Mobile Search Trends

JumpTap has just released usage statistics for the month of April revealing that mobile subscribers are hungry for premium content, such as True-tone ringtones, driving revenue increases for carriers of eight percent on the month. Click-through rates on mobile searches of 36 percent and a four percent increase in unique users are fueling revenue growth, with average revenue per search increasing to $2.73.

JumpTap also found that the Top 10 mobile searches by category for the month of April were:
Artists – 58 percent
Adult – 12 percent
Games – eight percent
Miscellaneous genres – seven percent
Sports and Television – tied at five percent

Full release

Tags: mobile search, jumptap

Eurekster Red Herring 100

Eurekster has announced they have been selected as a winner of the annual Red Herring 100 North America award by Red Herring magazine. 100 privately held companies in North America are recognized as playing a leading role in innovating the technology business. See the full list at RedHerring.com

Tags: eurekster, red herring

Online Sales Increase to $211 Billion in 2006

According to Forrester Research and Shop.org's annual State of Retailing Online study, online sales are expected to rise 20% in 2006. Some interesting findings from the report:

Computer hardware and software, cars, and apparel, accessories and
footwear are expected to be the largest nontravel categories driving
the increase, with anticipated sales of $16.8 billion, $15.9 billion
and $13.8 billion, respectively.

But sales of pet supplies, cosmetics and fragrances will increase faster than other categories at growth rates of more than 30 percent, the report found.

Gift cards and loyalty programs were big contributors to increased sales. The report also cited the benefits for online and offline integration. Read the full story at CNET News.com.

Tags: online sales, forrester research, ecommerce 2006, shop.org, retailing online

Webshots all you can eat photo hosting

CNET property, Webshots has announced the launch of a free image upload and hosting service called AllYouCanUpload.com. The service lets users upload up to 10 images at a time with no size limit on photos. It also provides the code you can copy and paste into a blog post, onto a web site or for use on a forum.

In fact, the image above is hosted at AllYouCanUpload.com.

Tags: free photo hosting, webshots, CNET, photo archive, AllYouCanUpload

MSN Continues to Play Catchup

You've got to hand it to Microsoft, they're trying pretty hard:

MSN AdCenter now live - SEW

Microsoft to Spend $1.1 Billion to Catch up with Google - MarketingVOX

Yahoo MSN to Partner? - Search Engine Lowdown