eConsultancy mostly caters to the UK market, but they actively release white papers on topics such as search marketing, online community building, affiliate marketing, ecommerce, mobile, analytics, and a slew of other best practices which are highly relevant to the internet industry of the US and other countries also.

Their recent release of internet statistics covers the following subjects:

1. Usage and Demographics
2. E-commerce
3. Online Marketing
4. Multi-Channel Marketing / Commerce
5. Site Performance and User Technology
6. Mobile – UK Market
7. Interactive TV – UK Market

It’s available for download on their site (non-members can still download a section of the report for free) They also offer a huge collection of free reports on the internet industry regardless of site membership status.

In all fairness this research was only performed in the Canadian market, but it seems logical that universal findings would prove similar.

Frequent online shoppers are people who are comfortable navigating the internet. Since social media and social networking tools are engaging, interactive elements of the web, people who use social media and other web 2.0 technologies probably spend more time online than those who simply visit static websites.

More time online… more online shopping?

The study also examines the direct effect that social networking has on online purchase decision-making:

Application name: FaceDouble
This F8 app is based on an existing website, FaceDouble.com. The service allows you to make comparisons between submitted photos that are look-a-likes for celebrities. You can submit photos from web or mobile.

Facebook directory listing:
http://apps.facebook.com/facedouble

App development time: seven days

Submission process / growth schedule

Submitted to Facebook: Saturday
Approved: Sunday
Adoption Rate: installed by 716 users on Monday (at time of this post)

During the last couple weeks, Facebook’s F8 release has been getting much publicity. Marc Andreessen wrote an analysis of Facebook’s new open platform, and I recommend reading his observations if you are at all curious about the F8 release. Most surprising to me (but completely logical), Marc concluded that widely adopted Facebook apps need heavy funding available during the days & weeks after launch.
Here’s why.

Too far, too fast

As a F8 developer, you must provide your own hosting for your Facebook app. So if you create an incredibly popular F8 app, your hardware needs will skyrocket. Your quick success may result in a denial of service if you can’t afford to immediately purchase additional hardware.

MySpace has started limiting users’ access to 3rd party applications.

Revver. Imeem. Hoooka. All Banned. It appears MySpace wants to Monopolize the widget landscape.

Ironically, this seems vaguely reminiscent of the demise of Friendster. To recap the past, Friendster kicked off it’s biggest user (the now infamous Tila Tequila) for receiving too many friend requests.

MySpace (the rookie/underdog social network at the time) welcomed Tila into it’s social network with open arms. (Tila comments on this in an interview) Since then, MySpace has never enforced a quantity cap on ‘friends’ and everything went on to be hunky-dory.

‘Friends First’ sound like a take-it-slow dating guide, but it’s really should be the MySpace marketer’s manta. Relationship building is the most effective way to reap results from your MySpace marketing. Kathy over at AttractionBiz.com seems to be giving her clients a fair representation of the strengths and limitations of MySpace marketing. Take a look at this snapshot of an actual MySpace user’s incoming friend requests (photo taken by tlianza). Every person pictured here is a spammer. This is an actual example of how SPAM is shaping the MySpace user experience. MySpace is a social site. It seems to be logical that a MySpace marketing plan should include strong social elements to be truly effective. Social elements seem to be a key element that these spammers don’t seem to understand… well that and respect. But I’ll lump respect & accountability in with all the other social skills that are required for sustainable interpersonal marketing.

Will MySpace last?

Could the overload of MySpace SPAM or their lack of an open API (like Facebook) increase the popularity of newer social networking sites?

Traditional MySpace Marketing will soon be dead. The MySpace communication channels are at a similar point that email was years ago, right as email spam was getting out of control. In fact, most current MySpace promotion is modeled after traditional email spamming tactics. This model is not sustainable and MySpace marketers must adopt a relationship-focused strategy to really extract the most value from MySpace marketing.

So many businesses & bands routinely send uninvited promotional messages to strangers (you know, those people on our “friends” list). The spam on MySpace that I’m referring to is message spam, comment spam, and bulletin spam. Most businesses/bands aren’t aware that their promotional tactics are essentially spam.

Create your podcast using any phone. Listen to the most recent episode of any podcast through your phone.

So far podcasts have mainly been used to create content in a radio show format. A podcast usually refers to a 20-80 minute episode of audio content. The process of recording a podcast is an actual event itself. Since podcasting requires a certain setup of gear and know-how, most people don’t record podcasts that reflect micro-updates.

What if podcasts could be used similarly to a syndicated voice message sent to people who you have given the appropriate permissions to receive them?

Why do we love Twitter? Ask Dave Winer and he’ll say (paraphrased) it forces people to create posts that *cut out the crap* and scream the *less is more* anthem. In other words 140 characters or less.

Why not apply this same lean-post principle to podcasts too? Enter the TwitterGram. Not quite a polished publicly-accessible web service, the conceptual TwitterGram is building increasing momentum.

You can contribute by linking your Twitter post to your own uploaded audio file (200K or less). More details on scripting.com.