comScore Networks recently released the first in a series of European holiday season shopping analyses, which revealed that French retail sites have experienced the largest gains in the first three weeks of the season (versus the pre-holiday shopping period from 28 August - 29 October), capped off by a 79-percent gain in cyber shopping traffic during the most recent week (ending 26 November) versus the pre-holiday average.

According to the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), the grand total of spot and non-spot Radio revenue increased 6 percent in October of this year compared to last year. National ad dollars grew 14 percent October 2006 over October 2005. Total combined national and local ad sales dollars increased 5 percent for the month of October 2006 over the same month from 2005.

The recent Sprint 2006 Sprint Productivity Survey of wireless phone users shows that 93% of wireless phone subscribers bring work-related mobile phones on vacation, 73% have achieved work-life balance (a meaningful daily achievement and enjoyment in one's home and working lives), and 67% are more productive today than two years ago. 84% of the respondents report technology is vital to their productivity, with 35% saying they could not accomplish what they do without technology.

According to Jim Litwin, vice president of market insights at Vertis Communications, "As technology continues to become adopted into our everyday lives, we find younger women are becoming increasingly dominant users of media and high technology compared to their male counterparts."

According to comScore Networks, a third-quarter analysis of consumer spending in the online apparel category found that, during Q3 2006, total U.S. online apparel sales registered a 32-percent increase versus the same quarter last year. Sites operated by specialty retailers accounted for the largest share of sales with 46 percent of total dollars spent, followed by department store sites at 21 percent, and online pureplay sites at 16 percent.

According to InStat, the mass migration to voice over Internet protocol is finally happening in both the business and consumer markets. The growth of IP phones will accelerate significantly beginning in 2008, the research firm says. Total IP phone annual shipments will grow from 10 million units in 2006 to 164 million units in 2010, according to the report.

The results of a nationwide online survey of U.S. adults conducted by Harris Interactive in August, 2006, finds that 26% of current mobile phone subscribers say they would be willing to watch advertising on their cell phone, and 7% of wireless subscribers say they would be interested in receiving relevant promotional text messages, both under certain conditions.

Fully 40 million Americans use the internet as their primary source of news and information about science, and 87% of online users have at one time used the internet to carry out research on a scientific topic or concept, according to a national survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in collaboration with the Exploratorium.

According to new comScore Networks data, Cyber Monday, which marks the first major spike in online holiday spending as people returned to work after the Thanksgiving weekend, saw slightly higher than expected gains. Cyber Monday sales totaled $608 million, up 26 percent versus the same day last year. During the first 27 days of November this year, total online retail spending reached $9.48 billion, marking a 24-percent increase versus the corresponding days in 2005.

According to a recent release by Nielsen//NetRatings, Web traffic to 10 popular online gambling destinations decreased by 56 percent in the month of October, the same month President Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act into law. This drop follows a year of fairly consistent unique audience growth among online gambling destinations, demonstrating the profound impact of the law signed on October 13th.