Jupiter Research reports that online bill viewing and payment will be among the fastest growing consumer applications over the next three years in a recent release. By 2006, more than 50 million households will view bills online and 52 million households will pay at least one bill online. This represents a compound annual growth rate of 23% over 2001's figure of 18 million U.S. households who viewed at least one bill online.

"America's multicultural consumers are fast becoming the general market for broadband services. Ultimately, the interaction of the established media brands with new urban-oriented programming and entertainment concepts will define the new media landscape." says Alisse Waterston, Ph.D., President of Surveys Unlimited. A study entitled The 3rd wave of State of Broadband Urban Markets, released by Horowitz Associates shows that urban consumers have emerged as a key broadband segment, in particular for the delivery of digital content to the TV.

According to the Harris Poll in August, 2002, the number of people who assign high prestige to military officers and police officers has increased from the August 2001 survey, fielded just before 9/11. At the same time, this year’s survey finds significant drops in prestige for doctors, teachers, and the clergy.

A segment of a study by Arbitron/Joint Communications of American women radio listeners, focusing on 18- to 54-year-old females who listen to radio, finds that one group of women (approximately 11% of all radio listeners) really drives "contesting", and those women share certain expectations from radio. In the study, factors (correlated variables that help identify the driving forces that motivate listeners) are linked to reasons for tuning in to radio and tuning out of radio to issues of personal importance.

Disney lifestyle is as big as Match and Ancestry combined, suggesting where you are may be more important than who you are. And, significantly more women visit the Family and Lifestyle sites than men. It's about equal in gender measurement in the Finance category, with no single site dominant.

According to a report from Return Path and NFO WorldGroup, 49% of US adults changed at least one of their e-mail addresses. In fact, the companies report that the annual churn rate for e-mail addresses is 39%. The two main reasons that people say they change their personal e-mail address are to get away from SPAM (16%) and because they have changed internet service providers (48%). Most people who change their work e-mail address do so because of a job change.

Harte-Hanks reports that business-to-business (B2B) e-mail marketing campaigns can yield an average click-through rate of 1.3%, but can go as high as 25%. The study, representing 4.25 million e-mail addresses, executed between August 2001 and August 2002.

While Monster.com is a four to one favorite in the Education and Career site category, with females leading the queries, Entertainment is not so lopsided but it's more male oriented, during the last week in September.

Americans have become well known for their ability to multitask. A new study, by BIGresearch, has found that Americans have begun multitasking in a new arena - media. The study, which measures simultaneous media usage (when consumers use a primary media source while a secondary source is in use), may change how marketers reach their target audiences.

A special weekly online ratings analysis, released by comScore Media Metrix, covers traffic patterns around the fall television premiers. Included is a summary of the how the big networks fared and additional newsworthy findings from the week, such as a surge in visitors to UN.ORG amidst increasing U.S.-Iraq tensions.