Tiger Blog Reviews » holiday

Facebook’s Merry Christmas: Becomes Most Visited US Site

cgseo — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:51:10 +0000

According to new statistics from Hitwise, a lot of people may not have done the Norman Rockwell thing this holiday season, gathering around a fire with family members. Continue reading →

Online Retail Sites See Holiday Surge

cgseo — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:58:37 +0000

Online retail websites experienced significant growth in November as the holiday season officially kicked off, according to a new report from comScore. Among the top gaining retail sub-categories were toys, consumer electronics, and department stores, each growing more than 30 percent compared to October. Toys sites attracted 27.4 million Americans during the month, representing a 33-percent increase from the previous month. Toysrus led the category with more than 14.8 million visitors (up 82%), ranking as the fourth top-gaining property in November. The LEGO Group landed in the second spot in the toys category wit 3.8 million visitors (up12%), followed by Disney Shopping with 2.6 million (up29%) and AmericanGirl.com with 1.9 million (up 44%). "November marks the official start of the holiday shopping season as millions of Americans search for gifts and deals both online and in stores," said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. "With nearly 4 out of 5 Americans online visiting a retail site during November, the Internet clearly represents an increasingly important channel for retailers during the holiday season and beyond." Consumer electronics sites grew to 52.8 million visitors during the month, a 32 percent increase over October, led by Best Buy with nearly 25 million visitors and Walmart Electronics with 9.9 million visitors (up 139%). Radio Shack ranked third with 5.1 million visitors, followed closely by eBay Electronics with 4.8 million visitors (up 12 %) and Buy.com with 4.4 million visitors (up 11%). Online department stores saw a 33 percent gain, reaching nearly 81 million unique visitors in November. Walmart led the category with 46.2 million visitors (up 62%), followed by Target with 38.8 million (up 43%), Sears with more than 19 million (up 36%), JCPenney with 15.4 million (up 34%), and Macy's with 12.7 million (up 38%). Online shoppers flocked to coupon sites, making it the #3 gaining category in November, growing 33 percent to 37.5 million visitors. Coupons, Inc. landed in the top spot with more than 8 million visitors (up 9%), followed by EverSave.com with 5.3 million visitors and RetailMeNot with 5.1 million (up43%). BlackFriday.Info experienced a huge surge in activity, increasing more than 1,000 percent to 5 million visitors. GottaDeal.com saw traffic increase 955 percent to 1.8 million. The month of November saw online spending increase 10 percent versus a year ago to reach nearly $12.3 billion in sales. comScore noted that the comparison is against a very weak November 2008, due to the economic crisis. Black Friday hit $595 million in online sales, an 11 percent increase over Black Friday 2008. Cyber Monday reached $887 million in online spending, up 5 percent compared to a year ago. Google sites led the U.S. search market in November with 65.6 percent of the search queries conducted, up slightly from October. Yahoo trailed with 17.5 percent share (down 0.5 points from October), and Microsoft at 10.3 percent (an increase of 0.4 points from October). Ask grabbed 3.8 percent of the search market, followed by AOL with 2.8 percent. Have You Read This? > Cyber Monday Deals Attract Online Shoppers > Walmart Wins Thanksgiving, Amazon Wins Black Friday > Online Retailers See Strong Cyber Monday Sales Continue reading →

Google Shares Top Retail Searches for the Holiday Season

admin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:30:17 +0000

Google has shared the top retail searches for the 2009 holiday season. These results are based on the company's Insights for Search tool. "Using Google Insights for Search, we can see that the hottest toys over the last seven days include stalwarts like Pikachu and Legos, as well as newcomers, such as the Nerf Marshmellow Shooter and the surprise hit of the holiday season, a blanket-with-sleeves known as the Snuggie," says Eric Lopez of the Google Retail Team. "In the shopping category, we've seen Black Friday reach new heights, toping the rising search term list over the last 30 days as consumers continue to seek out the best prices," adds Lopez. "Consumers too continue to turn to familiar, top retailers such as Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon and Macy's." Google has been encouraging retailers to start looking ahead to the rest of the Winter season with regards to what people will be searching for: things like Valentine's Day gifts, Prom dresses, wedding planning, ski equipment, etc. On a positive note for retailers, new research from Market Force Info finds that a good percentage of consumers intend to "splurge" on at least one item over the next few months. Continue reading →

Going Home For The Holidays? Google Wants To Tag Along

cgseo — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:19:29 +0000

As people return home this holiday season, there will be all sorts of hugs and "have you had enough to eat"s. Continue reading →

Google Earmarks $20M For Charities As Holiday Gift To Everyone

admin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:11:28 +0000

Some time ago, Google established a tradition of sending top AdSense and AdWords users holiday gifts. Continue reading →

Ford Turning Cars Into Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspots

admin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:38:23 +0000

Next year, Ford will be introducing it's new version of SYNC , a technology it partnered with Microsoft on. This technology will allow you to have constant Wi-Fi in your car. All an owner of a SYNC-ready car would have to do is plug in a compatible USB mobile broadband modem (or air card), and they will create a secure wireless connection that will be broadcast throughout the vehicle. "While you're driving to grandma's house, your spouse can be finishing the holiday shopping and the kids can be chatting with friends and updating their Facebook profiles," said Mark Fields, Ford president of The Americas. "And you're not paying for yet another mobile subscription or piece of hardware because Ford will let you use technology you already have." "The speeds with which technology is evolving, particularly on the wireless front, makes obsolescence a real problem," said Doug VanDagens, director of Ford's Connected Services Solutions Organization. "We've solved that problem by making SYNC work with just about any technology you plug into it. By leveraging a user's existing hardware, which can be upgraded independent of SYNC, we've helped ensure 'forward compatibility' with whatever connectivity technology comes next." "Using SYNC with existing mobile devices helps Ford provide the most value, the most flexibility and the most convenience for owners," said Fields. "Constant connectivity is becoming a routine part of our customers' lives, and we're making existing technology more accessible without adding costs: That's the kind of value Ford drivers have learned to expect." Ford has proven in the past to be a particularly Internet-savvy company. This was evident from an interview WebProNews did with Scott Monty, who runs the company's social media efforts: Ford says studies by the Consumer Electronics Association show that as many as 77 million adults make up the so-called technology enthusiast drivers population, more than half of whom express the desire for a connected communications and information system in their vehicles. They say over a third of Americans would be interested in the ability to check email and access Web sites in their vehicles. Have You Read This? > Google Earth Makes Leap To Automobiles > Google Develops Fleet Of Fuel-Efficient Cars > How Ford Does Social Media

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Ford Turning Cars Into Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspots

Google Maps Introduces Useful Popups

cgseo — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:11:18 +0000

We'll admit from the start: this change will not revolutionize the world. Continue reading →

Site Usability Issues Matter During the Holidays

admin — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:57:24 +0000

We're well into the holiday season now, in terms of having sites ready for holiday sales. That said, it's never too late to improve your site. Your sales may depend on it. There are lot of key ingredients that go into the recipe of a successful e-commerce site: marketing, analytics, customer service, prices, competition, and the list goes on. Somewhere in there is design, and more importantly, usability. With said holiday season in full swing, it can't hurt to brush up on a few usability tips. Usability issues are sometimes debatable, and a matter of opinion, but accessibility plays a vital role. Make sure your site is accessible (at least to the best of your ability) to those with disabilities. It's not only the right thing to do for them, but it also opens up the door for them to give you their business. Designer Chris Spooner has a nice list of usability crimes (things to avoid). This list includes things like logos that don't link to the home page, not specifying visited links, not indicating active form fields, Continue reading →

Google Makes Free Holiday Postcard Offer

admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:10:42 +0000

It is, of course, the thought that counts. Continue reading →

eBay Previews Possible Geotargeting Feature for Sellers

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:46:48 +0000

As you may know, Black Friday is a pretty popular day for online shopping as well as offline. With that in mind, it is no surprise that a lot of people turned to eBay to find deals and work on their holiday gift buying. eBay has created an interesting visualization of the site's Black Friday activity across the United States. This comes in the form of an animated map, which shows the areas of the country with the most shopping activity, and shows new areas as their first purchases were made. It's really easier to grasp if you just watch the short 2-minutes clip eBay provides: On the eBay Holiday site , the company explains a little bit about the methodology and data execution that went into creating this animated map: The visualization is based on raw data that includes eBay sales and purchases occurring in approximately 33,000 U.S. ZIP codes. To best represent large population areas and to condense data for a seamless display, ZIP codes were grouped to create 3,118 distinct areas. The methodology used to create these areas was based on the distance from the center of one ZIP code to adjacent ZIP codes. Those with a distance of less than .35 (latitude or longitude) between them were combined into an area. The size of each point on the map corresponds to the number of ZIP codes encompassed within that area. In other words, the more ZIP codes included in an area, the larger the point on the map. The color of the points ranges in intensity, and areas with lower transaction totals appear in yellow while those with the highest number of total transactions appear in red. The spectrum of color can be most easily understood by comparing points on the map to the Activity Level Indicator, found just beneath it. The map is available for interested parties as a widget, which can be embedded. That can be found here . Interestingly, the company notes on the eBay Ink blog : "Even more interesting will be to see if we can make this a regular feature. It takes some fairly detailed transactional data to come up with such a high-level but targeted visual map. Crucial data for sellers looking to see geographical purchasing behavior patterns partnered with peak purchasing times (down to the second)." This could be a popular feature (if released) for sellers to better target their offerings. This could in turn help with the marketing of their eBay stores. Would you find such a feature useful? Share your thoughts here . Related Articles: > Continue reading →