Nielsen//NetRatings announced the top 10 fastest growing shopping destinations with back to school online advertising campaigns. Ebags.com took the No. 1 spot, growing 118 percent from a unique audience of 582,000 in July to 1.3 million in August 2006. Office Max followed at No. 2, while LLBean.com rounded out the top three, growing 16 percent.

Local online advertising faces another banner year in 2007, says Borrell Associates in their recent research release, as local businesses continue to seek new, more efficient ways to drive traffic to their Web sites and to their businesses. It will grow to a $7.7 billion category in 2007, reflecting 31.6 percent growth over 2006.

The Value of Magazine Readership study, from the Magazine Publishers of America, suggests that many assumptions may not be accurate about the connection between consumers' reaction to magazine advertising and the price paid and circulation source for the magazines that they read. This report shows that price paid and circulation source do not predict reader engagement or demographics."

Hitwise recently announced that Google was the top U.S. search engine responsible for 14.93 percent of U.S. upstream visits to the Shopping and Classifieds category for the week ending August 26, 2006, while Yahoo! Search was the second most popular, accounting for 4.69 percent of upstream visits for that week.

In the latest BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Survey of over 15,000 people, Opportunity-Minded and Active Explorers segments topped the list of those who regularly or occasionally offered their opinions on what to buy and where to buy it to family, friends and co-workers.

A deeper look at both TV and Radio Online, with sites, demographics, advertisers, advertisement types, sizes and delivery technology.

According to Telephia, researcher to communications and new media markets, the mobile TV audience grew 45 percent to 3.7 million subscribers in Q2 2006. The third screen allows consumers to get news and information while on the go, with news, weather and sports channels topping the list as the most watched mobile TV content. Total quarterly mobile TV revenues increased to $86 million last quarter, an increase of 67 percent since Q1.

A recent analysis, by comScore World Metrix, of UK Internet users' activity at user-generated content sites (UGC) showed significant traffic growth. Wikipedia was up 253 percent versus year ago, MySpace.com, up 467 percent, and Piczo.com, up 393 percent.

According to the PQ Media Global Product Placement Forecast 2006, global paid product placement spending surged 42.2% to $2.21 billion in 2005 with double-digit growth expected to continue in 2006 and beyond. Product placement spending in TV, film and other media is expected to climb another 38.8% to $3.07 billion in 2006, driven by the continued shift toward a paid placement structure from a barter and added-value model.

According to a telephone poll by the AP and AOL, 71% of U.S. Internet users who watch online video prefer to watch and download videos for free, sponsored by pre-roll advertising, while only 23% said they would prefer to pay for ad-free content.