Internet Retailer announced an update to their Hot 100 List for 2008.

This year’s sites range in size from Amazon.com, which continues to execute a brilliant online strategy while growing rapidly, to such smaller sites as AppliancePartsPros.com, which is a great example of how the Internet makes possible businesses that would have a hard time existing without the web.

Apparel & Accessories
AE.com
FamousFootwear.com
Gap.com
NikeStore.com
Nordstrom.com
Polo.com
Spiegel.com
Talbots.com
Zappos.com

Books/CDs/DVDs
Abebooks.com
iTunes.com
Netflix.com
SimplyAudioBooks.com

Computers/Electronics
BestBuy.com
Crutchfield.com
Dell.com
GameStop.com
JR.com
Palm.com
TigerDirect.com
YesAsia.com

Flowers/Gifts/Jewelry
1-800-Flowers.com
BlueNile.com
BuildABear.com
Ice.com
Zazzle.com

Food/Drug
FreshDirect.com
GreenMountainCoffee.com
OmahaSteaks.com

Housewares/Home Furnishings
Chiasso.com
Cooking.com
LumberLiquidators.com
Williams-Sonoma Home

Mass Merchants/Department Stores
Amazon.com
Buy.com
Costco.com
JCP.com
SmartBargains.com

Specialty/Non-Apparel
AppliancePartsPros.com
Backcountry.com
BassProShops.com
Bodybuilding.com
DoverSaddlery.com
DrsFosterSmith.com
JCWhitney.com
Moosejaw.com
NFLShop.com
Petco.com
PetsUnited
SportsmansGuide.com

In this article, I'm going to show you step-by-step how to
create search engine optimized Titles and META Tags.

The TITLE Element

TITLE elements, (commonly called TITLE Tags), are one of the
most important factors that search engines "look" at when it
comes to determining the relevancy of a web page against a
search query. In their ranking algorithms, nearly all the major
search engines attribute a high relevancy weight to the content
of the TITLE tag.

more by Kalena Jordan...

The high-flying loonie is driving online shoppers to seek bargains on US-based shopping sites.

As shoppers gear up for the holiday shopping frenzy, American online retail sites are reporting record sales at the expense of their Canadian counterparts, according to e-commerce specialists.

Industry insiders do not have any numbers yet, but they say U.S. Web sales are being boosted by thehigh-flying loonie that is driving both outlet mall and online shoppers to seek bargains south of the border.

"Just as our bricks and mortar shops are getting hammered by the falling greenback, so are our online stores," said Nick Dumitru, principal of Basis, a Web marketing firm in Toronto.

He said most insiders expect a 20 per cent drop in e-retail profits this Christmas season.

For years Canadians have crossed the border in search of bargains and greater selection even when the Canadian dollar traded way below the U.S.

more...

It sees a big opportunity in making cartridges that will help replace batteries in portable devices

Each day consumers snap up 10 million Bic razors and 5 million of the colorful plastic lighters made famous by the ad campaign "Flick My Bic." Those volumes pale in comparison to Bic's ubiquitous pens: The French company sold its 100 billionth in 2005. Bic, which had sales of about $2 billion in 2006, has spent 30 years honing the art of making disposable consumer goods.

more...

Cyber Monday traffic and sales reported at a blistering pace. Retailers say 72 million people will shop sometime during the day.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Online retailers were set to break one-day records for traffic and sales, as consumers hunted down Cyber Monday bargains.

By 2 p.m. ET, more than 300 retailing Web sites tracked by Internet monitoring firm Akamai were drawing 4.6 million visitors per minute - a three-year record for most traffic in a single day to retail Web sites.

Akamai said that its Net Usage Index - which monitors North American visitors to sites such as jcpenney.com, Bestbuy.com and Circuitcity.com - said traffic was up more than 80 percent compared to a normal Monday.

In addition, ComScore Networks estimates that Cyber Monday sales will surpass $700 million, which would make it the heaviest online spending day on record.

more...

If you picture music industry CEOs as cranky old white men who are completely out of touch with technology and mad at the world for changing around them, you're pretty damn spot-on. Wired has an upcoming profile on Universal Music CEO Doug Morris, and the guy seems as fit to run a newly tech-based company as a dog is fit to pilot a submarine. He basically sees technology as his enemy, wishing his days away for a simpler time where he could control every aspect of a record's distribution. Oh, and he compares the music industry to a character in "Li'l Abner," a comic strip that stopped running in 1977. 1977! I can't wait to read the entire profile, but there is one choice quote available now:

"There's no one in the record industry that's a technologist," Morris explains. "That's a misconception writers make all the time, that the record industry missed this. They didn't. They just didn't know what to do. It's like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do?"

Personally, I would hire a vet. But to Morris, even that wasn't an option. "We didn't know who to hire," he says, becoming more agitated. "I wouldn't be able to recognize a good technology person -- anyone with a good bullshit story would have gotten past me."

If dudes like this guy are running all the record companies, it's no wonder they're in a tailspin. So long, music industry. You had a good run. [NY Mag via Boing Boing]

Thanks to "better than expected consumer response to its holiday slate worldwide," Activision today raised its third quarter and full year fiscal outlook. This is largely due to the great success of Guitar Hero III and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

For the holiday period (third quarter ending Dec. 31), Activision now expects record net revenues of $1.225 billion and earnings per share of $0.66. This is up from the previous guidance of net revenues of $1.050 billion and earnings of $0.51 per share.

For the full year ending in March, the publisher is anticipating record net revenues of $2.30 billion and earnings per share of $0.75. This is significantly higher compared to its previous outlook of net revenues of $2.07 billion and earnings per share of $0.55.

more...

Making it the largest growing online market !

Today, comScore, Inc. released updated documentation concerning holiday season-to-date online sales, highlighting Thanksgivings Day as well as Black Friday - both of which boast higher purchase rates than all the days leading up to those two combined.

In their report, it's mentioned that the market with the largest growth in comparison to the previous year is the Video Games, Consoles & Accessories market, with an increase of 134%, leaving other categories far behind.

more...

Cyber Monday Expected to Surpass $700 Million in Online Spending, Making it Heaviest Online Spending Day on Record

RESTON, VA, November 25, 2007 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an update of holiday season e-commerce spending covering the first 23 days (November 1 – 23) of the November – December 2007 holiday season. More than $9.3 billion has been spent online during the season-to-date, marking a 17-percent gain versus the corresponding days last year. Online retail spending was strong on both Thanksgiving Day (up 29 percent to $272 million) and “Black Friday” (up 22 percent to $531 million), outpacing the season-to-date growth rate.

2007 Holiday Season To Date vs. Corresponding Days* in 2006 Non-Travel (Retail) Spending Excludes Auctions and Large Corporate Purchases Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore, Inc.
	Billions ($)
Holiday Season to Date	2006	2007	Pct Change
November 1 – 23	$7.98	$9.36	17%
Thanksgiving Day	$0.21	$0.27	29%
“Black Friday” (November 23)	$0.43	$0.53	22%

* Corresponding Shopping Days, Not Calendar Days

more...

Spending, Up 22 Percent Versus Last Year

RESTON, Va., Nov. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- comScore, Inc. , a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an update of holiday season e-commerce spending covering the first 23 days (November 1 - 23) of the November - December 2007 holiday season. More than $9.3 billion has been spent online during the season-to-date, marking a 17- percent gain versus the corresponding days last year. Online retail spending was strong on both Thanksgiving Day (up 29 percent to $272 million) and "Black Friday" (up 22 percent to $531 million), outpacing the season-to-date growth rate.

more....

Tomb Raider: Anniversary for the Xbox 360 has finally arrived as downloadable episodes on Xbox Live - despite having been promised for September.

The game has been out for a few weeks with retailers but Eidos Interactive says this is the first time that a full game has been sold as a download on Xbox LIVE – if you don’t count some expansions.

The first two instalments comes as a 1.5GB download will cost around 1200 Microsoft points [over £10] so if you only have an already stuffed 20GB drive, you have been warned. more...

Best Buy’s retail strategy for the holidays resembles the sort often pursued by high-end department stores, rather than big box chains. According to the Wall Street Journal, the retail giant will offer both giveaways and big sales as a reward to its highest-spending customers, who are members of its Reward Zone program. more by Stephen Silver...

Retail E-Commerce Q3 Sales Up 3.6% from Q2

US retail e-commerce sales for the third quarter, adjusted for seasonal variation, holiday and trading-day differences but not for price changes, was $34.7 billion — an increase of 3.6 percent (±0.8 percent) from the second quarter — according to estimates from the Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce, reports MarketingCharts. more...

RESTON, Va., Nov. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- comScore, Inc. , a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at top online properties for October 2007 from its comScore Media Metrix service. E-cards and flowers/gifts/greetings sites surged with the celebration of Halloween and Sweetest Day, while several retail categories experienced significant growth in anticipation of the holiday shopping season. Third quarter earnings announcements and volatile stock market conditions drove an increase in traffic to online trading sites.

more...

San Francisco, CA, November 16, 2007 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry's most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced the availability of the NARUTO animated series for digital download in the U.S. on Direct2Drive, IGN Entertainment's premiere digital retail store. Episodes of the series debuted sequentially beginning on November 15, 2007 with episodes costing $1.99 each; fans may go to http://www.direct2drive.com to download the first 25 episodes.

NARUTO is the latest animated series to be offered on a Download-to-Own (DTO) basis via Direct2Drive. VIZ Media teamed with the popular outlet earlier this year to offer DEATH NOTE and BLEACH, and both series received an enthusiastic response from fans and Direct2Drive users.

more...

Article printed from SiteProNews: http://www.sitepronews.com
  HTML version available at: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives.html

Content is Dead. Community is King Now
By Stoney DeGeyter (c) 2007

I can hardly bring myself to say the old cliche about content
being... well, you know. I think it's one of the original
cliche's in the SEO industry. And as redundant as it has
become, for whatever reason we keep hearing it over and over
again. And every now and then a new study pops up seemingly
proving, once again, that content is... uh, good.

More...

RESTON, Va., Nov. 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- comScore, Inc. , a leader in measuring the digital world, today released U.S. e-commerce spending figures for October 2007, showing that retail e-commerce increased 19 percent versus year ago to nearly $10 billion.

more...

wikiHow has a tried and true method to rid your towels of that stinky mildew smell: vinegar.

• Put your towels in the washing machine, using the hottest water available. Add one or two cups of white vinegar. Do not add detergent, fabric softener, or any other products at this time. Run the washer.
• Leave the towels in the washer and wash the same load again just as you would normally with laundry soap. Again, use the hottest water available. Don't use fabric softener or any other products.
• Dry the load in the dryer using a high heat setting. Towels should be thoroughly dry when you pull them out. If they're not dry, put them back in, or move them immediately outside and hang them in the sunlight.

Of course, the best way to keep that mildew smell away is to hang your towels up; however, we've all found those moldering towels in the bottom of the gym bag at least once in our lives.

Jeff Atwood fires a shot across-the-bow of the online content distribution model, via his take on The Sad State of Digital Software Distribution:

“Instead, I find that download options for commercial software are quite rare. Even when the download option is available, you end up paying the same price as retail or even more.”

This is a point-of view that crops up every so often, typically backed up by a small number of examples where a retail price (on sale) is less than the online option. On the face of it, that’s a pretty damning indictment of the online e-tail model, right? Surely it should be cheaper to procure a product via electronic download, rather than shrink wrapped? Of course. To a point.

more by Brendan Borlase...

In this era of pervasive broadband, I'm constantly surprised how often I am forced to buy a physical CD or DVD to obtain the software I want. Physical distribution methods have their place, but they should be on the decline by now. Software is best distributed digitally through our high-speed internet connections-- using BitTorrent if necessary.

Instead, I find that download options for commercial software are quite rare. Even when the download option is available, you end up paying the same price as retail or even more. Here's a typical example. I purchased Titan Quest: Gold from Steam about a month ago. I paid $29.95, which is the standard retail box price. But online discounters sell boxed copies of the very same game for $22.90. more by Jeff Atwood...

Officials for popular video codec DivX today have confirmed that the technology will indeed be integrated into Sony's PlayStation 3. PS3 apparently joins over 100 million DivX Certified products that have been shipped into the market to date.

more...

These are F1 inspired Lawnmowers are WICKED.

The Microsoft Counterfeit Software Gallery shows examples of counterfeit software in three categories (low-grade, mid-grade, and high-grade counterfeits). The more you know about counterfeit software, the easier it will be for you to ensure you always purchase genuine Microsoft software.

Looking to put a unique orange RSS button for your blog? I found these cool 51 RSS buttons in amazing sizes and shapes. There is a large variety from round, large, with forms, in blue, green, shaded, with web 2.0 style, and drop shadows. Choose one…

Valve officially went live with Steam Community in September 2007 to connect gamers together, a social network that lets players send instant messages to each other while in-game or setup voice chat sessions. Furthermore, users can create community chat groups, schedule events, show off stats and achievements, or just shop for games from the built-in store. However, and more importantly, Steam Community surpassed Microsoft's Games for Windows (GFW) Live service in almost every way possible. Where did Live, a massively successful service on the Xbox/Xbox 360 console, go wrong on the PC and is there any hope left?

more...

Statistics should be very important to every internet marketer. That’s why this internet marketing blog has decided to provide it’s viewers with relevant internet marketing and e-commerce statistics on a regular basis.

Every few weeks we will provide you with a list of the latest statistics from some of the top research and survey companies like Jupiter Research, Forrester Research, DoubleClick and more....

With companies like Virtual Programming already providing downloadable formats for most of its games, and other alike in the industry, legal electronic distribution is replacing boxed copies of games. Recently, Running With Scissors announced the availability of Postal for download on the PC. Likewise, the developers of Darwinia has followed suit by providing that game as a download for the PC through Steam; the Mac version has always been a download version through Ambrosia Software.
by Anthony Wang, more...