The number of items purchased via eBay mobile applications tripled during the 2009 holiday season over the previous year, the online auction giant said. Consumers purchased 1.5 million items on their mobile handsets during the holidays, translating to a sale every two seconds–acquisitions include a 23-foot boat ($19,108), a Steinway piano ($10,000) and a Hermes bag ($3,888).  In all, eBay mobile users generated more than $500 million in transactions during 2009–close to 6 million consumers have now downloaded eBay’s iPhone application, and shoppers across 165 countries are now making 750,000 unique visits a day to the site using mobile apps.  Read more at www.fiercemobilecontent.com

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New research from Interpublic Group’s Initiative concludes that the recession is having a far greater impact on consumer spending habits than previous downturns, and that some behavior patterns, as well as brand perceptions, will be permanently changed.

Internet usage was up among respondents in every country surveyed, with the largest increase being for searches for coupons and offers, up 58 percent overall versus a year ago. Big usage gains were also recorded for online researching for general information (up 49 percent), reading consumer content online (up 48 percent) and buying products online (up 48 percent).  Read more at www.adweek.com

Revenue generated in the U.S. and Canada by the videogame industry, minus hardware sales, will grow at an average clip of 5.8 percent annually over the next five years, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis.

Videogame advertising, which generated just $30 million in North America in 2004, will grow to $886 million this year and to $1.4 billion in 2013, according to PWC. Read more at www.adweek.com

Last week, Microsoft launched the new version of its search engine, Bing and initial interest has been high due to a major advertising campaign to drive awareness, extensive media coverage, and of course, curiosity.

In the US, Bing ranked 17th among all websites out of over 450,000 websites, up from 5120 the week before the official launch when the website was merely a placeholder. Within the Search Engines category, Bing ranked 4th out of the search engines tracked by Hitwise and Bing Image Search ranked 15th for the week ending June 6, 2009.

See more at weblogs.hitwise.com

comScore has just released April 2009 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, which shows that nearly 152 million U.S. Internet users watched 16.8 billion online videos during the month, representing an increase of 16 percent over March.

107.1 million viewers watched 6.8 billion videos on YouTube.com — which is 63.5 videos per viewer.Read more at blog.searchenginewatch.com

Worldwide mobile video subscriber totals will grow five-fold between 2008 and 2014 to surpass 534 million according to a new forecast issued by market analysis firm Pyramid Research, which adds that a significant percentage of mobile net additions will come from emerging markets.Read more at www.fiercemobilecontent.com

Movie studio advertising spending is going up and going online.

An increasing share of the movie advertising spend is heading to the digital sector—$1.2 billion will go to digital ads in 2009, and in 2013, online ad budgets will grow to $2.7 billion.

See more at www.emarketer.com

As expected, Microsoft has officially announced the launch of Bing, its new search engine brand, which will go live on June 3. The company is touting the product as a “decision engine” that has been designed to help users solve immediate problems faster by narrowing down the number of search results it delivers. And without naming Google directly, Microsoft is emphasizing Bing’s ability to save users from sifting through thousands of links for every search they conduct — i.e. the typical Google search experience.

The site also provides users with suggested search results (much like Google) and allows for simple task-oriented searches, such as providing flight information or traffic conditions without requiring users to visit other sites. Read more at www.adweek.com

Three Useful Points to Consider in Social Media Marketing and Measurement

1) Clarity is key: define your success

2) Keep measurement simple and familiar

3) Control is not the point, listening isRead more at blog.comscore.com

There is some good news and bad news about workplace social media.

The good news, according to Deloitte, is that nearly one-third (30%) of executives said social networking is a part of their business and operations strategy.

Now for the bad news: There can be some serious downsides to using social networks—which even enthusiastic users admit.

Nearly three-quarters of employees agreed that it’s easy to damage a company’s reputation on social media, including 24% who strongly agreed.

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Despite positive news from Virgin Atlantic today, there is no doubt that these are tough times for the airline industry. UK Internet traffic to websites in our Aviation – Commercial Airlines category (which is dominated by the airline’s homepages) was down by 19.2% between April 2008 and April 2009. However, one area of the travel industry seems to be thriving online despite – or perhaps, because of – the recession is public transport. As the chart below illustrates, UK Internet visits to a custom category of the top train, bus and coach websites increased by 3.7% between April 2008 and April 2009.

See more at weblogs.hitwise.com

The economy is putting ever-increasing demands on marketers to make every dollar count and demonstrate positive ROI.

According to the “2009 Promo Interactive Marketing Survey” from PROMO magazine, the demand to perform is driving marketers online. More than one-third of marketers surveyed believed that interactive marketing ROI would be more profitable than traditional marketing—such as TV, radio and outdoor—this year.

While 29% of the marketers surveyed were not sure whether digital marketing ROI would be more profitable or not, only 7% of them believed that digital marketing would be less profitable. Read more at www.emarketer.com

Software maker Intuit is announcing a new service today, called Intuit GoPayment, that will put credit-card processing technology into most cell phones, paving the way for electricians, tow-truck drivers or any other mobile workers who normally depend on sending a bill, collecting a check or sticking to a cash-only model to collect immediate payment. Read more at www.textually.org

If Americans’ search behavior is any indication which way they’re leaning towards voting for the next American Idol, it looks like it’ll be a runaway victory for Adam Lambert. Compared to other contestants Kris Allen and Danny Gokey, Lambert generated a whopping 78% of all searches for the three finalists during the week ending May 10, according to comScore Marketer data. (Incidentally, Females Age 35-64, who apparently have a track record of predicting the annual Idol winner, gave Lambert a slightly higher 80% of the vote.)

See more at blog.comscore.com

iPhone and iPod touch ad impressions increased 8 percent month-over-month in April, according to mobile advertising firm Millennial Media’s monthly Scorecard for Mobile Advertising Reach and Targeting report. Apple devices now account for 12.83 percent of all Millennial impressions, behind Samsung at 21.43 percent but ahead of LG at 10.94 percent. The iPhone is the top overall device, generating 7.12 percent of total Millennial impressions, followed by the BlackBerry Curve (5.7 percent), the Samsung Instinct (5.65 percent), the Samsung SCH-R450 (4.31 percent) and the BlackBerry Pearl (3.42 percent). Read more at www.fiercemobilecontent.com