Facebook Fatigue

Online gaming site Roiworld surveyed 600 teens ages 13 to 17 in late April and found that teens spend two hours per day online on average, 80% of which is spent using a social network. These same teens are, however, showing signs of “Facebook Fatigue.” Nearly one in five (19%) who have an account no longer visit Facebook or are using it less.

iOS And Android Continue To Battle For Supremacy

AdMob released its May 2010 Mobile Metrics Report. In addition to giving the latest information on devices and usage share in the U.S. online, the report also looks at emerging trends over the last two years. The big takeaways should be familiar to mobile stats watchers: iPhone and iOS devices continue to dominate worldwide but Android is making big gains as a platform and experiencing large month-over-month and year-over-year gains, especially in the U.S.

Online Teen Influencers Precisely Defined

A recent survey of teen social media users showed that not only are Online Influencers more likely than the average teen to participate in social media activities by updating their status at least once per day or sending 3,000 texts per month, but are also spending more time socializing and influencing their peers offline. Social media teen Influencers are defined as the top 15% most active and most engaged teens in the myYearbook community.

Flash And Rich Media Ads Are 40 Percent of U.S. Online Ad Impressions

Flash has faced a bit of controversy recently with Apple’s continued ban of the rich media technology in its products, including the iPhone and iPad. Because of this, many advertisers and media companies are looking to other technologies, such as HTML5, to serve video and rich media on these devices. Rich media ads are known to elicit higher CPMs, so advertisers and publishers are looking for ways to serve rich media ads on all devices. Today, comScore is releasing an online advertising report that shows that Flash and rich media ads represent 40 percent of all U.S. online advertising.

Big Potential For In-Store Mobile Marketing

Mobile shopping from in-store is just beginning to achieve its promise. Most shoppers are not yet accustomed to turning on and logging in to a retailer’s mobile app when they enter one of its stores. Likewise, retailers are just starting to launch mobile commerce offerings, let alone offer capabilities targeted to in-store shoppers. But new mobile websites and apps are launching every week, and retailers that don’t get on board may soon find themselves acting as a showroom for online pure plays like Amazon or for mobile price comparison apps.

How The Entertainment Industry Can Move Beyond The Click

Online marketers recognize the inadequacy of the clickthrough as an ad performance metric but still rely on it for its simplicity and ease of use. A study from comScore and MediaMind gives marketers in the entertainment industry reason to look further, to measures of interaction and dwell time, for a more accurate indication of performance.

LinkedIn By The Numbers

LinkedIn is a social networking site that has rapidly gained popularity among professionals looking to connect with contacts, colleagues, and potential employers. Recently passing 70 million members, LinkedIn has become one of the most popular social media tools along with Facebook and Twitter.

Global Online Shopping Report

While it’s still nice to stop by a store to touch and see products, the convenience of online shopping can’t be beat. And for some services, such as booking travel or buying concert tickets, the ability to do so online has made the process much easier and more efficient.

Branded Entertainment Set To Surge

Branded entertainment marketing dipped for the first time in 2009, but it’s forecast to roar back this year, according to PQ Media’s new report on the industry released today. In 2010, branded entertainment – including consumer event sponsorships, event marketing and product placement – is quickly becoming a staple of advertisers’ marketing plans, on track to total $25.93 billion, a 5.3 percent gain.

Privacy Concerns Fail To Slow Social Activity

Facebook, which stirred consumer privacy worries in spring 2010 with its rollout of new opt-out initiatives, has not experienced an exodus of users, leaving many industry watchdogs wondering whether web users really do care about online security. According to a May 2010 study, more than three-quarters of US social media users have at least some concern about their privacy and security while using social media, including 28% who say their concerns are serious.

College Students Annoyed By Mobile Ads

Fully 100% of college students in the US have a mobile phone, and they use them constantly to communicate and connect. As such, mobile marketing becomes more difficult among this group because they see the devices as so personal. Their reactions to ads were highly negative. More than 40% were annoyed to get an ad, compared with just 1.2% who were pleased and 17.6% who were neutral.

Online Video: More Closely Watched All the Time

At the dawn of online time, the Internet was something you’d read. Now, increasingly, it’s something you watch. Video of all sorts is becoming a crucial part of the online experience, especially for younger people. A report issued this month by Metacafe and Frank N. Magid Associates documents the rise of online video and points toward the direction its continued growth is likely to take.

Consumers Have Changed, But Have Marketers?

Lots of Americans believe they’ve become more adept as consumers during the past couple of years. However, an AdweekMedia/Harris Poll finds they are less inclined to believe that brands have adjusted their marketing to keep pace with this greater savvy.

What Makes Up A Social Marketing Strategy?

It’s quickly becoming common wisdom among marketers that a strategy is needed to use social media effectively. Of course, that doesn’t mean a majority of those involved in the space have gotten on board yet and created such a well-thought-out approach. According to a May 2010 study by Digital Brand Expressions, 52% of social marketers are operating “without a game plan,” similar to the 50% found in April 2010 by R2integrated.

In Online Retail, Usability Is Rated No. 1

Some online retailers are updating their looks for better navigation, while others are focusing on the bells and whistles of social shopping. But Web merchants would be wise not to forget the basics or risk frustrating their customers. According to the “Revolutionizing Website Design” report from Oneupweb, Web users expect a lot from shopping sites, but their focus is on the fundamentals that facilitate purchasing.

Coupons Benefit Retailers, Too

According to the latest Online Shopper Intelligence survey, one-third of online shoppers surveyed said they generally use coupon sites while shopping online. 35 million consumers visited coupon sites in April 2010, up 5% from the year prior. Besides the consumer benefit, says the report, coupons have a significant impact on retailers’ bottom lines.

Retail 2015: Smartphones Get Personal As Supercenters, E-Commerce Win Big

With all eyes on the economic recession in the U.S., it’s easy to underestimate the major trends currently reshaping the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. According to The Nielsen Company’s Retail 2015 Forecast, the pace of change is only accelerating as technology, marketing trends and retail formats converge to redefine how CPG retailers and manufacturers interact with consumers.

Pandora: "The Kleenex Of Music Discovery"

In a new report from Edison Reseach, Tom Webster writes that Pandora is poised to be “the Kleenex of music discovery”. They asked a representative sample of Americans who had ever listened to Internet-only audio what brands they could recall in the space. Amongst all Internet-only radio listeners, Pandora was on top, with 28% of the sample recalling the online music service. However, amongst frequent social networkers, this unaided recall figure soared to 40%.

Does Online Buzz Mean Better TV Ratings?

While we’ve heard in the past that Twitter can be a killer box office predictor, the same might not be true for social media and television ratings. Social media monitoring company Viralheat spent a month tracking social media mentions — a million of them, in fact — right around the time that nine major TV shows were airing their season finales. The company looked at data from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google Buzz and other sources, including the sentiment of all these mentions, comments and updates.

The Average YouTube User Watched 100 Videos in May

May was a bang-up month for YouTube, according to data released today by the comScore Video Metrix service. Having for the first time achieved the milestone of 100 videos watched per user, the video-sharing site reached an all-time high of 14.6 billion videos viewed in May.

There’s Real Money In Virtual Goods

Don’t be surprised if one day soon the must-have item of the season doesn’t even exist. Not in the real world, anyway. Then again, what did reality ever have to do with desire anyway? The psychology of the fast-growing virtual marketplace is turning out to be uncannily similar to the real one.

Fast Changing Consumer Behavior Forcing New Business Models

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2010-2014, global entertainment and media spending is expected to rise from $1.3 trillion to $1.7 trillion by 2014, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 5.0%. The US E&M market is expected to grow at 3.8% CAGR reaching $517 billion in 2014, from $428 billion in 2009. Fast changing consumer behavior is expected to be the catalyst of the entertainment and media industry change over the next five years.

Social Media Moms Diced And Sliced

According to the results of the 2010 Mom Social Influencer segmentation study, five unique segments of social moms are broken down into two categories, the Influencers, Field Experts, Lifecasters and Pros, and the Influenced, labeled in the report as Butterflies and the Audience. The Influencers make up only 18% of social moms, but they wield 78% of the influence. Influence, in this study, was measured by how often social moms post or comment on social networks and the size of their networks on these platforms.

Foursquare Now Adding Nearly 100,000 Users A Week

Over the past several months, Foursquare has had a number of impressive stats for a startup. The location-based service has just tweeted out that they’re now past 1.7 million users. Impressively, that’s up 100,000 users from just about a week ago. Also impressive from this angle, it was only two months ago that Foursquare passed one million users — clearly the rate of growth is increasingly quickly.

Twitter Growth: Happening All Over The Globe

Online analytics firm comScore noted Twitter’s overall continued growth, and now Pingdomis doing its share by pointing out where exactly Twitter’s staggering international expansion is happening right now. The short version: just about everywhere.

Secrets to Revenue And Innovation In New Product Development

At the Nielsen Consumer 360 conference, insights were revealed as to why some companies see tremendous success when they are developing and launching new consumer packaged goods (CPG) products and others don’t. The big takeaway? Manage ideas lightly and manage process precisely. Companies with less senior management involvement in the new product development process generate 80% more new product revenue than those with heavy senior management involvement. And companies with rigid stage gates average 130% more new product revenue.

How To Measure The Carbon Impact Of Your Tour

Julie’s Bicycle, a broad coalition of music, theatre and scientific experts committed to making the music industry green, has released a thorough study on the on the greenhouse gas emission impacts of international touring. In the three volume report, they measure the impacts of touring and identify 11 priority recommendations aimed at those responsible for all aspects of a tour. These involve environmental planning to sit alongside artistic and financial contributions, and sharing the data on emissions produced on tour.

iPad Sales Top 3 Million

Apple has announced that it’s sold 3 million iPads -– less than three months since the device hit stores. It would appear that iPad sales aren’t slowing down at all since launch –- in fact, they might be accelerating. The company announced it had hit two million devices sold just 22 days ago, whereas it took the company 28 days to sell its first million devices, and another month to sell its second. With the device going on sale in more countries in July, those numbers could jump even faster.

Who's Watching What?

Over the last two years, ownership of HDTVs, DVRs and smartphones have increased at double and triple digit rates. More than half of US TV households now have HDTV, up 189% from the first quarter of 2008, and more than one-third now have DVRs, up 51%. High-speed broadband Internet access, now in 63.5% of homes, has created a better user experience for watching online videos.

Social Media Integration Drives Major Clicks For E-mail Marketers

E-mail messages that include options to share content on social media sites drive significant increases in click-throughs according to a new study released today by GetResponse, an e-mail marketing firm. Specifically, the study of 500 million e-mails sent using the service found that e-mails that included options like share on Facebook or Twitter generated a 30% higher click-through rate than emails without them. Moreover, when e-mails included at least three different sharing options, publishers experienced a 55% higher CTR on average.

LinkedIn Tops 70 Million Users; Includes Over One Million Company Profiles

Professional social network LinkedIn now has 70 million members, according to the company’s home page. The company hit 60 million users in February, and has been growing fast, especially in international markets. LinkedIn’s network’s CEO, Jeff Weiner, stated in a blog post last fall that half of LinkedIn’s membership is international. The company is also listing one million company profiles, which are similar to a user profile.

The Demand Chain: A New Way To Compete And Win

Rick Kash, CEO, The Cambridge Group, Jason Green, Principal at The Cambridge Group and Dan Vucovich, VP, Global Chief Customer Officer, The Hershey Company presented at Nielsen’s Consumer 360 conference on how oversupply and flattening demand are driving pricing power down, requiring retailers and manufacturers to dig deeper into determining how to attract the right customer. When you have oversupply, you have to know demand better than your competitors.

Small Business Shops The Internet

According to a new study by American City Business Journals (ACBJ), small and mid-sized business owners are using the Internet to improve their businesses. 1762 owners, CEOs and presidents of businesses with five to 499 employees identified five distinct segments for different business purposes. ACBJ explains that “… the five segments are Transactors, Investors, Interactors, Commentators and Viewers… Interactors, Investors and Transactors are the segments providing the greatest opportunity for companies pursuing the strengths of the Internet.”

What Brand Fans Are Worth

Many social media marketers are eager to tie a hard number to the value of their efforts. To that end, firms have attempted to analyze the worth of fans and followers on social networking sites like Facebook. Digital consulting firm Syncapse and research company Hotspex have come up with an empirical formula that puts an average value of $136.38 on the Facebook fans of the site’s 20 biggest corporate brands.

Affluents Lead Way To E-Commerce Recovery

US retail e-commerce sales were resistant to the recession, but growth in spending was at a flat 2% for 2009, according to eMarketer estimates. That growth is set to resume at a double-digit clip this year, rising 12.7% to over $152 billion. Affluents are expected to contribute to that growth by beginning to satisfy pent-up demand. Online consumers have long been more affluent than the average American, and studies suggest affluents are recovering from economic problems more quickly than the general population.

Android Keeps Growing, But iPhone Remains King With Developers

Mobile advertising firm Millennial Media has just released its Mobile Mix report for May 2010, highlighting some of the latest trends in mobile and connected devices. As other mobile reports have indicated, the overall smartphone market continues to grow with Google’s Android platform gaining lots of ground.

Who’s Spending The Most Money On Social Games?

Social gaming has already become a multi-billion dollar industry. Its biggest player, FarmVille creator Zynga, is already worth over $4 billion, and recent estimates say that social gaming will generate over $1 billion in revenue this year.Which people are sending the massive amounts of money that’s fueling this market, though? Who’s buying all of those virtual cows and magic armors while completing countless offers? Virtual currency platform Social Gold performed a four month study in order to find out. The results, which are nicely summed up in two infographics, demonstrate several emerging trends in social gaming.

The Most "Liked" Types of Facebook Pages

When you create a page, Facebook allows you to specify the “type” of page. Some of the most common are pages about movies, TV shows, and books. Using the half a million pages Facebook grader has data on, Hubspot found that not only are “interest” pages the most common type, on average they’re also the most liked. They’re so far above the average in fans that they dwarf every other type.

Apple OS Drops By 33 Percent In May But iPad Impressions Grow 160 Percent

Mobile ad network Millennial Media is reporting that iPad ad requests grew 160 percent from April to May with global Apple ad requests dropping 33 percent in May. Apple OS U.S. ad requests dropped by nearly 14 percent month-over-month after an 8 percent decrease in requests in April.

Friending The Social Consumer

With a focus on how brands can listen and learn, Nielsen led a Consumer 360 insight session on the rapidly changing social media landscape. The social landscape has changed and the relationship between brands and consumer has been flipped on its head because of the way consumers connect. So much influence (and insight) is now in the hands (and tweets, posts, votes and updates) of the consumer.

Mobile Searches Estimated To Grow To 20 Percent Of Total By 2012

Mobile search could grow from 9% of all queries this year to 20% by 2012, estimates RBC analyst Ross Sandler. There is still a huge gap between mobile’s share of overall search queries and its share of search advertising. Sandler estimates that mobile will still represent less than 2% of search ad budgets this year, compared to the 9% overall share. But he thinks that gap can narrow and that mobile search advertising can be a $2 billion to $3 billion market in 2012.

Forrester Projects Tablets Will Outsell Netbooks By 2012, Desktops By 2013

The tablet era has just begun, but Forrester Research is already predicting tablet sales in the U.S. will overtake netbook sales by 2012, and desktop sales by 2015. At the Untethered conference today in New York City, Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps laid out her projections comparing tablet sales to netbooks, laptops, and desktops. She expects 3.5 million tablets (including the iPad and other tablets) to be sold this year, growing to 20.4 million in 2015. Meanwhile, she expects desktop sales to drop from 18.7 million units in 2010 to 15.7 million units in 2015.

Research Shows Additional $4.5-$4.75 Billion Spent On Video Game Content In 2009

According to The NPD Group, in addition to the $10.5 billion spent in the U.S. by consumers on new physical video game software in 2009, the total spend by consumers within other industry channels in the U.S., including used video games, rentals, subscriptions, digital full game downloads, downloadable content, and mobile game apps., is estimated in the range of $4.5 to $4.75 billion. Consumers’ digital game spending is concentrated among lower priced full-game downloads and downloadable content.

Mobile Social Networking Drives Rising App Usage

As smartphone usage grows, users are also becoming more sophisticated and using apps at a higher rate. According to comScore’s MobiLens study, the total number of mobile app users in the US increased by 28% from April 2009 to April 2010.

Celebrities’ Twitter Followers Have Zero Influence

Social media analytics company Sysomos used its platform to analyze the Twitter followers of celebrities, social media heavyweights and news sources. Sysmos found that the Twitter followers of social media heavyweights were the most influential of the bunch and followers of celebrities by contrast, have little to no authority.

More Viewers For TV Shows Online

Watching full-length TV series episodes online is fast becoming a mainstream activity. About 33% of U.S. adult Internet users, or 58.9 million people, will do so at least once a month this year, according to eMarketer. Among U.S. adults who already watch Web video regularly, the rate is even higher, at 50%. Next year, the rate among these groups will rise to 39% and 56%, respectively.

Over 4 Billion Consumers Yet to Be Served: What You Can Learn About Emerging Markets

Hany Mwafy, Managing Director North Africa and James Russo, Vice President Global Consumer Insights presented at Nielsen’s Consumer 360 conference on how the center of gravity is shifting away from North America and Europe. In the decades to come, emerging economies will deliver more growth – and more profits.

Social Networks/Blogs Now Account For One In Every Four And A Half Minutes Online

The popularity of social media is undeniable – three of the world’s most popular brands online are social-media related (Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia) and the world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites. This equates to 22 percent of all time online or one in every four and half minutes. For the first time ever, social network or blog sites are visited by three quarters of global consumers who go online, after the numbers of people visiting these sites increased by 24% over last year. The average visitor spends 66% more time on these sites than a year ago, almost 6 hours in April 2010 versus 3 hours, 31 minutes last year.

Social Media Driving Consumer Behavioral Changes

According to a recent report from ROI Research Inc., social media permeates consumers’ lives and affects communication, shopping and other activities, driving changes in consumer behavior online. The study of 3,000 U.S. social network users delved deeper into how social sites affect family and friend relationships and consumer attitudes towards brands and products.

Small-Biz Success From Deeper Online Interaction

Small-business owners’ work-related online activities correlate with above- or below-average sales, according to a study by American City Business Journals of owners, CEOs and presidents of US companies with fewer than 500 employees.

Facebook: Promising Numbers In Video Advertising

A recent TubeMogul study sampled 25 video advertising major campaigns that ran identical videos within Facebook ad units and comparable click-to-play video ad units on publisher sites. What they found is that Facebook as a top-ten video site is home to some of the most engaged viewers online. For those interesting in getting the most of their video advertising efforts, the results of this study and the charts they developed suggest that Facebook might very well be your best bet.

How The World Is Spending Its Time Online

So… whatcha doin’ over there on that laptop, denizens of the world? Well, according to a new study from Nielsen showing Internet usage in April 2010, 22% of the time, you’re engaging with social media. Yeah, 22% might not seem like a mammoth percentage, but you have to take into account the fact that this finding is on a global scale.

U.S. Digital Sales 'To Overtake Physical In 2011'

PricewaterhouseCoopers’ “Entertainment and Media Outlook for 2010-2014″ projects global spending on recorded music of $27.9 billion by 2014. Digital purchases are projected to rise to $17 billion in 2014, from $8.1 billion in 2009, according to “Entertainment and Media Outlook for 2010-2014.”  Physical sales will fall to $10.9 billion in 2014, a decline of 66% from 2005, according to the report.

What Dads Can Expect

According to the NRF 2010 Father’s Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, the average person will spend $94.32 on dear ol’ dad this year, up from $90.89 last year. Total Father’s Day spending is expected to reach $9.8 billion.

Top U.S. Web Sites and Brands for May 2010

Nielsen compiled the Top 10 Parent Companies/Divisions, Top 10 Web Brands, and Average U.S. Internet Usage for May 2010 with accompanying data.

Is Social A Source For B2B Leads?

A study examined the behavior of visitors to B2B Websites who had been directed to the sites from social media, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Wikipedia. Visitors from the top social sites were generally uninterested in product or contact pages, suggesting they were not in the market for the company’s products or services.

One-Third of Twitter Users Talk Brands

Many social site users make good use of the voice that the medium provides them to talk about brands, products and services. An April 2010 study found that, at least once a week, 33% of active Twitter users share opinions about companies or products, while 32% make recommendations and 30% ask for them.

Why Users’ First Online Activity Each Morning Is Important

A study found that Internet users who checked Facebook first thing in the morning were about equally likely to share online information either via the social networking giant or through the more traditional method of e-mail. Web users whose priority was on e-mail in the morning heavily favored that medium for sharing of all kinds, and were significantly less likely than their Facebook-loving counterparts to post information to their Facebook page.

Why Your Grandpa Is On Facebook

A new study from the AARP shows that baby boomers in the 50-years-old-or-better age bracket are cool with the Internet (Internet), down with Facebook, hip to the iPad and not just using the web to spy on their kids and grandkids.

Despite Setbacks, Marketers Look To Make Better Use Of Analytics

Companies still face many challenges in using Web analytics and measurement effectively, but some are taking steps to address those problems and move toward more coherent and integrated measurement strategies, according to a spring 2010 study. By far, the biggest barrier to an effective measurement strategy is a lack of budget and resources, named by over one-half of responding companies.

Apple Keynote Music Through the Years

If you’re on top of all things Apple, you know that the company’s WWDC, Macworld, and “special announcement” events are famous for including some great psych-up music before and after each keynote address. Mashable gathered some highlights from the history of Apple conference songs, along with some other musical stats, into an infographic.

Facebook Fans Spend More Money

A social media marketing company surveyed 4,000 people who have “Liked” the top 20 brands that have pages on Facebook and figured out exactly how valuable those “fans” are. The study estimates that someone who has Liked a brand will spend an average of $71.84 more each year on that brand’s products or services than will someone who has not Liked it on Facebook, for a total average annualized value of $136.38.

Facebook “Like” Increases Referral Traffic To Blogs By 50%

TypePad users who installed the Facebook “Like” widgets on their blog sidebars have experienced a 50% increase in referral traffic from Facebook collectively, TypePad revealed in a blog post.

30 Billion Videos Watched Online In April

According to a comScore Video Metrix service, 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month, and topped 30.3 billion videos in April, with Google Sites ranking as the top video property with 13.1 billion videos, representing 43.2 percent of all videos viewed online. YouTube accounted for the vast majority of videos viewed at the property. Hulu ranked second with 958 million videos, followed by Microsoft Sites, Viacom Digital, and Yahoo! Sites.

Agency Clients Focused On TV

According to a new STRATA quarterly survey of advertising firms, which shows that while more dollars are moving to digital advertising, TV remained the top advertising choice in the first quarter of 2010, with 41.8% of ad agencies saying their corporate clients are more focused on TV than any other medium, but he number was down 27% from a year ago.

P2P Traffic Expected To Double By 2014

Ernesto at TorrentFreak reports that forecasts “from Cisco’s Visual Networking Index reveal that P2P traffic is predicted to grow to more than 7 Petabytes per month by 2014.” He further states that “this is more than double the amount of data P2P traffic generated in 2009.”

What Consumers Watch: Nielsen’s Q1 2010 Three Screen Report

Technologies such as high definition television, digital video recorders and the Internet are creating higher quality and more convenient experiences for consumers, and as a result, the amount of video Americans consume continues to rise. Over the last two years, ownership of HDTVs, DVRs and smartphones have increased at double- and triple-digit rates.

Reaching Teen Influencers with Social Messages

The most active and engaged teens on social networks are an irresistible target: They’re more likely to buy, share and take recommendations from friends. How can marketers gain their trust?

Which App Does Checkins Best?

uTest’s Checkin Challenge report looked at checkin applications and found that Foursquare had the least amount of reported bugs and ranked highest in terms of ease of use, while Gowalla won in the location accuracy category. The big loser in the study, however, was the notion of badges for prestige.

Experts Predict We’ll Be Working In The Cloud By 2020

In a recent survey of around 900 Internet and tech experts and social analysts, researchers found that most of their respondents said Internet users will “live mostly in the cloud” by 2020. 71 percent of these experts predict we’ll be working primarily through web-based and mobile apps, such as Facebook and Google Docs, and less on software installed on our own desktops.

Social Gaming Shows Potential

Social gaming has become an online phenomenon. Thanks to the massive popularity of Facebook and the addictive appeal of real-time simulation games, social gaming has gained widespread adoption. The runaway success of FarmVille and other social games such as Zoo World, Happy Aquarium, Pet Society and Restaurant City has spawned an industry that generated an estimated $725 million in the US alone in 2009 and is expected to triple by 2012, according to ThinkEquity.

Canadian Mobile Subscriptions To Climb 20% By 2014

Mobile phone penetration in Canada is more than 5% lower in the US as of 2010, according to eMarketer estimates, but set to increase steadily over the next several years. The number of mobile subscribers in Canada is forecast to rise from 24.5 million this year to nearly 30 million by 2014, an increase of about 20%.Mobile phone penetration in Canada is more than 5% lower in the US as of 2010, according to eMarketer estimates, but set to increase steadily over the next several years. The number of mobile subscribers in Canada is forecast to rise from 24.5 million this year to nearly 30 million by 2014, an increase of about 20%.

Where People Start Their Online Day

Where do Americans begin their online day? A reported 58 percent check their e-mail, while 20 percent go first to a search engine or portal site and 11 percent start with Facebook. A conscientious 3 percent make their company’s site or intranet their first online destination of the day. Five percent go first to a news site and 3 percent go to some other destination.

Consumers Recharged And Electronically Shopping

According to a new survey of consumer retail spending and trends, 55% of consumers think the economy has started to recover from the recession, and 64% indicate their household financial situation is the same or better compared with a year ago. In addition, 63% of respondents said they are planning to spend the same or more at retailers this year than they did in 2009.

Coupons Drive Sales On Social Media

The brands that have enjoyed the most success using social media to drive consumers toward purchases follow one of two paths: either they offer coupons or discounts, or they position themselves in front of consumers during sales or other special events.

Online Video Viewing Shifts To Long-Form Content

Growth in online video viewership was increasing more quickly between 2008 and 2009, by 11.3%. At the same time, streaming and downloading of full-length movies increased much more dramatically. According to Ipsos OTX, the percentage of Web users who watched this kind of long-form online video more than doubled between September 2008 and Oct 2009.

Is Facebook Getting Bigger Than Google?

According to analysts, social networks in general are more popular than search engines in some parts of the world. In fact, networks such as Facebook have been pushing hard against the biggest names in web search, including Google, for several months now.   Facebook’s overall web traffic pulled ahead of Google’s for the first time in the U.S. in March of this year.

How Consumers Interact with Brands on Social Networks

The social networking audience in the US has reached critical mass. eMarketer estimates that 57.5% of all US Internet users will use a social network at least once a month in 2010. By 2014, nearly two-thirds of Internet users will be on board. Marketers have been chasing this audience for several years, but the question remains: Do consumers notice, or care?

Getting to Know E-Mail Recipients

E-mail marketers competing for attention in cluttered in-boxes know that relevance and targeting will help get their messages read by consumers. While a personalized subject line can bring success, a survey of US and UK Internet users suggests marketers must get to know more about their recipients than just a first name.

Amazon & Walmart Tie For #2 U.S. Music Retailer

iTunes continued to be the top retailer of music with 28% of all music purchased by U.S. , up 4% since Q1 2009 according to researcher NPD. Amazon gained 3% to tie Walmart’s shrinking music department for second position at 12%.

iPad By the Numbers

With millions of devices sold, thousands of apps, and e-book sales numbers that might be making competitors nervous, the iPad appears to be a continued success. Check out infographic for the full skinny on the state of the iPad.

Ads Up In Q1... Benchmarks for Planning

Total advertising expenditures in the first quarter of 2010 rose 5.1% from a year ago and finished the period at $31.3 billion, marking the first increase in quarterly ad spending since Q1 2008 and the largest gain since Q1 2006, as the ad market finally experienced a long-awaited rebound.

iPhone vs. Android

Whether it‘s checking email on the go, connecting with friends through social networks or using turn-by-turn navigation, the capabilities of smartphones are convincing more and more consumers to make the leap from a simple mobile phone to a more sophisticated device. As of Q1 ‘10, Nielsen data shows that 23% of mobile consumers now have a smartphone, up from just 16% in Q2 ‘09.

Virtual Goods Boom in 2010

Spending on virtual goods has increased since last year. And while it’s still a minority activity, among some segments of the population usage has more than doubled since 2009.

Heavy Users Are Big Spenders on Facebook, Twitter

Research shows that visitors to Facebook and Twitter spend more money on the Web than Internet users. On average, Web users purchased less than $50 worth of goods online in Q1 2010. On Facebook, the visitors who spend the most time on the site also spend the most dollars on online shopping, with an average of $67 in spending for the top 20% of visitors.

Look Who’s Blogging

Bloggers, on the whole, are young — but not too young, according to a report from research company Sysomos. That’s right, the voice of the Internet, for the most part, is aged 21-35. This information isn’t particularly surprising, given the fact that people in this age bracket grew up during the blog boom — which started roughly seven years ago, according to Sysmos — but it does show an interesting striation in terms of where people are on the web.

Using Social Media to 'Rant or Rave' About Brands

In between posting updates about their lives, fascinating or otherwise, users of social media seem to have plenty of time to opine about brands. In a Harris Poll released this week, 34 percent of adults who use social media said they have employed them “as an outlet to rant or rave about a company, brand or product.”

Radio Results Best in a Decade

Radio delivers its best results in quarter-to-quarter revenue comps since Q1 2007 with a +6% overall increase to $3.687B. This gain represents the highest posted in nearly a decade, reported by the The Radio Advertising Bureau with more than 6,000 member Radio stations in the U.S. and over 1,000 member networks, representative firms, broadcast vendors, and international organizations.

Mobile Shopping Doubles in 2010

Mobile commerce has been slow to catch on. Four in five multichannel retailers have no m-commerce presence. But while consumer usage of mobile shopping is still relatively low, it is increasing, prompting firms to predict a doubling of m-commerce revenues in the US this year, to $2.4 billion.

Among Teens, Texting Tops E-Mail, Facebook

While some e-mail marketers fear losing the attention of their audience to social media, research suggests that the strengths of both media can be combined, and that the bigger threat may be text messaging.

We Might All Be Watching Online Videos by 2015

According to recent research from the Pew Internet Project, 52% of the American population is watching videos online — that’s 69% of all Internet-connected American adults.  If online video watching continues at its current rate of growth, in just under 5 years, almost every American will be watching video online.

Majority of Consumers Not Interested in Purchasing Tablets

Apple may be selling three iPads a second, but consumer electronics shopping site Retrevo is reporting that 53% of all respondents surveyed in their Pulse Report are not interested in buying any type of tablet at all.

Facebook and Google Maps Dominate Smartphone App Usage

Nielsen has released a new mobile application report and its findings showcase not only the increase in smartphone usage, but also what applications are most popular.

How Music Videos Are Dominating the Web

According to a report by comScore, online video viewership has seen a bit of a shakeup due to relative newcomer Vevo. In April 2010, one in four online video watchers were looking at content on Vevo.

New Bridge Study Shows Power Of Social Networking Hierarchy To Drive Music Sales

As part of the Bridge study, record label “X” compared its average weekly digital download activity on 4 mainstream acts to a 4 week social marketing campaign based on the Hierarchy marketing method.

Consumers Back In The Practice Of Gift Giving This Graduation Season

This year family and friends will soften the blow of the real world by giving graduates cash, gift cards and even electronics or apparel. NRF’s 2010 Graduation Consumer Intentions and Actions survey, found fewer people will buy graduation gifts (31.4% vs. 32.5% in 2009) but each gift giver will spend slightly more.

The State of Mobile Apps

Smartphone adoption and use of mobile applications is rapidly increasing… what are the most popular apps and who is driving the growth?

The Internet: That's Entertainment

When asked, “What sources of entertainment do you turn to most often?” 32 percent of U.S. respondents cited the Internet. A survey released by Edelman examines some of the implications of this transformation for the ways in which consumers regard entertainment more broadly — including the factors they value and are inclined to pay for.

Marketers And Consumer Expectations Can Align

A recent study revealed that a large majority of recent purchasers reported that they would not purchase the same brand again. The study explored the factors that drove purchase decisions, the influence of marketing communications consumers received, and the influence of marketing information consumers collected from their own sources.

Public Venue Video Attracts Viewers, Makes Sales

According to a new Arbitron study, more than 70% of the U.S. population, have viewed a digital video display out of home in the past month, while 52% of the population, have viewed digital video display in the past week.  Digital video in public venues reaches more Americans each month (70%) than video over the Internet (43%) or Facebook (41%).

Half-Life Of A YouTube Video Is Just 6 Days

The average YouTube video gets gets 50% of its views in the first 6 days, according to TubeMogul via Silicon Valley Insider. After 20 days, a YouTube video has had 75% of its total views and the average video lifespan is probably getting shorter. In 2008, it took 14 days for a video to reach 50% of its views and 44 days to hit 75%. Lesson to marketers: post early and often.

Foursquare Nearing 1 Million Checkins Per Day

A tweet from Foursquare yesterday revealed that the company is doing “10+ checkins per second.” At 10 checkins per second, Foursquare is processing about 36,000 checkins per hour — putting the daily checkin total somewhere around 864,000.

Small Business To Increase Traditional And Online Marketing

According to the FedEx Office annual national small business survey, 42% of those polled are considering increasing spending on marketing and advertising initiatives in 2010, and 30% say they may increase spending on sales initiatives.

Extreme Gamers Spend Two Full Days Per Week Playing Video Games

According to The NPD Group, the Extreme Gamers segment, which represents 4 percent of the total U.S. gaming population, spend 48.5 hours a week playing games. Overall, U.S. gamers ages 2 and older spend 13 hours per week playing games, up from 12.3 hours in 2009.

Facebook Leads In The Top 1,000 Sites

According to Google’s AdPlanner stats, Facebook is the #1 most-visited destination on the web. Weighing in at an unfathomably heavy 570 billion page views and 540 million users, the ubiquitous social network outranks every other non-Google site, taking more than 35% of all web traffic measured.

Two-Thirds Of Web Users To Visit Soc Nets In 2014

eMarketer estimates that 57.5% of Internet users, or 127 million people, will use a social network at least once a month in 2010. By 2014, nearly two-thirds of all Internet users, or 164.9 million people, will be regular users of social networks.

Where In The World Are iPhone And Android Devices?

Mobile advertising network AdMob has released its mobile metrics report for April 2010, which takes a closer look at the geographic distribution of unique iPhone and Android devices. The report also looks at the ratio of iPhone OS and Android devices overall, and in specific geographical locations.

Twitter Emerging As Online Video Power Broker

New stats by video measurement company TubeMogul show that Twitter is quickly growing as a top referrer for web video traffic, far outpacing Facebook, Yahoo, Google and Bing.  When it comes to getting users to watch videos, users who discovered a video via Twitter tend to stay around longer, too.

Mobile Gaming Market Booms

The popularity of smartphones and app stores, growing accessibility in emerging markets and improved device interfaces are contributing to the double-digit growth of the worldwide mobile gaming market, according to Gartner.

App Ads Precipitate Sales

A recent study from mobile audience media company JiWire revealed that, of the roughly 1,000 smartphone users surveyed, 52% claim they have acted on an advertisement in an app and 18% have made a purchase directly from an ad in an app in the last month.

Mobile Music On The Increase Across Europe

comScore, Inc. released data from the comScore MobiLens service which showed that 23.8% of mobile users across five leading European mobile markets (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) listened to music on their mobile handsets during the three month period ending March 2010.

How Much Do Video Games Matter When Buying A Console?

Nielsen research suggests that consumers are driven by many factors when buying a gaming console. Surprisingly, the purchase of a specific game title actually ranks lowest in a list of purchase motivators.

Amazon Ties Walmart as Second-Ranked U.S. Music Retailer, Behind iTunes

According to The NPD Group, Apple’s iTunes store continued to lead all music retailers, with 28% of all music purchased by U.S. consumers — gain of 4 percentage points since Q1 2009. Amazon gained three percentage points to tie Walmart for second position at 12%. Based on NPD’s latest music industry research, sales of digital tracks and albums accounted for 40% of overall music market share in the first quarter (Q1) of 2010, which is a 5 point gain since Q1 2009.

New Study Examines U.S. Twitter Usage

A new report from Edison Research/Arbitron Internet details Twitter awareness and usage of Twitter, as well as, demographics, behaviors, and preferences.

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/05/new-study-examines-us-twitter-usage.html

U.S. Homes Add Even More TV Sets In 2010

The average American home now has 2.93 TV sets per household, up from 2.86 sets per home in 2009, the largest year-over-year increase since 2006 according to Nielsen’s latest Television Audience Report. This year the number of US homes with three or more TV sets increased to 55%, 28% have two sets and 17% have one set.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/u-s-homes-add-even-more-tv-sets-in-2010/

IFPI Publishes "Recording Industry In Numbers" 2010

“Recording Industry in Numbers 2010″ (RIN) provides a comprehensive picture of key trends of today’s music business. The reports shows that while global recorded music revenues declined 7% in 2009, digital sales grew strongly in many markets. The report concludes that piracy continued to erode legitimate music sales worldwide.

http://www.ifpi.com/content/section_news/20100428.html

What Kids Want: A Special Issue

Kids want what they want when they want it. The little centers-of-our-universe can beg and plead for their essentials — toys, snacks and TV shows — with unfettered determination. Turns out that parents, television networks and marketers are working double time to oblige.

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3ieae2fa145a05b6f71b6740a3891ceac0

The State of Online Word of Mouth Marketing

Forrester reveals findings on peer influence and word of mouth marketing. Some of the statistics were surprising, filled with practical tips.

http://mashable.com/2010/04/25/word-of-mouth-marketing-stats/

Digital Potpouri

The new national survey from Arbitron and Edison Research, The Infinite Dial 2010, provides a selection of metric insights into the use and users of social networking, online radio, MP3 players, Wi-Fi, Broadband, mobile phones, and television.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=126352

Finding Consumers Who Are Ready to Buy

According to research conducted by Burke and commissioned by the Yellow Pages Association (YPA), users of print and online directories are prepared to make a purchase after researching local businesses. About eight in 10 users of either type of directory bought or planned to buy a product after their search.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007651

Music Recommendation Is THE Big Opportunity

For all the talk of recommendation systems, serendipity currently plays a more important part in triggering searches for music online. That’s one of the surprising conclusions from new research by Gartner into how U.K. consumers find music online, which also found that word of mouth recommendations from friends and family is the most powerful way of driving purchases.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/apr/20/music-online-research

Mobile Marketing Emerges With Couponing

According to the Executive Summary of the recent Mobile Marketing report from Borrell Associates, mobile media has emerged as the next big wave in advertising, mainly threatening the Web, but also peeling significant expenditures away from direct mail and yellow pages.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=126351

Who, When and How? A Closer Look At Video Game Measurement

As a way to help get better answers for media companies and advertisers, and to begin to establish a standard metric for game play that can be compared to other media measurement, The Nielsen Company teamed up with Microsoft and conducted a pilot study that took a closer look at the video game-playing audience.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/who-when-and-how-a-closer-look-at-video-game-measurement/

What's A Facebook Fan Worth?

In its study of 41 million Facebook fans, marketer Vitrue found that on average each fan is worth about $3.60 a year.

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/04/whats-a-facebook-fan-worth-study-says-360.html#more

New Study Shows The Mobile Web Will Rule By 2015

In a new report, Morgan Stanley analysts have charted the most important online trends and predicted the future of the Internet. In addition to forecasting more online shopping and showing the geographical distribution of Internet users, the study also shows a dramatic shift toward mobile web use.

http://mashable.com/2010/04/13/mobile-web-stats/

Mobile Ad Campaigns More Effective Than Online

Mobile campaigns are emerging as powerful ad channel for marketers, outperforming online advertising by nearly five times across a variety of metrics, including unaided awareness, message association, and brand favorability, according to a study by InsightExpress. Benchmarked against performance norms developed for online advertising, mobile campaign norms were also 6.0 times higher than online campaign norms in purchase intent, 3.0 times higher in aided awareness, and 2.5 times higher in ad awareness.

http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2010/3540/mobile-ad-campaigns-more-effective-than-online

Brightcove And TubeMogul Publish Data On Trends In Online Music Videos

An upcoming research report from Brightcove and TubeMogel will examine trends in the online video industry and include a variety of interesting data points from our wide-reaching customer base. Every quarter, the report will also highlight a specific industry vertical segment, beginning this time around with the music industry. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the data found in the upcoming report.

http://blog.brightcove.com/en/2010/04/brightcove-and-tubemogul-publish-data-trends-online-music-videos-part-new-quarterly-research-report

Social Not a Threat to E-Mail

The death of e-mail is often predicted, especially amid the rise of social networking. But users still widely prefer e-mail for communication, and text messaging may be e-mail’s greater rival.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007626

U.S. Consumes Music Differently On Smartphones Than In U.K. And Canada

A new Vision Critical study of music on smparthones in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, found major differences. While those in Canada and the U.K. are using apps on their smartphone or iPod Touch to listen to broadcast radio, U.S. users are more likely to listen to web-only radio and music streaming services.

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/04/us-consumes-music-differently-on-smartphones-than-in-uk-canada-.html#more

Gartner: Most Kids Will Use PCs With Touchscreens by 2015

The immediate productivity gains promised by the flood of touch-enabled devices coming to market in 2010 will be slow to materialize in the enterprise. “What we’re going to see is the younger generation beginning to use touchscreen computers ahead of enterprises,” said Leslie Fiering, Gartner Research VP. “By 2015, we expect more than 50% of PCs purchased for users under the age of 15 will have touchscreens, up from fewer than 2% in 2009. On the other hand, we are predicting that fewer than 10% of PCs sold to enterprises in 2015 for mainstream knowledge workers will have touchscreens.”

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1336913

Gartner Outlines 10 Mobile Technologies To Watch In 2010 And 2011

Gartner, Inc. has identified 10 mobile technologies that will evolve significantly through 2011 in ways that will impact short-term mobile strategies and policies. Investments in mobile applications and technologies will increase through 2011 as organizations emerge from the recession and ramp up both business-to-employee (B2E) and business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile spending.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1328113

Gamer Guys Influence Community

Social influencers spread word-of-mouth about products and services because they care about them, according to research from ICOM. And male video game players certainly have a reputation for being passionate about their interests.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007617

U.S. Households Using PCs And Game Consoles To Extend Online Video To The TV

Parks Associates finds consumer interest in Web-on-TV applications is so strong that households are making their own connections via PCs and game consoles. From 2008 to 2009, the number of U.S. households using Web-connected game consoles increased by 64%, and the number connecting a PC to a TV increased by 36%, according to the firm’s latest report “Digital Lifestyles: 2010 Outlook.”

http://newsroom.parksassociates.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=5232

The Five Types of Mobile Users

Experian Simmons has in its new Mobile Consumer Segmentation study defined five new categories for cell phone users that are all easy to spot on public transit or the grocery store line.

http://smrb.com/web/guest/mobile-segmentation

In U.S. 44% Own MP3 Players, 54% Use Them Cars

24% of all Americans over age 12 have listened to an iPod, iPhone or other MP3 player while connected to a car stereo according to the new Infinite Dial 2010 national survey from Arbitron and Edison Research. The new national study showed that 44% of Americans 12+ own an iPod or MP3 player. Among that group, 54% have connected their players for listening in the car.

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/03/in-us-44-own-mp3-players-54-use-them-cars-.html#more

Mixed Messages On Mobile TV and Video

According to a survey from mobile video solutions company QuickPlay Media, the majority of US mobile phone users are at least somewhat interested in watching TV and video content on their phones.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007602

More Will Buy iPad Than Kindle In Next Year

A new survey predicts demand for the iPad as an e-book reader will outpace Amazon’s category-leading Kindle over the next year. The study by comparison-shopping site PriceGrabber found that 20% of U.S. online consumers plan to buy the forthcoming Apple tablet in the next 12 months compared to 12% that plan to get the Kindle. Another 6% want to buy the Sony Reader, and 5%, Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=125242

Smartphones to Overtake Feature Phones In U.S. by 2011

The iPhone, Blackberry, Droid and smartphones in general dominate the buzz in the mobile market, but only 21% of American wireless subscribers are using a smartphone as of the fourth quarter 2009 compared to 19% in Q3 2009 and 14% at the end of 2008. By the end of 2011, Nielsen expects more smartphones in the U.S. market than feature phones.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/smartphones-to-overtake-feature-phones-in-u-s-by-2011/

Consumers View iPad As Music Device Too

According to comScore, nearly half of surveyed Internet users indicated a high likelihood of using the iPad for browsing the Internet (50%) and email (48%), while more than one third said they would use it for listening to music (38%), reading books (37%), maintaining an address book/contact list (37%), watching videos/movies (36%), storing and viewing photos (35%) and reading newspapers and magazines (34%).

http://www.comscore.com/index.php/layout/set/popup/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/3/comScore_Releases_Results_of_Study_on_Apple_iPad

Mobile App Forecast Up, Up, Up

Mobile apps are the hot thing to have—among marketers and device users alike. The rush to smartphones and the desire for more apps at an increasing price will lead to an explosion in application store revenues by 2014, according to the Yankee Group.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007591

GenX and Millennials Driving Recovery

According to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and Retail Forward, entitled The New Consumer Behavior Paradigm: Permanent or Fleeting?, for the first time in the last three recessions, it will not be Baby Boomers at the heart of the economic recovery, as the recession has taken a bite of their savings and retirement accounts. This time it is the Gen Xers and Millennials who will be driving the recovery.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=124696

Gigaom: 5 Reasons I’m Still Not Paying For A Music Subscription Service

Music is moving into the cloud, right? Access is replacing ownership of albums and song files, online streams are replacing desktop playback and mobile access is renewing interest in on-demand music subscriptions. Older services such as Rhapsody and Napster now appear prescient, though they never quite went mainstream, and newer ones such as Spotify and MOG are attracting big VC dollars. So how come I’m still not ready to pay for any of them?

http://gigaom.com/2010/03/18/5-reasons-i’m-still-not-paying-for-a-music-subscription-service/

Americans Using TV And Internet Together 35% More Than A Year Ago

Americans increased their overall media usage and media multitasking according to The Nielsen Company’s latest Three Screen Report, which tracks consumption across TV, Internet and mobile phones. In the last quarter of 2009, simultaneous use of the Internet while watching TV reached three and a half hours a month, up 35% from the previous quarter. Nearly 60% of TV viewers now use the Internet once a month while also watching TV.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/three-screen-report-q409/

What Social Media Users Want

Twitterers mostly consume news, MySpace users want games and entertainment, Facebookers are into both news and community and Digg’s audience has a mixed bag of interests. This is all according to online advertising network Chitika, who set out to analyze the interests of MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Digg users by comparing the genres of sites that receive traffic from these social networks.

http://mashable.com/2010/03/18/social-media-sites-data/

Desktop Sales Explode In The New Decade with Double-Digit Growth

It’s been a rough 10 years or so for the consumer retail desktop market, but according to new data from The NPD Group’s Retail Tracking Service, this new decade is off to a booming start. Desktop sales in February increased 30% in units and 33% in dollars year-over-year.

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_100318.html

GetJar Reveals That Mobile Apps Will Outsell CDs by 2012

The global mobile apps economy is set to be worth $17.5 billion by 2012, according to an independent report commissioned by GetJar. Mobile app downloads across all types of handset are also expected to increase from over 7 billion downloads in 2009 to almost 50 billion in 2012 – a year on year growth rate of 92%.

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100316007140&newsLang=en

Entertainment Convergence In The U.K. Digital Home

The United Kingdom is still at a relatively early stage of convergence when it comes to digital entertainment such as TV shows, films, short-form video, games, music and social networking. But momentum is building.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007575

Generational Mix Reveals Shopping Similarities and Differences

Todd Hale, Sr. VP, Nielsen has assembled an overview of the shopping and media habits of the last four generations, helping marketers fill in the gaps. This recent Nielsen analysis of the four key generations revealed generationally consistent shopping habits that reflect diverse lifestyle preferences and economic habits.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=124219

Download Growth Boosts 2009 U.K Music Royalties

British songwriters, composers and music publishers earned 623 million pounds ($944.8 million) in royalties in 2009, up 2.6% on 2008 and the first time the growth in digital revenues outperformed the drop in CD and DVD earnings. But PRS for Music, the group which compiled the figures and which is responsible for collecting and distributing royalties for 65,000 musicians and publishers, said it was too early to talk of a turning point in the industry.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62E1PM20100315

Share Of Spending For Kids On Toys And Consumer Electronics Increased During 2009 Holiday Season

According to “Spotlight on Kids: Understanding Cross-Category Purchasing,” a consumer tracking study from The NPD Group, the share of spending for kids on toys and consumer electronics increased during the holiday season in 2009 vs. 2008, helping to offset share declines experienced by video game hardware and DVDs, among other categories. According to the report, over 50% of dollars spent were on items requested by the child, with sales of consumer electronics showing the most significant gains versus Holiday 2008.

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_100315a.html

The Demise Of The Music Industry Is Visible Everywhere But In The Facts

Evidence of the demise of purchased music is everywhere to be seen, except for one place: the statistics. In fact it is easier to make the case that the music industry, far from imploding, is one of the great success stories of the recession. The most dramatic example of this is in what kids are supposed not to be buying any more: single tracks. Last year sales of singles soared to an all-time record of 152.7m units, an astonishing 33% rise in a year when the whole economy (GDP) contracted by 3.3%.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/mar/12/demise-music-industry-facts

February Online Video Usage Up More Than 10% Over Last Year

he number of unique viewers of online video increased 10.5% year-over-year, according to The Nielsen Company, from 127.6 million unique viewers in February 2009 to 141 million in February 2010.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/february-online-video-usage-up-more-than-10-over-last-year/

What Happened In Canada Last Year...

Like many of its global peers, Canada is working through its own issues of piracy and cultural preservation. That picture also includes a downturn in recorded music sales. According to details disclosed by Nielsen Soundscan album sales slid 2.2% last year to 35.1 million units, part of a broader slide over the past few years.

http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/031110canada/view

U.K. ISPs Could Reap $155M From Music Services

Bundled digital music services could potentially earn ISPs in the U.K. an extra $155 million in revenues by 2013, according to a report conducted by Ovum and commissioned by record label trade group BPI on behalf of major label Universal Music Group. The figure depends on a “medium adoption” scenario from consumers; an “accelerated adoption” scenario could up the figure to as much as $306 million in 2013. The “medium adoption” figure would also be equivalent to 41% of the total U.K. digital music market in 2009.

http://dmwmedia.com/news/2010/03/08/report-uk-isps-could-reap-155m-music-services

With Mixtapes & Social Media, Is The Album So Far Gone?

At first glance, Drake’s success as an artist appears similar to his hip-hop peers. The actor turned Grammy-nominated rapper performed at the 2010 Grammy Awards and starred in a recent Sprite commercial during the NBA All-Star game. Here is what’s new: Drake has yet to release a full-length retail album. So Far Gone was the 6th best selling rap release of 2009, despite being just a seven song mixtape.

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/03/guest-post-with-mixtapes-social-media-is-the-album-so-far-gone-.html

40% Can't Name A Single Online Music Service

From 7 Digital to Spotify, there are 20 major music services in the UK. But a new survey says that 40% of consumers have never heard of any of them. Of the 60% who are familiar with digital music, 85% have only heard of two – iTunes and Amazon.

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/03/40-cant-name-a-single-online-music-service.html

Increasing Game Time Online

The popularity of social network games notwithstanding, the proportion of video game users playing online has remained fairly constant, according to research from The NPD Group. Slightly more than one-half of all gamers play on the Web, but the time they spend doing so has gone up in the past year by 10%.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007559

Shopping Behavior To Change As A Result Of New Marketplace Realities

With new shopping behavior data and demographic trends indicating that an enduring shift has taken place as a result of the recent economic downturn, retailers and suppliers will need to adapt to consumers’ new shopping behaviors to succeed in today’s evolved marketplace and during the post-recession recovery, according to The New Consumer Behavior Paradigm: Permanent or Fleeting?, a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and Retail Forward.

http://www.pwc.com/US/en/press-releases/2010/Shopping-behavior-to-change.jhtml

Gen Y Will Spend Us Into Recovery

Don’t look to Baby Boomers to lead the way in consumer spending in the months ahead. A new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Retail Forward says that this recovery — unlike those in last few decades — will be shaped by the values of tech-loving Gen Y, and to a lesser degree, affluent members of Gen X.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=123851

Nobody Stole The Pie

RIAA blog: “Industry analysts, executives, critics, and academics have been debating the impact of digital piracy for a decade. During that period, the U.S. music industry fell from nearly $15 billion annually to $8.5 billion. While a quickly growing digital market helped offset the decline in physical sales, and great strides were made constraining the growth in illegal P2P traffic, still roughly 4 out of 5 digital music downloads in the U.S. are via P2P and other unauthorized services. Some pundits have ascribed the problems solely to the industry, but you would think by now there should be no doubt that the online theft of music has caused significant harm …”

http://riaa.com/blog.php?content_selector=Nobody_Stole_Pie

Online Retail Sales Will Grow To $250 Billion By 2014

Online retail sales aren’t growing at the torrid pace they once were, but they continue to grow steadily. Forrester Research put out a new five-year forecast today predicting that e-commerce sales in the U.S. will keep growing at a 10% compound annual growth rate through 2014. It forecasts online retail sales in the U.S. will be nearly $250 billion, up from $155 billion in 2009. Last year, online retail sales were up 11%, compared to 2.5% for all retail sales.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/08/forrester-forecast-online-retail-sales-will-grow-to-250-billion-by-2014/

Award Show Viewing Is Up

viewership is rising for several notable award shows. If this trend continues, this could mean good news for the Academy Awards, especially given overall movie ticket sales in 2009 and the Academy’s expansion of the best movie category from five to 10 films.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/heading-into-the-oscars-award-show-viewing-is-up/

Global Smartphone App Download Market Could Reach $15 Billion By 2013

research2guidance estimates that the worldwide smartphone application market will grow from $1.94 billion in 2009 to $15.65 billion by 2013. The big surge in applications will be driven by a fast-growing number of smartphone users, which the research company estimates will increase from about 100 million last year to nearly 1 billion by 2013.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/05/global-smartphone-app-download-market-could-reach-15-billion-by-2013-report/

Parents Teaching Kids Money Values

According to a recent survey by American Express, 71% of parents with children between the ages six and 16 say their children understand that we are in a recession. This number suggests that talks about the current economic environment are happening at kitchen tables across the country. 13% give an allowance for kids to spend on weekly non-essentials; i.e. movie tickets, toys, games, etc. 10% give an allowance for kids to spend on weekly essentials; i.e. gas, lunch money, etc.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=123652

Meet The Millennials

Millennials, the American teens and twenty-somethings who are making the passage into adulthood at the start of a new millennium, are confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=123552

Mining The U.S. Generation Gaps

Understanding shopping and media habits at different ages can help marketers optimize critical assortment, pricing, promotion and advertising decisions by crafting targeted strategies and niche offers that reflect deal propensity, trip frequency, channel predilection, average spend and media usage.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/mining-the-u-s-generation-gaps/

New Stats Show Music Tops YouTube Viewing

Watching music videos is the most popular activity on YouTube according to research company Sysomos accounting for 30.7% of all views. The study was based on measuring the tags on uploaded videos.

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/03/new-stats-show-music-tops-youtube-viewing.html

Boomers Slowly Warm To Mobile Web

Boomers made up 30.6% of all mobile phone users in August 2009, according to comScore’s age breakout. However, they made up only 19.6% of all touch-screen users and 21.1% of smartphone users. Younger boomers (ages 45 to 54) were more likely than older boomers to use touch-screens, smartphones and any mobile phone.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007542

Social Media Adoption Yields New Customers For Small Businesses

The third wave of the Small Business Success Index, by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, reports social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year. Small businesses are increasingly investing in applications including blogs, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. 61% of the respondents use social media to identify new customers.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=123455

Average Number Of Hours Per Week Spent On Online Gaming Has Grown By 10% Since 2009

According to Online Gaming 2010, the most recent report The NPD Group, the average number of hours spent each week on online gaming has increased 10% since 2009, while an average of 20% of all games purchased by online gamers were digitally downloaded – up from 19% in the 2009 study and 18% in the 2008 study.

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_100302.html

Profiling Social Gamers

PopCap Games, maker of several popular titles, explored the demographics of the group in its “2010 Social Gaming Research” report.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007537

Cost, Content, and Convenience Important Factors For Consumers Considering 3D TV

While consumers express some interest in 3D TV they may not be running out to purchase a new TV set just yet, according to The NPD Group. NPD’s “Snapshot Report: 3D Television” found that about a third of consumers were at least “somewhat interested” in having 3D capability on their TV, but cost, content availability, and convenience of watching in 3D ranked high among concerns about adopting the technology.

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_100225.html

NPD Group: U.S. Record Industry Lost 24 Million Customers Over Two Years

The NPD Group says 24 million fewer people bought music in 2009 compared to 2007. At the Digital Music Forum in New York on Wednesday, The NPD Group’s Russ Crupnick presented some insightful data on U.S. music purchases from 2007 to 2009. The presentation was reported at Digital Music News and CNET’s Media Maverick blog.

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3id9638d8420146d3c01bf6bdb523c3311

Online TV Viewing For Catch-Up

Americans are consuming more and more video on TV, Web and Mobile according to the recent Nielsen A2/M2 Three Screen Report, but the broader usage patterns suggest that online video is a replacement of DVR use, or used by those who do not have immediate access to TV.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=122888

1/3 Of Americans Don’t Use Fast Internet

According to the FCC, about 93 million Americans don’t use fast, broadband Internet, citing cost and complexity as a factor in their refusal to enter the 20th century.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/02/24/13-of-americans-dont-use-fast-internet/

Gaming Grabs Gals

A study from Q Interactive and Social Media World Forum of more than 2,000 women in November of 2009 found them actively engaging with brands as they dabble in social media gaming. The study of U.S. women, of whom 50% play online games according to Pew Internet, offers a picture of this growing group and where brands fit in. According to market research firm Think Equity, the $720 million online social-gaming market is expected to at least double to over $1 billion by 2010.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=122887

Mobile Phones Organize Lives

A total of 234 million people age 13 and older in the U.S. used mobile devices by the end of Q4 2009. According to a new survey recently announced by Ruder Finn, Americans are spending an average of 2.7 hours on the mobile Internet, connecting socially, managing their personal finances, and even as a means for advocacy. 91% of mobile phone users go online to socialize compared to only 79% of traditional desktop users.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=122886

Video Games Score 5% Of U.S. Household Entertainment Budget

U.S. consumers face a dizzying array of choices in how to spend their media and entertainment dollar. At the same time, the current economic climate has put even more pressure on how households make decisions. With these forces in mind, Nielsen Games surveyed more than 3,000 U.S. consumers to examine their overall entertainment spend with a focus on the video game category.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/video-games-score-5-of-u-s-household-entertainment-budget/

Digital Consumer Behavior Recap, 2009

According to a recent comScore study recaping key trends in the U.S. digital media landscape, including e-commerce, search, online video, online advertising and mobile, total U.S. e-commerce spending reached $209.6 billion in 2009, down 2% versus the previous year and the first year on record with negative growth rates. A handful of retail e-commerce categories experienced growth. Books & Magazines topped the list of gaining categories bolstered by category-wide price-cutting and the release of numerous high-profile best-sellers. Computer software ranked second, followed by Sport & Fitness and Jewelry & Watches, which rebounded from an especially weak 2008.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=122503

Poor Customer Service Costs Companies $83 Billion Annually

When measuring the cost of poor customer service in the U.S., Genesys, with the assistance from analysts at Greenfield Online and Datamonitor/Ovum, found that enterprises in the U.S. lose an estimated $83 billion each year due to defections and abandoned purchases as a direct result of a poor experience. Nearly two-thirds of consumers said they had ended a relationship due to customer service alone. When they end a relationship, 61% of the time they take their business to a competitor.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=122502

Changing Models: A Global Perspective On Paying For Content Online

Will consumers pay for online news and entertainment they now get for free? Nielsen asked more than 27,000 consumers across 52 countries, and the answer is a definite “maybe.” As expected, the vast majority (85%) prefer that free content remain free. Yet there are opportunities to be found in the details. Indeed, when asked to focus on specific types of content, survey participants are more willing to at least consider paying for particular categories, especially if they have done so before.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/changing-models-a-global-perspective-on-paying-for-content-online/

Music How, When, Where You Want It (video)

A short film from IFPI describing the variety of legal online music services available worldwide.

http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_resources/music_services_film.html

Sales At Retail Expected Down In February, But Ecommerce Expected Stronger

According to the February Consumer Reports Index, though consumers spent more than they planned to this past holiday season, they aren’t planning to open up their wallets again anytime soon. The Past 30-Day Retail Index for February, which reflects the purchases consumers made in January, is 10.9, a decline of 23% from the previous month says the report.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=122500

Americans Spending $1,000 Annually On Entertainment Subscriptions...

Americans love their entertainment, and the content is flowing through broadband accounts, cable TV channels, Netflix subscriptions, gaming consoles, and mobile phones. In fact, according to a recent projection by the U.S. Census Bureau, the average U.S. household will spend $997.07 on entertainment-related subscriptions for cable or satellite TV, gaming-related services like Xbox Live, and Internet connectivity in 2010. That figure doesn’t even include mobile phones, and the surrounding cloud of texts, 3G surfing, and smartphone-related purchases.

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/021110piece/view

Total Viewers Of Online Video Increased 5% Year-Over-Year

The number of unique viewers of online video increased 5.2% year-over-year according to The Nielsen Company, from 137.4 million unique viewers in January 2009 to 142.7 million in January 2010. Among the top Web brands ranked by unique viewers in January, Disney Online was the fastest growing month-over-month, increasing 23.3%. Facebook and MSN/WindowsLive/Bing were the second and third fastest growing, increasing 18.6% and 15.6% month-over-month, respectively.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/total-viewers-of-online-video-increased-5-year-over-year/

Diary To PPM Radio Market Measurement Creates Share Anomalies

According to a recent study by Research Director Inc. and Inside Radio, Urban Adult Contemporary radio formats have the highest share of listening per market, with an average 7.8 share among persons 6+, based on PPM (Portable People Meter) ratings. Despite that fact, Urban stations have lost share with the PPM. According to an earlier study by Research Director Inc., Urban Adult Contemporary stations saw ratings decline 17.2%.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=122019

Making The Most Of Earned Media

Thanks to the social Web, anyone can publish their opinions for the world to see. As a result, word-of-mouth reaches further than ever, and brands have a tremendous opportunity to tap into their loyal customers and advocates to help spread their marketing messages through earned media. But harnessing earned media can be difficult because, ultimately, it is consumers who are in control.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007510

U.S. Consumer Technology Revenue Declines Nearly 5% In 2009 As Average Prices Drop

U.S. consumer technology revenue fell almost 5% in 2009 to $106 billion dollars, according The NPD Group’s “Consumer Tracking Service,” which tracks consumer electronics trends. While overall revenue may have been down, that should not be taken as a sign that consumers were not buying. Total units sold increased marginally, with the industry selling over one billion devices, gadgets, and accessory products. The slight increase in units wasn’t enough to offset the decline in average prices, however, leading to the decrease in overall revenue. Average prices dropped about 6% from 2008 to 2009 to an average of $92 for each piece of electronics purchased.

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_100210a.html

comScore Releases “The 2009 U.S. Digital Year In Review”

Despite economic headwinds, consumers’ use of digital media climbed to new heights in 2009 as the Internet continued to evolve as an integral component of Americans’ personal and professional lives. The report provides a comprehensive view across the fixed and mobile digital sectors to uncover this past year’s important consumer trends.

Canadians Spent More Than $4.66 Billion On Technology Products In 2009

According The NPD Group, Canadians spent more than $4.66 billion on computer and information technology products in 2009, up one percent from the $4.61 billion spent in 2008. Total sales figures for gaming-related products generated $2 billion, more than half of which went to software products for gaming systems.

Music Ownership Beats Music Subscription In Reader Poll

In last week’s Faceoff Series Mashable asked about music consumption models, “Do readers prefer to own their entire music collections or do some of you gravitate toward subscription services?” One week later and the results are in, and ownership wins at a full 50% of the vote.

Confidence Lacking In Use Of Online Personalization Tools

According to a new Coremetrics study, “The Face of the New Marketer,” while most marketers report a desire to use online data to personalize their marketing efforts and deliver tailored offers to their customers, their current technology use does not support this goal. 75% report that using various online tools for personalization is a priority, 81% claim that it’s very important for them to increase visitor value through compelling product and content offerings, but 51% report they currently use online personalization tools.

What Works In Online Video

Shorter spots see higher completion rates … According to analysis of video ad network YuMe, online video viewers became less likely to click on preroll ads, or watch them to completion, over the course of 2009. Between Q1 and Q4, click-through rates trended steadily downward, from 1.88% to 0.74%. Completion rates dropped as well, to 66.3% in Q4.

M-Commerce Shoppers Specific About Recommendations

According to the recently released ChoiceStream 2009 Personalization Survey, 65% of m-commerce shoppers indicate that they would buy more products from their mobile devices if it were easier to find products on them from trusted retailers. The survey also finds the placement, or location, of product recommendations within an e-commerce site to be a key determinant of whether or not consumers make a purchase, with product detail pages emerging as the clear winner in terms of sales conversion.

On Average, Halftime Show Performers Score 555% Post Game Sales Bump

The Super Bowl offers tremendous exposure not just for the sport and its advertisers, but also for the A-list musicians who perform at halftime. A Nielsen SoundScan analysis shows that songs played during the last five Super Bowl halftime shows enjoyed an average 555% surge in sales the following week. Meanwhile, the performers’ top albums saw a 478% average spike in next-week sales.

Big Retailers Report Strong Sales Gains In January

In a surprise showing for a notoriously slow month, shoppers turned out at the nation’s malls in January, spending carefully but sufficiently to help retailers post solid sales and providing momentum heading into the spring selling season. Retail sales increased 3.3% compared with January 2009, according to Thomson Reuters’ tally of 29 major chain stores, including department stores, discounters and apparel sellers. Analysts had predicted a 2.5% gain.

U.S. Web-Based Radio Listening Is On The Rise, Attracting 60m Listeners

US web-based radio listening is on the rise, attracting 60m listeners a week according to Bridge Ratings. The company has also forecast that the online listening audience will grow to 77m by 2015. These figures include internet-only radio services such as Pandora as well as AM/FM simulcast streams.

Social Media And Young Adults

Two Pew Internet Project surveys of teens and adults reveal a decline in blogging among teens and young adults and a modest rise among adults 30 and older. Even as blogging declines among those under 30, wireless connectivity continues to rise in this age group, as does social network use. Teens ages 12-17 do not use Twitter in large numbers, though high school-aged girls show the greatest enthusiasm for the application.

2009 Video Game Software Sales Across Top Global Markets Experience Declines For Console And Portable Platforms

Combined video game software unit sales across the world’s three largest games markets experienced a decline of 8% in calendar year 2009, totaling 379.3 million units. The declines were more modest in Japan, which experienced a 2% decline in software units. The United States and United Kingdom saw respective declines of 7% and 14%. In the United States, console and portable software experienced respective declines of 7% and 8%, while U.K. units saw respective declines of 6% and 25%.

Mobile Audience Mirrors Total Internet As Search, Email, Social Networking Driving Traffic

According to The Nielsen Company, mobile Internet traffic in December 2009 was similar to total Internet use, with the largest audiences being seen for search, e-mail and social networking.

Loyalty Programs Need To Engage

A new report from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council indicates that marketers are under-valuing perks, discounts, deals and additional service opportunities, as customers give them high marks. Some 61% of marketers believe that loyalty program participants are the best and most profitable customers. And, 65% view customer loyalty program investments as a very essential, or a quite valuable part of the marketing mix.

Census Of Files Available Via BitTorrent

BitTorrent is popular because it lets anyone distribute large files at low cost. Which kinds of files are available on BitTorrent? Sauhard Sahi, a Princeton senior, decided to find out. Sauhard’s independent work last semester, under the supervision of Ed Felten (Princeton University’s Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy and Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs), set out to measure what was available on BitTorrent. This post, summarizing his results, was co-written by Sauhard and Felten.

U.S. Toy Industry Sales Generate $21.47 Billion In 2009

According to The NPD Group, Q4 2009 toys sales reveal that, while revenues were flat due to heavy promotional activity at retail, unit sales were up 4% compared to the fourth quarter of 2008. Building Sets and Arts & Crafts experienced the most significant increases, at 23% and 7%, respectively. Action Figures and Games/Puzzles saw respective revenue increases of 4% and 1%. Youth Electronics and Plush experienced the largest declines when compared to 2008, at 17% and 13%, respectively.

Nielsen 2010 Global Consumer Outlook

Consumers are more diverse, demanding and connected than ever before. To help give you a clearer look into what’s ahead, Nielsen has assembled videos from our global team to deliver insights into what consumers watch and what they buy. With evidence of a recovery emerging, understanding the global trends and local conditions is essential to success.

Bargain Hunters Start With Newspaper And Magazine Ads

According to a recent Adweek Media/ Harris Poll, 23% of adult Americans believe that newspaper and magazine advertisements are where they can find the best bargains. 18% believe online advertisements are most likely to help them find the best bargains. 10% say direct mail and 12% catalogs, 11% television commercials, and just 2% say radio. And, 34% of Americans believe the type of ad makes no difference when they are looking for the best bargain.

As Super Bowl Nears, Flat-Screen TV Sales Are Expected To Increase

Of the estimated 168 million people who will watch the big game this year, an estimated 3.6 million will take advantage of retail promotions to buy a television, according to the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association’s annual Super Bowl survey, which was conducted by BIGresearch. Nearly three-fourths of viewers plan to purchase food and beverages before the game, and total spending is estimated to reach $8.9 billion.

Mom Marketing

According to a Retail Advertising and Marketing Association survey conducted by BIGresearch, women with children at home are more likely to use Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter than average adults. Additionally, 15.3% maintain their own blog. Mike Gatti, Executive Director for RAMA, suggests that “… retailers who aren’t engaging customers through social media could be missing the boat …”

What Consumers Look For In New Tech

A majority of consumers think technology has made life better in every area except personal relationships, according to the Philips Center for Health and Well-being. Communication, information and medical treatments topped the areas of their lives that consumers felt were improved by technology. Consumers’ biggest concern was that technology be built to last, followed by good quality and the best price.

Boomers Log Some Serious TV Time

Boomers’ media usage patterns are similar to most Americans in one respect: TV dominates. In each month of Q3 2009, Americans watched an average of 129 hours of TV compared with 27 hours spent on the Internet, according to Nielsen’s latest “A2/M2 Three-Screen Report.”

Kids Pack 10 3/4 Hours Of Media Content Into 7 1/2 Hours Every Day

Over the past five years, young people have increased the amount of time they spend consuming media by an hour and seventeen minutes daily, from 6:21 to 7:38, almost the amount of time most adults spend at work each day, except that young people use media seven days a week instead of five.

Boom Time In Second Life

Consumers tightened their real-world purse strings in 2009 amid concerns about the economy, but that did not seem to hurt sales of virtual goods.

Hypebot Reports Global Music Consumption Survey From Midem

8500 interviews in 13 countries … 63% are passionate about music … 14% would listen to music every minute of every day if they could …

NRF Forecasts 2.5% Increase In Retail Sales For 2010

The NRF released its 2010 economic forecast, projecting retail industry sales (which exclude automobiles, gas stations, and restaurants) will increase 2.5% from last year. According to its quarterly Retail Sales Outlook report, influential economic indicators such as the housing market and employment are beginning to show positive signs, which will bolster consumer confidence throughout the year.

Boomers New Social Media Mavens

According to a new study conducted by CPH Research on behalf of Continuum Crew, there has been a large shift in the media consumption of Baby Boomer-aged respondents; especially a dramatic rise in was time spent on the Internet. In the course of the study, a significant segment emerged within the Boomer group, dubbed the new “Social Media Maven.” The profile of this group is one that is heavily connected, exploring and expanding their networks.

Big Boost Is Forecast For App Stores

Most smartphone owners use mobile apps, and they constitute a thriving market that will lead to explosive growth in application store revenues, according to Gartner.

Led by Facebook, Twitter, Global Time Spent ODn Social Media Sites Up 82% Year-Over Year

According to The Nielsen Company, global consumers spent more than five and half hours on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in December 2009, an 82% increase from the same time last year when users were spending just over three hours on social networking sites. In addition, the overall traffic to social networking sites has grown over the last three years.

What Social Followers Want

A December 2009 MarketingSherpa survey indicated that learning about specials and sales was the top motivation of those who friended or followed a brand online, supporting the results of earlier surveys. But looking for savings was followed closely by learning about new products, features or services.

Identify New Consumer Norms

The recession has had a long-term effect on how consumers think about spending, according to a report from market research firm Decitica, which identifies four market segments such as “Steadfast Frugalists” and “Apathetic Materialists.” Consumers older than 40, no matter what their income level, have experienced the deepest change in thinking, the study finds.

IFPI Publishes Digital Music Report 2010

Global digital music trade revenues reach US$4.2 billion, up 12% in 2009 … 400 services licensed worldwide by music companies with ISPs, mobile and other partners … New figures show local music collapsing in major markets as piracy bites into releases, sales and investment in France, Spain and Brazil … IFPI Digital Music Report highlights urgent need for legislation to curb digital piracy on ISP networks.

App Usage To Soar In 2010

Fever for applications is set to get only hotter this year, with more marketers investing more dollars—making it harder than ever to rise above the crowd.

Retailers Look To Upgrade Cross-Channel Capabilities

Cross-channel integration is well underway among retailers and set to grow in the coming years, according to the “Store Systems Study” from RIS and IHL Group. Checking other store inventory is currently the most widely available cross-channel system, followed by the next logical step—ordering items from another store. By the end of 2010, about one-half of retailers expected to accommodate both in-store returns than in-store pickup of online orders. Several mobile shopping technologies will increase in availability over the next three years as well. Mobile couponing, product information and ordering will be the top initiatives in 2010.

If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online

The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smartphone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Digital Tools Help Moms Take Charge

Technology usage is not immune to the lifestyle changes motherhood brings. Moms put the focus on simplicity, convenience and multiuse technologies as they look to keep their families closely linked. Smartphones and PDAs are a boon for mothers on the go, 69% of whom use them to coordinate and schedule family activities. Some 26% of moms with smartphones say that they use the phone on a daily basis to download or play games or music for their children.

Gartner Says Consumers Will Spend $6.2 Billion In Mobile Application Stores In 2010

Consumers will spend $6.2 billion in 2010 in mobile application stores while advertising revenue is expected to generate $0.6 billion worldwide, according to Gartner, Inc. Analysts said mobile application stores will exceed 4.5 billion downloads in 2010, eight out of ten of which will be free to end users. Gartner forecasts worldwide downloads in mobile application stores to surpass 21.6 billion by 2013. Free downloads will account for 82% of all downloads in 2010, and will account for 87% of downloads in 2013.

Emerging Markets Embrace New Tech

While many Internet users in the United States and other mature markets enjoy the latest gadgets and online media activities, they may not be on the cutting edge — users in emerging countries are quickly taking to advanced Web and consumer electronics activities. According to the Accenture report “Mobile Takes Center Stage,” U.S. Internet users increased spending on consumer electronics in 2009.

2009 U.S. Video Game Industry And PC Game Software Retail Sales Reach $20.2 Billion

According to The NPD Group, U.S. retail sales of video games, which includes portable and console hardware, software and accessories, generated revenues of close to $19.66 billion, an 8% decline over the $21.4 billion generated in 2008. Retail sales in the PC game software industry also experienced declines, with revenues down 23%.

Mobile To Outpace Desktop Web By 2013

Mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access devices worldwide by 2013, according to a new forecast by research firm Gartner. That’s an even more aggressive outlook than Morgan Stanley’s projection that the mobile Web will outstrip the desktop Web in five years.

Everywhere-Access Key to Paid Music Models

A new eMarketer report analyzes the future of the digital music industry.

Time Spent Viewing Online Video Up 13% In December

The Nielsen Company reported overall online video usage and top online brands ranked by video streams for December 2009. Year-over-year, unique viewers, total streams, streams per viewer and time per viewer were up, led by 13% growths in time per viewer.

Ninety Percent Of Paid Console Video Game Acquisitions In The Third Quarter Of 2009 Were Physical Format Purchases Or Rentals

According to “Games Acquisition Monitor,” a quarterly report from The NPD Group, 90% of all paid console video game acquisitions in the third quarter (Q3) of 2009 (July-September) were in the physical format, while 79% of games acquired for all other platforms which include portable, PC/MAC, mobile and smartphones, were in the physical format.

Child Mobile Ownership Up

Kids are getting mobile phones at a younger and younger age. What are they doing with them—besides talking to mom and dad?

A Big Music Year For Jackson, Boyle, Swift, Digital Downloads ... and Vinyl?

2009 music purchases in the U.S. were up 2.1% over 2008 figures, marking the second year in a row that sales exceeded 1.5B units sold according to Nielsen SoundScan. The data covers a 52-week period from January 5, 2009 through January 3, 2010. Driving the growth was a record-breaking year for digital downloads as music fans picked up 1.16 billion digital tracks (an 8.3% jump from the prior year) and 76.4 million digital albums (up 16.1%).

Technology Changing Consumer, Retailer Habits

Between the state of the economy and the rise of technology, consumers are embracing the internet, mobile phones and other technologies more than ever to find deals and change their shopping experience. These are the key findings of a new report being released by IBM at this week’s NRF Annual Convention & Expo 2010 in New York. Based on interviews with 32,000 consumers in six countries, the study found that tech-savvy shopping is no longer a niche phenomenon.

Videogaming Weathers The Storm

An industry needn’t be new in order to enjoy a surge in popularity. The market for videogames is a case in point. A recent report from Deloitte documents a robust increase last year in the number of people engaged in gaming, led by a deepening of the sector’s earlier inroads among consumers who are well into adulthood. This is by no means a mature market consisting solely of immature consumers.

Consumers Take To Shopping By Smartphone

Q3 2009 data from Compete lends support to the hope that 2010 is — finally — the year m-commerce will take off. Nearly two-fifths of smartphone owners reported having bought something non-mobile over their mobile phone in the past six months.

Retail Sales Data Shows Consumer Technology Sales Down Less Than 1% For The Holiday Season

U.S. consumer technology retail sales declined less than 1% for the 2009 holiday season, according to The NPD Group. NPD’s Weekly Tracking Service shows sales for the five week holiday period rang in at $10.8 billion dollars, a much improved showing from the 6% decline during the 2008 holiday season.

Internet, Broadband, And Cell Phone Statistics

In a national survey between Nov. 30 and Dec. 27, 2009, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that 74% of American adults (ages 18 and older) use the Internet; 60% of American adults use broadband connections at home; and 55% of American adults connect to the internet wirelessly, either through a WiFi or WiMax connection via their laptops or through their handheld device like a smart phone.

Consumers Down on Big-Ticket Spending

In a Zogby International poll, 40% of respondents said they expect to have less disposable income at the end of 2010 than they do now — nearly double the 21% expecting their disposable income to rise this year. Little wonder, then, that comparatively few respondents see themselves making a big-ticket purchase during 2010. Six percent expect to buy a house or condo; 12% expect to buy a major appliance, and the same proportion think they’ll buy a high-definition TV set.

How Mobile Search And Display Ads Could Become Goldmine For Local Businesses

Google has been testing the inclusion of click-to-call phone numbers in search ads on high-end mobile phones, a spokesperson confirmed. The intersection of local and mobile creates two distinct and huge ad opportunities, especially for small businesses, according to Kevin Lee, CEO at Didit, New York. “National advertisers with regional footprints will certainly need to spend on mobile,” he says. “Plus, there are millions of small businesses who would love to grow but need something other than search engine advertising.”

Smartphone Purchasing Behaviors Differ By Device

According to the Compete quarterly “Smartphone Intelligence” survey, smartphone owners are more comfortable buying from their handsets, but still have some site functionality problems. Nonetheless, says the report, mobile commerce (m-commerce) is ready to explode in 2010. But Compete cautions that marketers recognize the differences that vary by individual and device.

The Future Of Content Without Walls

The portability of content from device to device represents the future of media consumption. But the device market is constantly shifting, due to changing consumer preferences and an evolving electronics landscape. Device manufacturers, marketers and publishers alike are challenged to make content available where, when and how their end users want to consume it — and that is anywhere, anytime and on any device.

2009 Sales Wrap: Transactions Up As Digital Growth Slows

Billboard.biz gives us a 2009 sales overview, stating that total U.S. music transactions grew, but album sales continued to slide, and digital growth is down.

Just The Facts...

Apropos to the Consumer Electronics Show, but equally valuable as a benchmark of the Electronic Media Industry starting out in 2010, Nielsen releases a fact sheet appended with the prediction that ” … In 2010 we see a continuation, if not an acceleration, of current trends with consumers watching and connecting more.”

What’s Your Online Content Worth? Global Consumers Say: It Depends

Not all content is created equal in the eyes of the consumer. Across countries, demographics and content types, consumers have diverse attitudes about paying for content online.

More Than Three Quarters Of U.S. Kids Ages 2-14 Acquired Entertainment Content In The Past Year

According to “Kids and Entertainment Content,” the most recent report from The NPD Group, 79% of kids age 2-14 have acquired some form of physical or digital content in the past year, with 31% acquiring both physical and digital content. In terms of money spent on this content by kids, $0.85 of every content dollar spent went to physical items, while $0.15 went to digital.

Analyst Forecasts Better Days In 2010 For Online

According to J.P. Morgan’s “2010 Internet Industry Outlook,” ecommerce is excepted to rise about 12%. Aiding to the uptick, will be brick-and-mortar bankruptcies, consumers finding selections at offline retailers limiting, and both fulfillment by Web sites and alternative electronic payments becoming easier to use.

More Cellular-Only Homes As Americans Expand Mobile Media Usage

The latest Nielsen Convergence Audit – an annual survey on voice, video and data products – shows a rise in households who have “cut the cord” by trading their traditional landlines for wireless cellular services and an increase in mobile media device usage among a diverse set of households. The survey collects more than 32,000 U.S. online and mail respondents.

Examining In-Store Pickup Options

While only a small number of multichannel retailers allow customers to buy online and pick up in-store, a majority of online consumers rate this service as important. Consumers avoid shipping fees, see and touch products before taking them home, and satisfy a need for immediate gratification when the product is in stock.

Netbook 2009 Revenues Soar

Global revenue from netbooks soared this year, as sales of every other mobile PC category fell. Revenue from the mini-laptops rose to $11.4 billion, a 72% increase from $6.7 billion in 2008, DisplaySearch said. Sales of all portable PCs fell 12% to $109.4 billion from $117.1 billion last year.

Online Holiday Spending Pushing Records

A new comScore survey reported that, for holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 41 days of the November – December 2009 holiday season. $19.9 billion has been spent online, marking a 3% increase versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week saw above average online spending growth of 4% versus year ago, as two individual days surpassed $800 million in spending, led by Thursday, Dec. 10, with $852 million.

Mobile Device Sales Still Booming

he boom in mobile device shipments is expected to continue and sales will double by 2014, according to a report released Monday by ABI Research. The market research firm said in 2009 a total of 1.2 billion mobile devices will ship, including cellular handsets, mobile Internet devices, netbooks, mobile consumer electronics products, and cellular modems. In 2014 the total number of devices shipped will reach 2.25 billion.

Internet Users Embrace TV

The fourth edition of Deloitte’s “State of the Media Democracy” report reveals Internet users are more in love with their televisions than ever—and ready for the coming convergence of TV and online.

Video Games In Play

The video game marketplace continues to be an important in-home entertainment option. Nielsen reports that over half of all U.S. households (54%) claim to own a video game console or handheld system of some kind. The seventh generation of consoles (Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation 3) dominates this tally with a combined penetration rate of 41%.

There’s No Business Like Show Business – Entertainment Trends

While many consumers cut back their spending on entertaining outside of the home in 2009, that didn’t necessarily translate to increases inside the home. See what top entertainment trends are coming in 2010.

Poll: 13% Plan To Finish Shopping On Dec. 24

Many Americans have put off shopping for gifts and are taking a pragmatic approach to the holidays, according to a Consumer Reports holiday shopping poll. As of Dec. 6, 40% of adults said that they have yet to hit the stores for gifts. Only 12% said they have finished their holiday shopping and nearly one-third (30%) do not anticipate finishing until Dec. 23 or later. About 13% shoppers indicate they will not finish until Dec. 24.

Facebook is College Students' GoTo

According to research by Anderson Analytics, Facebook is not only the overwhelming favorite social networking site (SNS) among college students, it may rapidly become the only SNS that matters. Facebook is found to be the “coolest network” by far among students with over 300,000,000 Facebook active users, half of whom return to the site every day.

Green Tuesday? Tuesday, December 15 Reaches Record $913 Million in Online Spending

comScore reported holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 48 days of the November – December 2009 holiday season. The most recent week began on a slightly disappointing note, with sales of $854 million on Green Monday (Dec. 14, 2009) down 1% versus year ago, but was followed by three strong spending days that each surpassed $800 million. Most notably, Tuesday, December 15 set an individual day spending record with $913 million, the first such day to surpass the $900 million threshold.

November Consumer Technology U.S. Retail Sales Revenue Positive For First Time In 2009

U.S. consumer technology sales revenue was up slightly year-over-year in November topping $7.1 billion dollars, making November the first month in 2009 where there hasn’t been a revenue decline, according to The NPD Group’s Retail Tracking Service. This is an improvement over the 1.3% decline posted for Black Friday which NPD reported last week and a great improvement over the 14% revenue decline we saw in November 2008.

The Top Ten Viral Videos Of 2009 (Are Mostly Music Videos)

In an age of user-generated content, the most viral videos are not made by the users, just passed around by them. Here you’ll find a list of the top ten viral videos of 2009, as tracked by Visible Measures, which counts not only plays on YouTube but also video shared across social networks like MySpace as well as MTV networks and Viacom. The list of the most watched internet videos 2009 below are nearly all music videos, with the exception of the No. 1 viral video, which is the trailer for the movie Twilight Saga: New Moon.

Procrastination Abounds As NRF Survey Finds Most Have Completed Less Than Half Of Shopping

Though the Christmas countdown is in its final stages, it seems shoppers still have plenty of shopping left to do. According to NRF’s “2009 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey,” conducted by BIGresearch, the average person had completed 46.7% of their holiday shopping by the second week of December, less than the 47.1% completed by this time last year. This is the lowest percentage since 2004, when the average person had completed 46.3% of their shopping by the same period.

Digital Music Growth Levels Off

Americans love buying digital music, but growth rates related to other digital music activities are leveling off, according to new research from Forrester.

Video Viewing, In Context

PointRoll and Accustream found that online video ads did best across several metrics when they appeared on game, music and streaming media, and child- and family-oriented sites. Ads on automotive, business and finance, and employment destinations did worst.

Movie-based Video Games And The Households That Buy Them

By examining households from Nielsen’s Homescan consumer panel that purchased at least one movie-based game over the past two years, we gain some insight into the types of consumers these products resonate with the most, and how these celluloid gamers compare to the average consumer of home entertainment and video games.

Even As New Entertainment Options Enter The Fray, We're Still Mostly A Nation Of Couch Potatoes

According to the latest update to the “Entertainment Trends in America” consumer tracking surveys conducted by The NPD Group, even with activities like Twitter and social networking added to the mix of communication and entertainment options, America is still a nation of couch potatoes. When consumers were asked how many leisure-time hours in the past week they spent on particular entertainment activities, watching television was the most popular: 81% of respondents watched an average of 10 hours of television programming (not including feature films) per week.

Local Appeal for Mobile TV

Nearly one-half of US mobile users are interested in watching live digital television on a mobile device, according to an Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC) survey conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates. Interest was highest, unsurprisingly, among millennials and early technology adopters.

Holiday Shopping Goes Later This Year

With Christmas fast approaching, 66% of consumers have yet to finish their holiday shopping, according to a new survey from American Express. In fact, the latest American Express Spending and Saving Tracker shows that one in five consumers (21%) will still be shopping for gifts the week leading into Christmas, and 4% expect to shop on Christmas Eve.

TV's Popularity on the Rise

According to Deloitte’s fourth annual “State of the Media Democracy” report, 34% of Americans cite TV as their favorite medium, up from 27% last year. Second through fourth, respectively, were Internet, music and books, all of which are perceived by the average consumer as being less expensive than a night out at the movies.

Percent Of Blogging Seniors Only 1/10 Of A Point Behind Teens

Not only are more people 65 and older heading online, but they are also spending more time on the Web. Time spent on the Internet by seniors increased 11% in the last five years, from approximately 52 hours per month in November 2004 to just over 58 hours in 2009.

November Sales See Month-To-Month Growth, Offering Retailers Encouragement For Holiday Season

As shoppers – and retailers – set their sights on the holiday season, low prices and pent-up demand helped entice Americans back into the stores. According to the National Retail Federation, retail industry sales rose 0.6% seasonally adjusted from October and dipped 0.8% year-over-year. The numbers are in line with NRF’s forecast of a 1% decline in holiday sales.

Six Million More Seniors Using The Web Than Five Years Ago

While people 65 and older still make up less than 10 percent of the active Internet universe, their numbers are on the rise. In the last five years, the number of seniors actively using the Internet has increased by more than 55 percent, from 11.3 million active users in November 2004 to 17.5 million in November 2009. Among people 65+, the growth of women in the last five years has outpaced the growth of men by 6 percentage points.

Television and Beyond: A Kid’s Eye View

Meet the mini media moguls who are dictating electronic sales and media utilization patterns in American homes: kids. TV still engages children of all ages, but older children gravitate toward the Internet, while younger kids embrace DVDs, VCRs and DVRs. Whether a solo use or co-viewing with friends and families, connected kids represent a fertile opportunity for advertisers.

Gift Cards With Incentive Peak Purchase

Survey data from CashStar, Inc. found that that 68% of online shoppers agree that buying a gift card online that can be sent via e-mail is more convenient than having plastic cards shipped to the gift card recipient. And 80% of online shoppers said that if their favorite store or restaurant offered a personalized online gift card on their web site, they would be more likely to purchase it from that retailer.

Retail Sales Data From NPD Shows Consumer Technology Revenue Declined The Week Of Black Friday

Black Friday results showed that consumers continued their 2009 focus on price and value while shopping for consumer technology items, according to The NPD Group’s Weekly Tracking Service. Total revenue for the week of Black Friday was slightly more than $2.7 billion, down 1.2% from 2008, but an improvement over the 3.4% decline noted last year.

Mobile Couponing Catching On?

Deloitte found that 19% of Internet users plan to use their mobile device for shopping, and only one-quarter of that group will actually make a mobile purchase. On a similar note, Yankee Group found that in 2009 more than 90% of U.S. consumers were at least somewhat interested in scanning images or bar codes with their mobile phone to get more information or coupons for a product.

U.S. Online Holiday Spending Reaches $16 Billion For First 36 Days of the Nov.-Dec. Shopping Season

comScore reported holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 36 days of the November – December 2009 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, nearly $16 billion has been spent online, marking a 3% increase versus the corresponding days last year.

Three Screen Report: TV Remains Strong as DVR and Online Video Show Most Growth

Nielsen’s latest A2/M2 Three Screen Report shows considerable year over year growth in terms of time spent for DVR (up 21.1%) and online video (up 34.9%) in Q3 2009. Given the consistent spike in usage among the three screens of television, Internet and mobile, consumers are clearly adding video platforms to their schedule, rather than replacing them.

eMarketer Weighs In on 2010 Trends: E-Commerce & Mobile

It is eye-catching when a consultancy revises a market forecast upward in the midst of an economic downturn. That is exactly what ABI Research did with its forecast of mobile sales of physical goods in North America. It is an easy bet that sales in 2010 will pass the $1 billion mark.

Vinyl Records and Turntables Are Gaining Sales

Sales of vinyl albums have been climbing steadily for several years, tromping on the notion that the rebound was just a fad. Through late November, more than 2.1 million vinyl records had been sold in 2009, an increase of more than 35% in a year, according to Nielsen Soundscan. That total, though it represents less than 1% of all album sales, including CDs and digital downloads, is the highest for vinyl records in any year since Nielsen began tracking them in 1991.

Click here for more:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/nyregion/07vinyl.html?em

The Habits Of Heavy Mobile Web Users

The U.S. mobile Internet population is increasing rapidly. eMarketer estimates that 29.2% of mobile phone users log on to the mobile Web at least once per month in 2009, up from 22.3% last year. And according to BIA/Kelsey and ConStat, many of those qualify as “heavy” users—those who go online via mobile more than 10 times per week.

Among American Kids Ages 2-17, 82% Report They Are Gamers

According to “Kids and Gaming 2009,” the most recent report from The NPD Group, among all kids in the U.S. ages 2-17, 82%, or 55.7 million, are current gamers. Of these gamers, 9.7 million are ages 2-5, representing the smallest segment, while 12.4 million are ages 9-11, and represent the largest segment.

Tracks Of My Tears: Reconstructing Digital Music

Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse, who does much of her business research on the entertainment industry, looked at the clash between bundles and digital distribution, and the effect on media and entertainment firms. “Working Knowledge” asked Elberse about her recent working paper, ‘Bye Bye Bundles: The Unbundling of Music in Digital Channels.’

Past 25 Years Of Consumer Spending

How has consumer spending changed over the past 25 years? Do we spend more on some things and spend less on other than we did in the early 80s? In this interactive, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, you can explore just that.

Mobile Marketing Turns Some People On, Some People Off

Mobile ad spending is poised to grow 27% to $2.1 billion in 2010, according to the Mobile Marketing Association. Marketers who employ mobile marketing to the wrong consumer group risk turning them off, not on, according to an analysis of BIGresearch’s Simultaneous Media Usage Survey of over 22,000 consumers.

Cyber Monday Online Sales Up 5 Percent vs. Year Ago to $887 Million to Match Heaviest Online Spending Day in History

comScore reported that for the holiday season-to-date, $12.26 billion has been spent online, marking a 3% increase versus the corresponding days last year. Cyber Monday reached $887 million in online spending, up 5% versus a year ago, and matching the heaviest online spending day on record, December 9, 2008.

Cyber Monday Online Spending Exceeds 2008 Levels

The U.S. online retail sector reported strong sales results on Cyber Monday 2009 compared to the same period last year. This analysis was delivered as part of Coremetrics’ second annual “Cyber Monday Benchmark Report.”

2009 Online Holiday Sales Outlook: What Consumers Have in Store for Retailers

Expect to see flat holiday sales this season. Retailers have an opportunity to boost revenues by taking advantage of online activities and social media outlets, which have changed the way consumers seek and share online and offline holiday deals.

NPD Reports on "The Anatomy of Black Friday 2009"

The NPD Group has released the results of its first ever Black Friday study. “The Anatomy of Black Friday 2009″ takes an in-depth look at U.S. consumers’ Black Friday shopping. NPD asked consumers what brought them out to shop this Black Friday. The number one answer was ‘…an item I wanted was advertised on sale, with 35%.

iPhone Apps Put Brands in Hands

Here is a list of the successful brands and apps that best fulfill the promise of utility — as well as some prominent missed opportunities

Black Friday Boasts $595 Million in U.S. Online Holiday Spending, Up 11% Versus Year Ago

comScore reported holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 27 days of the November-December 2009 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, $10.57 billion has been spent online, marking a 3% increase versus the corresponding days last year. Black Friday saw $595 million in online sales, making it the second heaviest online spending day to date in 2009 and representing an 11% increase versus Black Friday 2008.

As Expected, Number Of Shoppers Up, Average Spending Down

A National Retail Federation survey conducted over the weekend confirms the expected: more people spent less. According to NRF’s Black Friday shopping survey, conducted by BIGresearch, 195 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend, up from 172 million last year. However, the average spending over the weekend dropped to $343.31 per person from $372.57 a year ago. Total spending reached an estimated $41.2 billion.

comScore Forecasts 3% Growth For 2009 Holiday E-Commerce Spending

Comscore reported holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 22 days of the November-December 2009 holiday season, as well as its official spending forecast for the season. For the holiday season-to-date, $8.21 billion has been spent online, marking a 2% increase versus the corresponding days last year.

How Engaging Is Online Video?

In October 2009, Eyeblaster reported that creative was the key to more engaging rich media ads. Based on the research firm’s “Online Video Advertising: Doubles Engagement, Boosts ROI” bulletin, video grabs attention and has a lasting impact.

With Social Media, Who Needs Santa?

‘Tis the season for social media. Seventeen percent of U.S. consumers plan to leverage social media sites to assist in their holiday shopping this year. The majority (60%) will do so to seek discounts and sales, according to Deloitte’s 24th Annual Holiday Survey.

Retailers Increase Cyber Monday Promotions To Entice Holiday Shoppers Looking For Bargains

Holiday shoppers looking for bargains aren’t likely to be disappointed when they learn what retailers have planned for Cyber Monday. According to Shop.org’s eHoliday Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, nearly nine in 10 (87.1%) retailers will have a special promotion for Cyber Monday, up from 83.7% last year and 72.2% in 2007.

Tracking the Hits Along the Musical 'The Long Tail'

For most people, Chris Anderson’s 2006 book The Long Tail marked a new way of thinking about selling goods on the Internet. Being free of the physical limits of shelf space, he predicted, would alter what people bought. For music, this would mean the most popular music titles would become less popular as consumers were able to tap into vast online catalogs. In most corners of the business world, and especially in the music industry, The Long Tail was controversial. Would consumers actually start to ignore the hits?

Worldwide PC Shipments To Grow 2.8% In 2009, But PC Revenue To Decline 11%

Accelerating mobile PC shipments will drive the worldwide PC market to grow again this year, according to Gartner’s preliminary fourth-quarter forecast. The new forecast predicts worldwide PC shipments will total 298.9 million units in 2009, a 2.8% increase from 2008. In 2010, PC shipments are projected to reach 336.6 million units, a 12.6% increase over 2009.

Mobile Phone Prices Continue To Fall, Even As High-End Features Rise

According to The NPD Group, buy-one-get-one (BOGO) offers and other price reductions on smartphones led to a 3% decline in average prices in the Q3 2009. The overall average purchase price for mobile phones in the U.S. fell to $85, which is down from $88 in Q3 2008. Smartphone unit share held steady against feature phones; 28% of handset sales were smartphones last quarter.

Interesting Facts From The Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report 2009

Today, consumers are shaping the future of the web, and thereby also the way businesses need to do business. We also bring our attitudes and behaviors as well as the technologies we use as consumers to work. Click to find some interesting facts from the report, as well as the link to the report on Slideshare.

Coupons Boost E-Mail Open Rate

The recession has had its effect on consumer behavior online, and the watchword is frugality. Whether or not shoppers go back to their spendthrift ways, for now coupons are cool and deal-seeking is the norm.

Is Facebook Getting Uncool for 18-24s?

According to comScore, as it has gained a broader audience, the older teens and twentysomethings that drove Facebook’s initial popularity are using it less. And research by WPP Group’s Mindshare suggests that group is reevaluating the site’s worth as a tool for developing friendships.

Study On Online Music Piracy And Purchasing Habits

There has been high-profile debate in the media about whether file-sharing has a positive or negative impact on music sales. The study below, which is original text from Jupiter Research, analyses in more detail the different spend of file-sharers, digital and physical music purchasers.

Despite Economic Woes, Consumers Not Scrimping On Entertainment Subscriptions

According to the latest update to the “Entertainment Trends in America” consumer tracking studies conducted by The NPD Group, even as newspapers and other traditional forms of subscriptions have declined, most forms of entertainment-content subscriptions have been maintained by U.S. consumers this year, and mobile data plans and other newer kinds of subscription services have expanded their customer bases. Overall monthly per-capita entertainment-content subscription spending rose to $115, which is an increase of nearly 7% since last year.

E-Readers Will Take Off For Holiday Shoppers In 2010

2009 is likely to be remembered as a watershed year in the evolution of e-books and e-readers with several milestones and product launches standing out as catalysts for change in the market, according to Gartner, Inc. However, Gartner said that while the number of electronic readers sold is likely to increase in 2009, it expects 2010 to be the year when e-book readers really become popular consumer electronic devices, culminating in e-reader “mania” for the 2010 holiday season.

Like, Totally Wired

According to findings from Alloy Media + Marketing’s 9th annual College Explorer Survey, projected annual technology spending among college students (ages 18-30) has reached an all time high at $6.5 billion, ranking 3rd in overall discretionary spending for college students, just below food and auto.

Monetizing Mobile Content

The long debate over how to monetize digital content has gained new life in the economic downturn due to the slumping ad market. The question of paid models versus ad support is particularly urgent in the fast-emerging mobile space. eMarketer predicts that by 2013, nearly 50% of mobile phone users will access the mobile Internet at least monthly.

In Tough Times, 10 Ways Retailers Can Bring Holiday Cheer

While beleaguered shoppers will be looking for ways to make the season bright, retailers can do their part by bringing some much needed holiday cheer to the shopping experience.

"Friending" Brands Egocentric, Finds Razorfish

Have social marketers been kidding themselves that consumers “friend” brands on social media because they are passionate and want deep and meaningful relationships? Recent data suggests that perhaps all consumers really want from brands on social media is a good deal and great customer service.

Coupon Use Continues Resurgence

Consumers have re-embraced coupons as a way to get more for their money. In the third quarter, year-to-date coupon redemption was up 26% to 2.4 billion redemptions, making it the fourth consecutive quarter of growth, according to new research from Inmar in collaboration with The Nielsen Company.

Illegal File-Sharing Has An Overwhelmingly Negative Impact On Music Sales

Demos, the UK political think-tank, has released a widely-reported survey on music downloading which may be misinterpreted as suggesting that illegal file-sharing stimulates rather than reduces legitimate music sales.

Playing Games With Media Usage

It’s no secret that time spent online is a major rival to traditional media usage. But among some segments of the population, at least, time spent gaming is in the same ballpark as time watching TV or surfing the Web.

Touchscreen Mobile Phone Adoption Grows At Blistering Pace In U.S. During Past Year

comScore, Inc. recently released a study of touchscreen mobile phone adoption in the U.S., which showed a significant 159% growth rate during the past year to 23.8 million users in August 2009. The growth in touchscreen device adoption substantially outpaced the already strong 63% growth in U.S. adoption of smartphones.

When It Comes to Entertainment Options, U.S. Consumers Turning To Social Networking, Texting, And Twitter

According to the latest update to the “Entertainment Trends in America” tracking study conducted by The NPD Group, many consumers expect to be spending the same amount on traditional entertainment categories during the coming holiday season, even as their participation in newer forms of entertainment continues to rise.

Web To Drive Holiday Retail Sales

Retail sales will probably be flat this holiday season, but online sales are expected to reach $44.7 billion, an 8% jump over last year, according to the latest data from Forrester Research.

Seven Ways To Tap Social Shopping

Marketers must understand that customers use social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter to communicate with and gather information from their friends and colleagues. As a result, your presence on these sites must be integrated into the multi-directional communication when consumers want to interact with your firm. Here are seven ways to maximize social shopping results …

Will iPhone Lead The Growth In Portable Gaming?

A study by DFC Intelligence, released on Friday, predicts that games for the iPhone and iPod touch (an iPhone without the cellular capabilities) will be the principal drivers for growth in the overall portable and mobile gaming market in five years.

4 Emerging Trends Of The Real-Time Web

There is a lot of hype surrounding the real-time web, and much of the feeding frenzy reminds me of the RSS space four years ago — though there is a lot of potential, there is also a lot of noise.

A Shift In Mobile Computing From Laptops To Smaller Devices Is Forcing PC Makers To Adjust

The smartphone market will surpass laptops in unit sales this year, and will easily surpass the latter market in revenue by 2012.

Google's Eric Schmidt On What the Web Will Look Like In 5 Years

Google CEO Eric Schmidt envisions a radically changed internet five years from now: dominated by Chinese-language and social media content, delivered over super-fast bandwidth in real time. Figuring out how to rank real-time social content is “the great challenge of the age,” Schmidt said in an interview in front of thousands of CIOs and IT Directors at last week’s Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Orlando 2009.

Does Social Media Work For Small Biz?

Small businesses are not hitting it off with social media, according to an August 2009 study from Citibank. More than three-quarters of U.S. small-business executives surveyed did not find social networks helpful for generating leads or expanding their business.

‘Gradual Greening’ Of U.S. Tech Consumers

‘Green’ or environmentally friendly policies and programs are becoming more top of mind for U.S. consumers when making technology related purchase decisions, but few are aware of specific policies, according to the annual Ipsos Green Technology report.

Online Retailers To Emphasize Free Shipping, Social Media This Holiday Season

The economy is not only impacting shoppers, it’s affecting online retailers, too. According to results of Shop.org’s eHoliday Study, conducted by BIGresearch, shoppers will see changes in retail marketing and promotions this holiday season in response to economic uncertainty. With an understanding that many of today’s shoppers use Facebook and Twitter regularly, and because these tools are more cost-effective than traditional advertising, 47.1% of retailers surveyed will be increasing their use of social media this holiday season.

Top Ten Holiday Trends For 2009

BIGresearch shares 10 insights of what to expect this holiday season based largely on findings from NRF’s first holiday survey.

Flat Is The New Up: Web Buzz Also Suggests Soft Holiday Retail Season

Despite increased optimism about the economy, the social media landscape indicates that we are in a similar place to where we were this time last year when it comes to spending; buzz about Christmas and holiday shopping is down 3% year-over-year.

Retailers Get Ready For Social Shopping Experience

Today, social media tools enable consumers to extend their connections and conduct commerce in powerful new ways. As people spend more time on social networks, retailers feel pressure to be there as well.

Consumers Want Televisions Capable Of Displaying Bigger And Better Images

Screen size and a better picture are the two most important things for prospective TV buyers, according The NPD Group’s 2009 TV Inventory Study. One-in-four consumers say they’ll most likely be making a new TV purchase in the next six months.

Nearly 1 In 5 Net Users Is Tweeting

Nearly one in five Internet users is tweeting on Twitter or using another service to share personal and business updates, or to see updates about others, according to a new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That’s an increase to 19% from 11% last spring, according to the group.

Internet Radio Stations Play More Artists Than Broadcast Stations

The number of unique artists played on Internet radio stations is more than 32 times the number of unique artists played on broadcast/terrestrial radio, according to data supplied by streamSerf, a company that monitors and reports on music played on terrestrial, Internet and satellite radio stations.

Fee vs. Free For Online Video

Most people want to watch online video for free, but research indicates there is room for paid models as well.

Relevant Marketing With Mobile Alerts

A survey conducted by Harris Interactive for 1020 Placecast found that 42% of 18-to-34-year-olds and 33% of 35-to-44-year-olds are at least somewhat interested in receiving opt-in mobile alerts from their favorite places.

Web Coupons A Hit For The Affluent

Consumer spending may have gone up in August, but Internet users are still keeping the purse strings tight. RetailMeNot.com found, in a survey conducted by Harris Interactive, that Web users are planning further cuts to holiday gift spending this year, and increasing their use of coupons over 2008.

Understanding Consumer Preferences

Multichannel campaigns will find greater success when marketers are aware of consumer preferences and behaviors. That finding, from a Forrester Consulting study commissioned by ExactTarget, should not come as a surprise. But marketers may be ignoring its implications.

College Kids Are The Digital Demo

College students are the most connected demographic group in the US. They own multiple electronic devices and are a prime audience for online video.

Bargain-Hunting Gamers Turning To Impulse Buying, Used Titles

The video game industry has been overcome by a wave of impulse purchases fueled primarily by creative packaging and online accessibility. According to “The Canadian Video Game Purchase Process,” a study conducted by The NPD Group, 40% of video game buyers stated that they have purchased a game on impulse in the past six months despite the recent recession.

Five Reasons Corporations Are Failing At Social Media

Social media isn’t complicated. When you boil it down it’s about listening to your customers, being helpful by offering your knowledge and giving them interesting content to share and thereby advocate for you.

Better Not To Mention The Lousy Economy

With the recession impinging strongly on consumer behavior, some brands’ ads acknowledge its effects. Others remain silent on the topic. Which approach do consumers prefer? An AdweekMedia/Harris Poll, conducted last month, finds relatively little enthusiasm (and lots of indifference) for ads that refer to the downturn.

Holiday Retail Outlook

The NPD Group released the results of its annual survey of consumers’ holiday spending intentions. Thirty percent of consumers surveyed told NPD they ‘plan to spend less’ this holiday, which is a four point increase over last year’s results.

The Speed Of Share

Facebook has a problem. One of its main goals now is to be the center for sharing everything on the web, but the key to that is to make the process as quick and easy as possible. And in that regard, its rival Twitter destroys it.

Facebook Sees Nearly 200% Visit Boost, While Twitter Traffic Also Soars

Facebook logged 58.6% of all U.S. visits among 155 social networking Web sites in September 2009, a 194% increase over the site’s market share from September 2008. HitWise gauged the online traffic of 10 million U.S. Web users across one million Web sites. Twitter boasted astronomical growth, up 1,170% from its negligible .15% market share from September 2008. As far as social sites go, Twitter is positioned to be Facebook’s biggest challenger.

The Difference Being A Mom Makes

Having kids changes your life. It may also change your feelings about online marketing, according to the “What Women Want Consumer Survey” by Prospectiv.

Tis’ The Season For Online Spending

According to the results of a survey focused on consumer’s 2009 holiday spending outlook by Burst Media, 62.8% of consumers plan to spend the same or cut back on their holiday purchases compared to 2008. Although consumers plan to hold tight with their spending this holiday season, 85.3% of respondents will shop online.

The Music Industry Outlook

Analysts speaking at Digital Music Forum West in Hollywood this afternoon suggested that there’s more pain ahead for the industry — much more. On the other hand, they said it’s not necessarily a bad time for artists, and things couldn’t be better for fans.

AdMob: Apple Dominates Mobile Web

In the latest Mobile Metrics Report, AdMob found that the iPhone OS has increased its share of the market by 7% to reach 40% in the last six months.

NRF Forecasts One Percent Decline In Holiday Sales

The National Retail Federation is projecting holiday retail industry sales to decline 1% this year to $437.6 billion. While this number falls significantly below the 10-year average of 3.39% holiday season growth, the decline is not expected to be as dramatic as last year’s 3.4% drop in holiday retail sales nor as severe as the 3.0% decline in annual retail industry sales expected for all of 2009.

Cyber Census Ethnographic Study of American Cyber Lives

Understanding new consumer music behavior was the reason NARM sponsored the 2009 Cyber Census conducted by On-Site Research. Ethnography is a consumer research methodology that utilizes anthropological techniques and embeds researchers into actual consumer reality. Four key summaries can be found in this report: Cyber Segmentation; E + C Squared = Monetizing Success; Mac Guyvering Habitats; and Apathy & Piracy Leave A Sweet Spot For Music Retail.

Watching Your Own TV, Thousands Of Miles Away

People no longer need to live in a country to see all of their local TV stations. In fact, they don’t even need a TV anymore.

Consumers Smitten With Smartphones

Most new smartphone users are now consumers, a dramatic change from just a few years ago when the gadgets were primarily in the hands of business types, according to a recently released survey by research firm CFI Group.

A Dozen Applications For Social Media

Many marketers employ a wide range of effective approaches while, despite the super-sized growth, others have not yet leveraged social media. Consider these 12 ways companies leverage social media to build relationships and drive sales.

Time For Digital Music To Get A Reality Check

It’s been a busy September for the digital music business, so it seems like a good time to assess the chances these key music models — selling music online, free on-demand streaming, paid subscription, Internet radio, legacy businesses, and piracy — have of surviving.

The Great American Gaming Landscape

The Crispy Gamer crunches the numbers to provide a visual and numerical breakdown of American gaming and console ownership.

Best Practices: What’s in a Retail E-Mail?

With social media presence rapidly becoming a must for online retailers, Email Data Source and Goodmail Systems studied how often retailers were including social media marketing links in their e-mail campaigns.

The Web Analytics Headache

To prove the success of their campaigns, marketers need analytics. But many report frustration with understanding and using the Web analytics tools necessary to prove their success to management, according to “The Web Analytics War Reader Survey” by Unica.

Apple’s Shadow Hangs Over Game Console Makers

Among the questions voiced by video game executives: How can Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft keep consumers hooked on game-only consoles, like the Wii or even the PlayStation Portable, when Apple offers games on popular, everyday devices that double as cellphones and music players?

comScore Releases August 2009 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

In August 2009, Americans conducted more than 13.9 billion core searches, with Google Sites accounting for 64.6% search market share. Microsoft Sites grabbed 9.3% market share, a 0.4-percentage point gain versus July.

Going Mobile Tops the Chart of Enterprise Application Goals

The Who, enterprises are “Going Mobile” in a big way, with 50% planning to roll out mobile-enabled or collaborative applications next year. To make the most of their investments, however, enterprises should focus on collaborative, customer-facing apps and tailor them specifically to the mobile environment.

Mobile Ad Spending to Gain Momentum

With the proliferation of affordable smartphones continuing to ramp up, mobile ad spending (including messaging-based formats) will reach $416 million in 2009 and increase to a stellar $1.56 billion by 2013, according to eMarketer.

The ‘Jukebox Era’ Has Arrived … For Videogames

The home videogame industry — after decades of viewing “coin-op” video as either an obstacle or an irrelevance — now increasingly sees arcade videogames as a promising partner. Amusement video is suddenly considered a potentially powerful way to get owners of Xbox, PlayStation, and Wii systems excited about playing (and then purchasing) a hot new videogame title for enjoyment at home.

How Mobile Will Reshape The Customer Experience

Mobile applications for smart phones are poised to be the future for retailer communications with shoppers, becoming a virtual extension of the shelf edge—and a highly complementary component of shopper marketing.

Social Is Going Mobile

When Facebook launched its mobile app in January, less than 10% of its traffic was via mobile phone. Just nine months later, more than 25% of traffic comes from smartphones.

Apps Trump Tunes at Apple

As iPod sales ease, the company is focusing more and more on software.

Content Still King On The Net

The Internet offers everything from searching to shopping to social networking, but Net users still spend most of their time on plain old content sites, according to a survey from the Online Publishers Association.

A Social Media “How To” for Retailers

As social media continues its meteoric ascent, newly empowered consumers wield more control than ever before. Although retail sales are dominated by brick and mortar stores, the influence of the Internet on offline purchases is becoming increasingly important. Retailers must listen to and engage their customers through social media by participating and encouraging conversations. The end result will improve customer service and will help turn loyal customers into passionate advocates.

Households With Kids Up To 12 Years Of Age Account For 45% Of Video Game Industry Revenue

Kids 12 years of age and younger account for 24% of video game industry unit sales, while households with kids in this age group present comprise 45% of total industry dollar sales, according to NPD’s new report, “Kids & Cross-Entertainment Behaviors.”

Free Shipping Email Offers Spike Conversions

According to a new survey from Experian CheetahMail, 70% of respondents from online companies offering business and consumer products and services, catalogers, and multichannel retailers had higher conversion rates on e-mails offering free shipping than on other types of marketing e-mails.

Retail Sales Post First Monthly Increase In Six Months Despite “Clunkers” Stealing Thunder

According to the National Retail Federation, retail industry sales (which exclude automobiles, gas stations, and restaurants) saw their first gain in six months, with sales rising 0.7% from July, though dipping 4.3% year-over-year.

Americans Tune Out Mobile Music

U.S. cell phone users are still not very interested in using their phones as their primary music players, according to a study from Forrester Research. The report, “The Future of Music On Cell Phones,” said 10% of adult Americans listen to music on their phones once a month.

Digital Music Increases Share of Overall Music Sales Volume in the U.S.

According to The NPD Group, while CDs remain the most popular format for paid music purchases, digital music sales are making up an ever-greater share of U.S. music sales. CDs comprised 65% of all music sold in the first half of 2009 compared to paid digital downloads, which comprised 35% of music sales. By comparison, paid digital music downloads comprised just 20% of sales in 2007 – growing to 30% of the music market last year.

Game Sales Drop 16% as Madden, Batman, Wii Sports Resort Dominate

Total industry sales fell 16% to $908.72 million, putting year-to-date sales at $9.07 billion. Software sales were down 15% to $470.32 million while hardware plummeted 25% to $297.60 million.

Top 5 Web Trends of 2009

This week ReadWriteWeb will run a series of posts detailing what we think are the 5 biggest, most cutting edge Web trends to come out of 2009: Structured Data; The Real-Time Web; Personalization; Mobile Web & Augmented Reality; and Internet Of Things.

Report Of Findings From The NARM College-Aged Consumer Panel

As part of the recent NARM conference in San Diego, CA (June 7-10, 2009), Colen Research & Consulting conducted a live panel discussion among college-aged music consumers. This serves as a report of the key findings from the panel.

Objective
The two-part objective of the panel was to: A) Better understand how college-aged consumers are currently discovering, managing and listening to music; B) Obtain feedback on various new business models—both physical and digital.

Methodology
Eleven consumers from the San Diego area participated in the panel. The discussion took place on June 8, 2009 and lasted approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Before coming to the panel discussion, each consumer was sent various new music products and was asked to experience the products in the context of their own lives and music habits. They were given a little over one week to use the products, during which time they were asked to keep a written log of their experiences. The survey that accompanied the products covered their current music behaviors and questions related to their reactions to the new products they were sent. Consumers’ behavior, initial reactions to the products, actual usage and final impressions were recorded and explored during the panel discussion.

The respondent specifications were:

• Ages 18-21 (mix of full-time and part-time college students and full-time workers; college students were from multiple institutions—not all concentrated in one school)
• males; 5 females
• A mix of ethnicities, representative of the local market
• A mix of those who typically listen to digital-only and both digital and physical music formats
• A mix of those who purchase most of their music and those who obtain their music primarily via file-sharing
• All regularly used a mp3 player (mix of iPod and other brands)
• All but two had a mobile phone with a microSD slot

For detailed findings, click here.

TV Viewing Moves Online

Nearly one out of four U.S. households watches TV online, up from 20% last year. And Hulu.com is fast becoming the hot site – just behind YouTube.com – for watching TV programs. More …

Digital Video Website Usage, And Mix Of Revenue Models, Expanding Rapidly

According to findings from Ipsos MediaCT’s MOTION study, awareness and usage of many digital video websites increased in recent months, with strong consumer acceptance of ad-supported video content. More …

Digital Music Increases Share Of Overall U.S. Music Sales Volume

According to The NPD Group, while CDs remain the most popular format for paid music purchases, digital music sales are making up an ever-greater share of U.S. music sales. More …

Facebook 'Enhances Intelligence;' Twitter 'Diminishes It'

Spending time on Facebook could enhance a key element of intelligence that is vital to success in life, a psychologist has claimed, but using Twitter may have the opposite effect. More …

The Future Of Virtual Goods

According to a recent Piper Jaffray report, U.S. virtual good sales will total $621 million in 2009 — up 134% from 2008’s $265 million. This total will rise to nearly $2.5 billion by 2013. More …

Study: Connected TV Revenues Top $1B in Q2 2009

The connected TV market grew 40 percent from $776 million in Q1 2009 to $1.08 billion in Q2 2009, according to Quixwl Research. More …

Report Of Findings From The NARM College-Aged Consumer Panel

As part of the recent NARM conference, Colen Research & Consulting conducted a live panel discussion among college-aged music consumers. Panel findings can be review in this report.

The Album Is Dead, Long Live the App

The iTunes music store sells single songs at approximately the same price, with artist presented in more or less the same way. Apple’s app store, however, is still somewhat like the wild west, where the rules are being made up in real time. Artists and labels can sell music alongside other digital offerings through the app store at any price from zero to $999.99. More …