Smartphone Sales Up 47% In Q2
In terms of sales of mobile phones in the U.S. feature phones still account for a considerable share of the market, even as smartphone sales continue to increase their share of overall handset sales, according to a new report from The NPD Group.
Sales of new feature phones decreased 5 percent to 72 percent of new handset sales in the second quarter, while sales of new smartphones reached 28 percent of overall purchases, a 47 percent increase year-over-year.
TwitVid Delivers First Twitter Video Upload App for Blackberry
TwitVid has just released what it calls "the first Twitter Video uploading application for the Blackberry." Blackberry-using Twitterers with a love for sharing video can now rejoice.
Cable Companies Take Advertisers’ Ads Online
National Cable Communications (NCC) and Mixpo have launched an initiative to let cable advertisers extend their TV commercials to the web. This is not aimed at creating pre/post roll video ads like you might think, but videos as display ads in place of traditional banners.
NCC is jointly owned by three of the largest cable companies – Comcast Cable, Cox Communications, and Time Warner Cable. This makes up a good-sized chunk of television advertising in the US.
Businesses Can Submit Their Property to Google Street View
Google introduced its Street View Partner Program today. This lets organizations and businesses apply to have their property featured in Street View on Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google Maps for Mobile.
Google and Predicting Search Trends
Update: Google has a fascinating research paper available about how it predicts search trends. Some of the key findings from this research are highlighted in this post at Google’s Research Blog.
Facebook Privacy Concerns Make Their Way To Canada
Facebook is gearing up to face off with the government again—this time over privacy concerns in two different venues: the California courts and a Canadian commission.
Google: Conversion Rates Hardly Vary by Ad Position
Ever wondered if your AdWords conversion rates would be better if your ads were just positioned differently? According to Google, it doesn’t matter a whole lot where they are positioned.
Google Chief Economist Hal Varian and his team claim to have done some research into the subject and has concluded that conversion rates just don’t vary much by position.
Microsoft Partners With Advance Internet On Local Ad Deal
Advance Internet, which runs news and information websites in alliance with more than 30 newspapers has entered into an agreement with Microsoft that will allow its sales staff to sell ads on the Microsoft Media Network on the local level.
Under the agreement Advance Internet’s sales force will offer behavioral targeting and audience extension capabilities to its local advertisers on the Microsoft Media Network.
The Top 50 Websites in the US
Compete puts together a monthly ranking of the top 250 Web sites in the US, based on unique visitors, and breaks up the data by relevant categories and behavioral segments. In its latest report, Compete found that the top performers for July fell into four main categories: auto manufacturers that were part of the "Cash for Clunkers" deal, summer blockbuster movie sites, back-to-school shopping sites and social media news aggregates (like Digg or Tweetmeme).
Digital Music Sales Closing In On CDs
The majority of music sales still come from CDs, but digital music sales are making up an ever- greater share of the U.S. market, according to NPD MusicWatch.
CDs accounted for 65 percent of all music sold in the first half of 2009 compared to paid digital downloads, which comprised 35 percent of music sales. By comparison, paid digital music made up 20 percent of sales in 2007 growing to 30 percent of the music market last year.