Naked Newsletter
» In US: Over $13.4 billion has been spent online for holiday season so far (up 18% from last year). Heaviest online spending day was Cyber Monday (Nov. 26), with $733 million in sales. Product categories with strong sales growth: video games, consoles and accessories (+170%), toys (+36%), computer hardware (+21%), sports & fitness (+19%).
Spending by political advertisers on internet ads, marketing and promotional efforts is poised to be 150% higher than the last presidential election cycle. Projected spending by next November: $73 million.
» In UK: Wii in hot demand! It’s the most searched for product online in November. There were 13x as many searches for ‘nintendo wii’ as there were for ‘apple ipod’.
» In Russia: Mail.ru is Russia’s first $1bn internet company. From March to September 2007, monthly audience increased 20% to 35.3 million people. Mail.ru operates the largest free web mail service in Russia as well as blog, photo, video, dating, and other online portal services.
» In Estonia: The country has officially opened an embassy in Second Life. The basis: Second Life is as progressive as its own society. Estonia hopes to reach out to professionals who may not be able to travel there and act as a conduit for information to countries where Estonia has no representation. Virtual embassy is complete with post-modernist architecturem, art work and multi-level meeting spaces. See it in a YouTube video here.
» In Asia: iProspect, the Original® Search Engine Marketing Firm, continues its global expansion by launching new offices in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.
» Members are now allowed to completely opt out of Beacon (the purchase info-sharing ad program). Beacon has not exactly been well-received in its short life span thus far.
» Facebook’s photo galleries just got better with Ajax interface, which lets images load faster by bringing information to a page that previously required multiple clicks through a site.
» Causes is one of the most popular Facebook applications, with over 300,000 active users. The service aggregates 40,000 causes that benefit 13,000 nonprofits worldwide. So instead of just giving ‘virtual gifts’, now you can give Gifts from Causes. Each virtual gift benefits a different charity; 100% of the proceeds (minus credit card fees) go directly to the charity.
» EMI and Abbey Bank team up to attract younger clients. Those opening an ‘under 18s’ account before Jan 31st, 2008 will receive special offers on EMI artist downloads.
» You know the visual thesaurus? How it maps out synonyms with graphs? Now there’s something that maps out the complexity of websites in a similar fashion: http://www.aharef.info/static/htmlgraph/ (type in HouseofNaked, or your own blog, and watch it go!)
» Google has a new experiment aimed at improving the search experience. The experiment let users influence their search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again, you’ll continue to see those changes. *Note: feature may only be available for a few weeks.
» Music social network Imeem has inked a deal with Universal Music Group. Members can now listen to 5 million full-length songs for free (iTunes has 6 million).
» Hyphen-8 has been beta testing new mobile social network, Lime Juice. The goal is to allow people in a bar/social gathering to learn a little about people around them, and flirt via mobile network to break the ice. E.g.– You could be in a bar and see who’s single, who thinks you’re cute, who wants to talk to you, etc. Best feature: users can actually join on the fly, via SMS.
* Many other similar startups are launching (Mig33, ZYB, Mocospace, Aka-Aki, Nokia Sensor, Dodgeball, Mobiluck, MeetMoi and Imity, etc). New trend, perhaps?
» Future Scanner brings social news voting to future predictions (like Digg, but only for stories about the future). Content is organized by year and category and is claimed to be the first “broader media platform dedicated to the future.” Goal: create a rich, interactive playground for people to explore the future and see how technological change will increasingly affect daily lives. Sample subjects include urban planning, culture and entertainment among others.
» ReProduct makes greeting cards that come with 2-way envelopes (like Netflix). After viewing, the cards can be popped into a pre-paid return envelope and sent back to Shaw Industries, where they will be recycled into carpet tiles (Nice!).
» Technorati relaunches to focus on core audience: bloggers and advertisers. In place of streaming blog posts is a news aggregator that use users’ linking behavior on news sites to determine headline news. Technorati is also making 2 other big additions:
1) A resource page for bloggers called Blogger Central (shows popular blog tags and top blogs by links and popularity).
2) A new product called Today In Photos (shows what’s hot, visually).
» MySpace launches a new part of its website, called Transmissions. It’ll feature candid session videos and recordings of musicians. You can purchase 5 songs for $14, through a partnership with Lala.com. Kinda like MTV Unplugged for today’s music fans.