Yahoo! in aggregate is almost 50% more popular than Hotmail or Microsoft in communications during the week ending November 3rd. And more women than men in the overall demographics. And, you guessed it, twice as many men as women are on the popular automotive sites.

Admittedly after the fact, but for those planning or buying Online for next Fall's sports season, here's some exclusive research viewer demographics just released from comScore Media Metrix based on U.S. Internet users from Home, Work and University PCs. It appears that the interest in the start-up of the NFL was even more interesting to fans than the race for MLB division titles and World Series candidates.

Nielsen//NetRatings recently launched the early results of its fourth annual Holiday eCommerce Index which suggests that shoppers taking advantage of late fall deals are helping jumpstart the upcoming holiday season, as early shopping activity increased 12 percent during the week ending November 3, with online shopping rising around Halloween.

About 22% of women with access to the internet have bought something online compared with 19% of men, a Royal Bank of Scotland survey found. The study was conducted by Taylor Nelson Sofres interviewing 611 adults with internet access. But when men do decide to buy via the web they are likely to spend more money than women.

Around 62 percent of all adults across the major European countries now use a mobile phone, according to new research from Gartner G2. Currently, 41 percent of European adults use SMS, compared to 30 percent that use the Internet/email. Last year, 28 percent of European adults used SMS, as opposed to 29 percent who went online. SMS is particularly popular in the UK where 49 percent of adults use it, compared to 39 percent who are online.

Leichtman Research Group finds that as of the end of the third quarter of 2002 the leading cable and DSL providers in the United States have a total of over 15.6 million high-speed Internet subscribers. During the quarter the major US cable and DSL providers added a combined 1.68 million subscribers.

MeasureCast, Inc. announced that Virgin Radio, MUSICMATCH and Clear Channel Worldwide topped their respective Internet radio rankings for the week of October 14. Since January, the total time spent listening to on-line radio stations measured by MeasureCast is up 159%. The MeasureCast Internet Radio Listening Index dropped less than one-half of one percent during the previous week.

In-Stat/MDR reports that there are some very bright spots in the wireless data market. Overall, the messaging market (thanks to the newer Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS) and Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS) that support graphics and video) will continue to outstrip the wireless Internet market, in terms of subscribers, through 2006, growing from an estimated 305 million at the end of 2001 to more than 1 billion by the end of 2006. While smaller than the messaging market, the wireless Internet market is growing at the same pace.

e-Tailers are outselling re-Tailers in this weeks Nielsen Internet site data, while the weather plays a big part in the information sector.

David Hallerman, reporting for eMarketer, notes that some web advertising creates problems for both publishers and advertisers, and most visible among these formats are pop-up ads. Will Tifft, senior vice president and general manager, 24/7 Real Media says, "People see pop-ups the way they see blow-in cards in magazines. Everyone says they hate them, but they still perform at three to four times the rate of a standard ad."