Archived News

December 29, 2008 Consumer Confidence Down Slightly in December, According CEA-CNET Indexes Consumer confidence in the overall economy decreased slightly in December, according to figures released by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and CNET. The CEA-CNET Indexes also showed consumers are slightly less likely to spend on consumer electronics (CE) and technology products.

December 29, 2008 DMW Worldwide Ranked with Top Winners in Prestigious DMA Analytics Challenge Warren Hunter, Chairman and CEO of DMW Worldwide LLC, announced that under the leadership of Jeff Williams, director, Decision Support, the agency has been named to the winner’s list of the third annual Analytics Challenge competition, sponsored by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) Analytics Council and the CAC Group, Inc.

December 23, 2008 Holiday Spending Down or Stagnant in US and Five Largest European Countries, Harris Interactive Finds As the holiday shopping season draws to a close, retailers in the US and some European countries are not that happy. Just over half of Italians (56%) and 48% of Americans as well as pluralities in France (45%), Spain (43%) and Great Britain (42%) all say they will be spending less than last year for the holiday season.

December 22, 2008 Four out of Five Consumers Plan to Cut Spending, According to NPD Group The NPD Group, Inc. released the results of its latest Consumer Spending Indicator study. According to the December survey, 81% of consumers say they plan to spend less money than usual.

December 22, 2008 Heavy Online Spending Continues Later into the Season, Finds comScore comScore has reported its tracking of holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 49 days of the Nov.–Dec. 2008 holiday season. For the holiday season through December 19, $24.03 billion has been spent online, down 1% versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week of the season has seen several strong online spending days.

December 19, 2008 Free Shipping an Important Stimulus of E-Commerce This Holiday Season, Finds comScore comScore has reported its tracking of holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 44 days of the November – December 2008 holiday season. For the holiday season through December 14, $20.17 billion has been spent online, essentially the same level compared to the corresponding days last year.

December 19, 2008 Major Retailers Experience 161% Increase in Attempted Hacker Attacks, According to SecureWorks SecureWorks, a leading security as a service provider, reports they have seen a 161 percent increase in the number of attempted hacker attacks they are blocking for their retail clients. Attempted attacks increased from an average of 56,000 per client per month in the first six months of the year to 133,000 per client per month for the last five months. The attack statistics represent the attack activity for 36 major retail corporations located across the country.

December 19, 2008 Advenix VisualSubject Customized Email Previews Boost User Engagement by 125% Advenix, creator of the VisualSubject customized email preview, reports a 42% lift in email results among recipients who engaged with VisualSubject, a user-initiated graphic that complements the email subject line with a visual preview. Findings are based on a series of email campaigns Advenix ran September through November 2008.

December 18, 2008 More Consumers Plan to Resell Holiday Gifts Online This Year, eBay Research Reveals With financial concerns weighing on Americans' minds this holiday season, consumers are becoming more resourceful than ever. To cope, they are learning how to manage unwanted gifts. Over half of US adults who have resold gifts online plan to do so this year, a 10% increase from last year

December 18, 2008 Websites Play Tangible Role in Sales and Brand Loyalty, ForeSee Reports ForeSee Results has unveiled research showing that online customer satisfaction plays a critical role for consumer packaged good (CPG) companies that are using their website to engender loyalty and encourage purchase behavior online or offline.

December 18, 2008 NPD Group Introduces Monthly Report on Consumer Attitudes and Spending The NPD Group, a leading market research company, has launched a new monthly report, The Economy Tracker, to monitor how the economy is affecting consumer attitudes and shopping behavior.

December 17, 2008 41 Million People Have Not Started Holiday Shopping, Finds BIGresearch According to NRF’s 2008 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, the average person had completed 47.1% of their holiday shopping by the second week of December, about 10% less than the 52.6% average completed by this time last year.

December 17, 2008 Experts and Analysts Assess Future of Internet in New Pew Survey A survey of internet leaders, activists, and analysts shows they expect major tech advances as the phone becomes a primary device for online access, voice-recognition improves, artificial and virtual reality become more embedded in everyday life, and the architecture of the internet itself improves.

December 17, 2008 Economy Will Permanently Alter Communications Marketplace, Yankee Group Predicts Yankee Group Yankee Group has unveiled its top 10 predictions for 2009, projecting that the economy will drive profound changes to forever alter the communications marketplace.

December 17, 2008 comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top 50 US Web Properties for November 2008 comScore has released its monthly analysis of US consumer activity at the top online properties for November 2008 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. The official start to the holiday shopping season unleashed droves of Americans on retail sites, propelling several categories, including Toys, Consumer Electronics and Department Stores, to double-digit traffic gains in November.

December 16, 2008 Consumers Likely to Start Online But Purchase in the Store, Finds Harris Interactive According to a new study by Harris Interactive, shoppers consult an average of four resources on their path to purchase. Most consumers begin their research online, but ultimately make their purchase in a brick-and-mortar store.

December 16, 2008 Week After Cyber Monday Brings Slight Lull in E-Commerce Sales Growth, comScore Finds According to research by comScore, for the holiday season through December 12, $19.44 billion has been spent online, essentially the same level compared to the corresponding days last year. For the twelve days beginning with Dec. 1 (Cyber Monday), the kick-off to the heaviest part of the online shopping season, sales were up 3% versus a year ago. However, the most recent work week (Dec. 8-12) saw e-commerce sales decline by a marginal 1%, although Dec. 9 emerged as the highest online spending day on record.

December 16, 2008 Late Black Friday, Shorter Holiday Season Impact November Retail Sales, According to NRF According to the National Retail Federation, retail industry sales for November (which exclude automobiles, gas stations, and restaurants) increased 0.6% seasonally adjusted from October and decreased 2.0% unadjusted year-over-year. Industry related month-to-month sales saw the first increase in four months.

December 16, 2008 A Few Bright Signs Uncovered in a Challenging Environment, SpendingPulse Find SpendingPulse has provided summary results for the holiday shopping season through the first week of December. Michael McNamara, VP of SpendingPulse, pointed to some good news: relative strength in eCommerce sales and the general merchandise sector, and a rise in gasoline pumping, responding to the dramatic fall in the price per gallon.

December 16, 2008 BZ Media Has Sold Software Test & Performance to Redwood Collaborative Media BZ Media LLC, a high-tech B-to-B media company, has sold its Software Test & Performance business unit to Redwood Collaborative Media, an integrated B-to-B media company. The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc., a leading provider of independent investment banking services, represented BZ Media in this transaction and acted as its exclusive financial advisor.

December 15, 2008 Businesses Plan to Increase Marketing Budgets in the New Year, StrongMail Survey Finds Despite economic concerns, businesses will continue to invest in key marketing programs in the coming year, according to new survey released by StrongMail Systems, Inc. Results show that more than half of the nearly 1,000 global business leaders polled plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2009 to focus on programs that yield a higher return on investment (ROI), such as email marketing and search.

December 15, 2008 Retailers and Hotels Top Forrester's Annual Customer Experience Ranking Only 11% of companies garnered a rating of “excellent” in this year’s Customer Experience Index of large US firms, released by Forrester Research, Inc. Forrester asked more than 4,500 consumers about their interactions with 114 companies across 12 different industries and developed its Customer Experience Index based on the usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyability of those experiences. Thirty-eight percent of firms were rated as “poor” or “very poor.”

December 15, 2008 New Research by OTX Supports Value of Brands Engaging Directly with Consumers Online A new research study conducted by OTX, a global consumer research and consulting firm, confirms the value of brands engaging directly with consumers online. The initial findings of the new study revealed that 54% of consumers agree that information from a brand representative would be more valuable than what is typically found on a company website.

December 12, 2008 Postal Regulatory Commission Verifies Competitive Products Price Changes for 2009 The Postal Regulatory Commission has issued its review of price adjustments sought by the USPS for competitive postal products. Chairman Dan G. Blair announced the Commissions’ unanimous decision that the increases sought for competitive products were not unlawful.

December 12, 2008 Online Video Viewers to Approach One Billion by 2013, According to ABI Research While today’s consumer is most likely to watch online video on the PC screen, over time, more and more consumers will watch over-the-top video delivered to the living room, according a new study from ABI Research.

December 12, 2008 BurrellesLuce Issues Rankings of Top Media Facebook, MySpace, and Hi5 were the three most utilized social networks, according to rankings made available by BurrellesLuce. The report lists the top 100 daily newspapers by circulation, the 25 biggest consumer magazines, the 25 most popular blogs, and the 25 busiest social networks.

December 12, 2008 Clicks-Per-Visitor Show Dramatic Increase on Cyber Monday, ClickStream Finds ClickStream Technologies' standing panel of US adult internet users showed that internet retail sites received a dramatic increase in average clicks per visitor on Cyber Monday. Activity increases ranged from 500% to 14,500 times the average daily clicks per site.

December 11, 2008 US Advertising Expenditures Declined 1.7% in First Nine Months of 2008, TNS Reports Total measured ad expenditures in the first nine months of 2008 declined by 1.7% as compared to the same period in 2007, according to data released by TNS Media Intelligence. Ad spending during the third quarter of 2008 was off 2.0% versus last year, despite a positive stimulus from the Summer Olympics and political elections.

December 11, 2008 90% of American Adults Concerned about the Safety of Personal Information Online, According to CA, Inc. A recent survey by CA, Inc. reveals a gap between online security awareness and safety precautions by teens, adults and seniors, with varying behaviors across regions. Survey results showed that 57% of American adults fear their identity might be stolen online within the next two years, and 90% worry about the security of their personal information.

December 11, 2008 Web Users Pay less Attention to Ads on Cluttered Sites, Burst Survey Finds Burst Media has released the results from a survey on the topic of ad clutter. Overwhelmingly, the findings reveal that websites cluttered with advertisements do a disservice to the publisher, the advertiser, and the visitor.

December 11, 2008 Consumers Likely to Become Less Passive with Mobile Social Networks, ABI Research Predicts Consumers using mobile social networks today are mainly checking messages, status updates, and comments of friends, rather than posting photos or comments themselves, according to a recent study by ABI Research. However, this pattern is changing as more consumers have access to better-equipped phones and social network applications that allow for easy uploading and communication.

December 9, 2008 Holiday E-Commerce Season Sales Finally Match Last Year, According to comScore comScore has reported its tracking of holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 35 days of the November – December 2008 holiday season. For the holiday season through December 5, $14.92 billion has been spent online, essentially the same level compared to the corresponding days last year.

December 9, 2008 Majority of American Families Spending Less for Holidays, First Command Reports More than half of American families expect to cut back on holiday spending this year, citing less money and uncertainty about the economy as motivating factors, according to the First Command Financial Behaviors Index.

December 8, 2008 Holiday Shoppers Plan to Spend Nearly 10% Less This Year, According to Discover Discover Card has released its annual Holiday Shopping Survey, which assesses consumer spending trends and gift intentions for the 2008 holiday season. On average, shoppers expect to spend nearly 10% less this year than in 2007, according to the survey.

December 8, 2008 One Third of Retailers Cut Holiday Marketing Budgets This Year, According to BDO Seidman According to a new study conducted after the financial market meltdown by BDO Seidman, LLP, one-third of CMOs at leading US retailers state that their holiday marketing and advertising budgets have been reduced this season.

December 5, 2008 Consumers Not Likely to Layaway Gifts This Season, Finds BIGresearch Over half (56.7%) of Americans say they will be spending less due to the economic environment, according to the American Pulse Survey of 4,348 respondents. In addition, 51.2% say they will be looking for sales more than last year while 31.8% are hoping to find deals online.

December 5, 2008 FedEx Helping Customers Gear Up for Holiday Season FedEx Corp. is offering solutions to help its customers save time and money as they prepare to ship millions of precious holiday packages this holiday season.

December 5, 2008 Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) Offers Guidelines for Mailers Using Move Update Communicating Entry Requirements/In-Home Delivery Dates Solutions/Seasonality Impact

December 4, 2008 AOL Reveals Top Web, Mobile and Video Searches of 2008 The presidential elections dominated user searches this year, according to AOL’s annual lists of top Web, mobile and video searches across more than 40 categories for 2008. But celebrities continued to be hot topics for searchers as well.

December 4, 2008 Retailers Counting on Cyber Monday, Finds BIGresearch According to the eHoliday Survey, conducted for Shop.org this fall by Shopzilla, 83.7% of retailers will have a special promotion for Cyber Monday, up from 72.2 % last year. The most popular promotions are expected to be specific deals (38.8 percent), email campaigns (32.7 percent), and one-day sales (24.5 percent).

December 3, 2008 Consumers Cutting Back on Consumer Technology This Holiday Season, According to NPD Group Consumers plan to cut back this holiday season on consumer technology purchases, according to a new report by leading market research company The NPD Group. NPD’s Consumer Technology Holiday Snapshot Report examined consumer purchase intent for popular holiday gift categories including flat-panel TVs, desktop and notebook PCs, MP3 players, digital cameras, GPS devices, and digital picture frames.

December 3, 2008 NRF Survey Finds Black Friday Gets Holiday Season Off to Energetic Start According to the National Retail Federation's 2008 Black Friday Weekend survey, conducted by BIGresearch, more than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend, up from 147 million shoppers last year. Shoppers spent an average of $372.57 this weekend, up 7.2 % over last year’s $347.55. Total spending reached an estimated $41.0 billion.

December 1, 2008 Online Video, TV, and Magazines Influence Video Game Purchases, Find Ad-Ology Survey A surprising 70% of recent video game/game systems buyers reported some or significant influence from television and 54% reported influence from online video, according to the Fall 2008 Ad-ology Media Influence on Consumer Choice survey.

December 1, 2008 Consumers Plan to Spend Less This Holiday Season, MyPoints Survey Shows MyPoints, Inc., a leading online loyalty program, has announced that 82% of consumers plan to spend less this holiday season than they did last year according to a new survey. The survey found that 87% of those surveyed have set a budget for this year's holiday shopping to help achieve the goal.

December 1, 2008 USPS Revises Move Update Mailer Advisement Policy; Provides FAQs The USPS has revised the Move Update standards, which provide ways for mailers to reduce the number of mailpieces that require forwarding, return, or are undeliverable-as-addressed by the periodic matching of a mailer’s address records with customer-filed change-of-address orders. The USPS has also issued Move Update Verification Frequently Asked Questions.

December 1, 2008 Northern Lights Selected as DRTV Media Agency for Unirush UniRush, LLC has announced it has selected Northern Lights Direct Response as its DRTV media buying agency for its RushCard pre-paid debit card campaign.

November 26, 2008 PRC Approves Service Measurement Systems The Postal Regulatory Commission has issued Order No. 140 granting formal approval for the USPS to utilize both external and internal service measurement systems – including the Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMb) – to report on service performance for market dominant postal products.

November 26, 2008 Discovery, Differentiation, and Discounts Drive Holiday Shoppers to Search, According to Performics Performics, a leading performance marketing agency, has released data illustrating purchasing behaviors specific to search engine utilization, across seven consumer segments and ten product categories. In collaboration with ROI Research, Performics surveyed 7,043 consumers on the role of search engines in their purchasing decisions.

November 26, 2008 Forecast is Mixed for Consumer Technology and Media Holiday Sales, Finds Oilver Wyman As the holiday shopping season approaches, six out of ten US consumers intend to cut their spending in at least one area of communications and media entertainment, according to a new survey by international management consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

November 26, 2008 DMW Worldwide Adds Mark Fink DMW Worldwide LLC has announced that the agency has added T. Mark Fink as Database Manager/Administrator in the Decision Support team.

November 25, 2008 Many Consumers Expect to Spend Same or More This Holiday Season, ABI Research Finds But a recent survey conducted by ABI Research has shown that not all consumers intend to cut back on spending, and some are even thinking of spending more than last year.

November 25, 2008 Consumer Confidence up Slightly in November, According to Latest CEA-CNET Indexes Consumer confidence in the overall economy increased slightly in November following a record low October level, according to figures released by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and CNET. The CEA-CNET Indexes also showed consumers are slightly more likely to spend on consumer electronics (CE) and technology products.

November 25, 2008 Conner Strong Customer Data Integration Case Study Published Business Development Solutions, Inc. ("BDS") has announced the publication of a customer data integration case study outlining its implementation of SingleVision software for Conner Strong.

November 24, 2008 One in Every Five ID Fraud Victims Leaves Their Bank, Reports Javelin Javelin research shows that the average identity fraud case costs the industry $5,574 per victim and takes 26 hours to resolve. One in every five ID fraud victims leaves their bank, and one in every six changes card issuer.

November 21, 2008 Retailers Brace for Increased Shoplifting This Holiday Season, According to NRF According to a recent NRF conducted by the University of Florida, with a funding grant from ADT Security Services, retailers lost almost $12 billion to the 27 million shoplifters who stole merchandise from them in 2007.

November 21, 2008 Mobile Websites Don't Make the Grade According to Yankee Group Yankee Group has released a new report that shows mobile Web sites struggle to deliver an effective experience to the millions of consumers they serve. Based on a new Yankee Group methodology, the report scores 32 mobile websites on a scale of 1 to 100 and finds not one Web site with a passing grade of 70.

November 21, 2008 Internet Advertising Revenues in Q3 '08 at Nearly $5.9 Billion, Reports IAB The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) have announced that Internet advertising revenues reached almost $5.9 billion for the third quarter of 2008, representing an 11 percent increase over the same period in 2007.

November 21, 2008 DMW Worldwide Promotes Jeff Williams DMW Worldwide LLC, has announced that Jeff Williams has been promoted to Director, Decision Support.

November 19, 2008 Consumer Outlook Bleak for Holiday Season, Worse for 2009, Credit.com Survey Finds According to a new national survey from Credit.com, consumers are very concerned about the upcoming holiday shopping season and don’t think 2009 will be any better. While the survey found people were generally worried about their personal finances during this time of economic turmoil, more than half of respondents think their situation will improve in 2009.

November 18, 2008 Customer Service, Not Price, Remains Top Cause of Customer Churn, Accenture Study Finds Service again ranked above price as a global driver of customer churn, according to Accenture's fourth annual study on customer service satisfaction, titled "High Performance in the Age of Customer Centricity."

November 17, 2008 Four Out of Five Adults Now Use the Internet, According to Harris Poll In 1995, when The Harris Poll began measuring online activity, less than 18 million adults used the Internet in their homes, offices, schools, libraries or other locations. Now, thirteen years later, fully 184 million adults are online.

November 17, 2008 Black Friday to Grow 2.4% This Year, According to BDO Seidman According to a new study conducted after the financial market meltdown by BDO Seidman, LLP, CMOs at leading US retailers expect "Black Friday" (November 28 this year) sales will grow 1.2% this holiday season, while "Cyber Monday," the first Monday after Thanksgiving, will grow by 2.4% this year.

November 17, 2008 Majority of Mobile Users Would View Ads for Discount on Bill, Finds iGR Survey Transverse, a pioneer of open source business solutions, has released the results of a survey that provides insight into mobile customers' phone use and their willingness to view advertisements in exchange for discounts to their monthly service bill.

November 17, 2008 Boomer Women Generate Better Word-of-Mouth Than Younger Women, Prevention Finds Findings from a new report by Prevention, partnering with Keller Fay Group, show thatBaby Boomer women (43-62) have higher quality WOM than younger women (18-39).

November 14, 2008 Earth911.com, USPS Provide Green Holiday Tips As people across the country prepare to celebrate the 11th annual America Recycles Day on Nov. 15, Earth911.com and the USPS are presenting the "Green Your Holidays" channel with simple, practical tips to stay environmentally responsible during the holidays.

November 14, 2008 Yahoo is Top Destination for Major Events According to comScore Media Metrix Yahoo has released new comScore Media Metrix figures showing that Yahoo! News attracted 7.6 million unique users on Election Day, Nov. 4, the largest single-day audience in online news history.

November 13, 2008 Economy-Driven Mail Volume Decline Contributes to USPS $2.8 Billion Year-End Loss; FY 2008 Marked by Record On-Time Mail Delivery The USPS concluded the 2008 fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2007-Sept. 30, 2008) with a net loss of $2.8 billion as the national economic slowdown lowered mail volume and as the Postal Service bore additional costs mandated by the Postal Act of 2006. The Postal Service continued to improve national on-time First-Class Mail delivery performance, reaching record highs in FY 2008.

November 12, 2008 Nearly 80% of US Adult Online Consumers Made Internet Purchases in Last Six Months, According to Nielsen Online Nielsen Online, a service of the Nielsen Company, today announced that 78% of adult online consumers made a purchase over the Web in the previous six months, according to @Plan, Winter 2008/2009 Release.

November 12, 2008 Global Theft Costs Retailers, Consumers $104 Billion Annually, According to Checkpoint The level of global retail theft reached $104.5 billion in the past year, leading to increased costs for both retailers and consumers alike. The second annual Global Retail Theft Barometer found that while global retail shrink as a percentage of total sales has declined slightly in the past 12 months, the overall cost of retail crime has increased substantially.

November 12, 2008 RSVP Publications is First to Receive Third Party License from Forestry Stewardship Council for Environmental Responsibility RSVP Publications, a direct mail marketing company specializing in reaching affluent homeowners, has become the first in the direct marketing field to receive a third-party license from the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) in recognition of the company's commitment to environmental responsibility.

November 12, 2008 Consumers Cut Back on Dining Out and Apparel, According to The NPD Group The NPD Group, Inc., a leading market research company, has released the results of its latest Consumer Spending Indicator study. Results indicate that, in October, consumers said they were most likely to cut back on dining out, followed by apparel and entertainment.

November 12, 2008 Mobile Coupons to Exceed 200 Million Users by 2013, Predicts Juniper Research Coupons delivered and redeemed via mobile phones are forecast to be used by some 200 million mobile subscribers globally by 2013, according to a new study by Juniper Research.

November 12, 2008 Financial 'Tsunami' Sends Traffic to European Financial News Sites, Finds comScore comScore, Inc. has released the results of a study examining online visitation to UK, French, and German financial news and research sites in September during the height of the global financial crisis, based on data from the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service.

November 10, 2008 Cash-Based Alternative Payment Methods Growing in Popularity with Online Consumers, Javelin Reports Javelin Strategy & Research has announced release of its 2008 Online Retail Payments Forecast, which delves into the increasing appeal and growth of alternative payment methods and the impact it represents to banks and traditional card networks like Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.

November 10, 2008 Online Bargain Hunting Becoming Increasingly Social, Guidance Survey Reveals This year, social shopping techniques will play a role in how people find deals online, as nearly 30% of online shoppers say the best way to find discounts online is through link forwarding, peer comments or social sites. That's the main finding of a new nationwide survey from Guidance.

November 10, 2008 AOL's Platform-A to Deliver Two-Day, Billion Impression Ad Campaign for T-Mobile AOL's Platform-A has announced that it will launch, in partnership with T-Mobile USA, an unprecedented billion-impression Web advertising campaign across Platform-A during a two-day period on November 10 – 11.

November 7, 2008 Online Viewers at TV Network Websites Increase 155% in September, According to Nielsen Online Nielsen Online, a service of The Nielsen Company, has announced that all four TV networks enjoyed month-over-month growth in online video viewers in September, coinciding with the season premieres of many popular and new TV shows.

November 7, 2008 Rapid Adoption of Advanced Mobile Devices Driving Increased Mobile Local Search Activity, Finds Kelsey Group According a study conducted by The Kelsey Group with research partner ConStat, 18.9% of mobile consumers now use a smartphone. Among those surveyed, 49.2% plan to purchase an advanced mobile device within the next two years.

November 6, 2008 More People Intend to Give to Charity This Holiday Season, According to PayPal Despite a tough economic environment, the holiday season is still a time for giving back. According to PayPal’s 2008 Holiday Survey conducted by Ipsos, nearly three quarters (73%) of online shoppers intend to give to charity this season, compared to 60% in 2007.

November 6, 2008 Record Low Economic Sentiment Weighs on Consumer Spending Intentions, Discover Reports The Discover US Spending Monitor fell a record six points in October to 80.4 (based off of 100), as consumers’ economic confidence reached record lows and views of their personal finances deteriorated.

November 6, 2008 Location-based Mobile Social Networking Subscriptions to Reach 82 Million by 2013, ABI Research Predicts Mobile location-based social networking is expected to become a key driver for the uptake of location-based services as it provides a unifying framework for a large set of applications such as friend finders, local search and geo-tagging. This according to ABI Research.

November 6, 2008 Social Media Practices Still in Infancy Stages Says Marketing Executives Networking Group The Marketing Executives Networking Group has announced the findings of their social media membership survey, which reveals most marketers are still in the early or experimental phases of adopting and measuring social media. The survey found 67% of respondents consider themselves beginners at using social media for marketing purposes.

November 6, 2008 Northern Lights Direct Response Sees 'Blitz of Inquiries' Due to Strength of US Dollar Against Canadian Dollar Northern Lights Direct Response, one of Canada’s top direct response agencies, has announced that it has seen a dramatic increase in demand for its services, thanks to the rapid rise in the value of the US dollar against the Canadian dollar, which is currently trading at $1.15.

November 5, 2008 Online Retailers 'Resilient, Not Immune' to Challenging Holiday Season, Finds Shipzilla According to results of the 2008 eHoliday Study, conducted by Shopzilla for Shop.org, more than half of online retailers expect their holiday sales to increase at least 15% over last year. However, the rate of growth is slowing: three-fourths of retailers surveyed last year expected their sales to grow more than 15%.

November 5, 2008 TV Viewing and Internet Use Are Complementary, Nielsen Reports According to the Nielsen Company's new TV/Internet Convergence Panel, TV viewing and online video streaming are complementary activities, with the heaviest users of the Internet also among the heaviest viewers of TV.

November 4, 2008 Business Customers' Mobile IM Adoption Is More About Familiarity than Mobility, Says ABI Research In a new White Paper, ABI Research examines the mobile messaging adoption and usage patterns of mobile business customers from four US operators. One of the key findings is that mobile IM adoption is negatively correlated to mobility.

November 4, 2008 Consumer Electronics Retailers Get High Marks from Customers, CEA Study Finds Consumers are very satisfied when shopping online and at traditional retail outlets for consumer electronics (CE), according to new data from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). The study, Trends in CE Retailing, found that consumers and retailers have benefited from changes in the CE shopping and buying process.

November 4, 2008 DHL Helps Mailers Comply with New USPS Move Update Standards The USPS will implement revised Move Update standards effective November 23, and DHL Global Mail is taking numerous steps to educate customers and ensure they comply.

November 4, 2008 Staffing Industry Analysts Sold to Crain Communications Staffing Industry Analysts, Inc., a leading research, data, and analysis firm covering the temporary workforce, has been sold to Crain Communications Inc., a 90+ year-old business-to-business media company. The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc., a leading provider of independent investment banking services for media, information, marketing services and related technologies, represented Staffing Industry Analysts in this transaction and acted as its exclusive financial advisor.

November 3, 2008 Small Businesses Embrace Social Networking Sites in the US, AMI Study Finds More than 600,000 small businesses in the US will deploy integrated social networking services in the next 12 months—up from about 300,000 currently, according to the latest study by Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.

November 3, 2008 More Than 100 Million Americans Viewed Mobile Ads in Q3 '08, According to Limbo Study Limbo, a leading mobile social networks, and GfK Technology, a leading market research agency, have released their latest joint Mobile Advertising Report (MAR). The third quarter report reveals that mobile advertising awareness grew 33% in nine months against a backdrop of 6% growth in cell phone usage. This suggests an increased allocation of ad dollars to mobile formats through the first nine months of the year.

November 3, 2008 Global RFID Market to Reach $5.3 Billion This Year, Says ABI Research The worldwide RFID market will exceed $5.3 billion in 2008, according to a new forecast from ABI Research. Annual revenue growth will increase over the next five years, accelerating over the mid-term as high-growth, high-volume applications such as supply chain management, ID documents, ticketing, and contactless payment drive shipments.

November 3, 2008 Social Networking Prevalent US and UK Employees, According to 8e6 Technologies 8e6 Technologies, a leading Internet security company, has announced the results of a recent survey of employees in the US and UK. Results indicate the most popular sites viewed at work in both countries include Web 2.0 destinations that are heavy on video and third party applications, especially social networking and news sites.

October 31, 2008 Retail Traffic Down for Eighth Consecutive Week, Hitwise Report US visits to online retail websites have declined for the eighth consecutive week, according to Hitwise, an Experian company. US visits to a custom category of 500 retail websites declined 3% for the week ending Oct. 25, 2008, compared with the same week the previous year.

October 31, 2008 Internet Bolsters UK Economy, Reports eMarketer The UK is expected to cope and bounce back quickly from the 2008 financial downturn because of its Internet presence and status as a major online powerhouse. And the Internet population continues to grow. eMarketer estimates that 1.3 million UK residents have come online since 2007.

October 31, 2008 Credit Crunch Fatigue Sets In, According to Mintel After months of hand-wringing and finger-pointing, the economic crisis is beginning to wear on many Americans. Despite a long road ahead to recovery and stability, market research firm Mintel anticipates many will move on with their lives sooner rather than later.

October 30, 2008 Consumers to Open Their Wallets and Enjoy the Holidays, New IRI Survey Finds Shoppers are tired of bad news and will open their wallets this holiday season, new research announced by IRI reveals. Consumers also cited an increased importance of holiday rituals as they take comfort with friends and family and noted that they plan to make better use of merchandising and promotions to maintain appearances.

October 30, 2008 Websites Now Influence Over Half of US Toy Purchasers, Ad-ology Survey Finds More than half of recent toy purchasers rank manufacturer and store websites as having some influence on their buying decision, according to the Fall 2008 Ad-ology Media Influence on Consumer Choice survey. Product reviews and other information and advertising found online also play a role in influencing buying decisions.

October 30, 2008 Consumers Show Increased Concern about Identity Theft, According to IdentyTruth IdentityTruth has anounced results of a survey that addressed consumer concerns about identity theft. The survey shows that a majority of consumers are more concerned today than a few months ago about protecting their identity.

October 29, 2008 Yahoo Launches Initiative to Protect Free Expression and Privacy for Internet Users Yahoo has announced the launch of the Global Network Initiative: Protecting and Advancing Freedom of Expression and Privacy in the Information and Communication Technology Industry (GNI). Yahoo says the initiative will help guide information and communications technology companies in protecting and advancing freedom of expression and privacy when they encounter laws and policies that interfere with these rights.

October 29, 2008 Social Media Redefining Retail Financial Services Web Experience, Corporate Insight Reports Corporate Insight has released a new report detailing the evolution of social media, such as blogs, forums and online communities, among major financial services companies, providing a clear understanding of market trends and leading tactics. The research reveals that social media is beginning to reshape the way financial services firms communicate with their customers, as well as how investors interact with each other.

October 28, 2008 US Small Businesses Boost Marketing Efforts in Response to Economic Uncertainty, According to Constant Contact Research Rather than accept the dire predictions of lower sales, most small businesses will bolster their holiday sales efforts with aggressive marketing plans, according to Constant Contact's 4th Annual Small Business Holiday Outlook.

October 28, 2008 US Online Holiday Giving to Exceed $3 Billion, Predicts Convio Convio, Inc. estimates that US online giving to nonprofit organization will be more than $3 billion during the holiday season of 2008. A survey conducted by JupiterResearch reveals that in the US more than half plan to donate to charities of their choice during the upcoming holiday season via the Internet.

October 28, 2008 High-End Mobile Applications Under-used by US Consumers, Finds Accenture Survey Despite the rapidly increasing use of handheld mobile devices throughout the US, higher-end applications remain vastly under-used by the country’s consumers, according to results of a newly-released Accenture survey.

October 27, 2008 US Retailers Forecast 2.7% Decrease in Comparable Store Sales This Holiday Season, According to BDO Seidman According to a new study conducted after the financial market meltdown in September by BDO Seidman, LLP, CMOs at leading US retailers expect comparable store sales for the 2008 holiday season to decrease from last year by a drastic 2.7%.

October 27, 2008 Consumer Online Credit Card Applications Down 6% in Q2 08 Versus Year Ago, comScore Finds comScore, Inc. has released results of a study, revealing that, for the first time in the five most recent quarters, the total number of credit card applications submitted online at the top ten credit-card issuer sites declined, dropping 6% in Q2 2008 versus the same period in 2007.

October 27, 2008 Industry Click Fraud Rate Hovers at 16% for Q3, Click Foresics Reports Click Forensics, Inc. has released industry pay-per-click (PPC) fraud figures for Q3 2008. Findings who that the overall industry average click fraud rate was 16.0% for Q3 2008, down slightly from the 16.2% rate reported for both Q2 2008 and Q3 2007.

October 27, 2008 Credit Crunch Has Deep Impact on Holiday Shopping, According to eBillme Spending Index The impact of the credit crunch is expected to effect holiday shopping as projected consumer spending online remains steady at $100 - $250 on average. This is according to the eBillme Online Spending Index, conducted by Javelin Strategy and Research.

October 24, 2008 Identity Theft Remains a Concern for Bank Customers, Harris Interactive Survey Finds The results of a new consumer survey conducted by Harris Interactive for Secure Identity Systems found that more than half of bank customers worried about the current state of their bank are concerned that their money and identity are not safe. The survey polled 2,212 US adults ages 18 and up on the topics of banking and identity theft.

October 24, 2008 Online Reviews Second Only to Word of Mouth as Purchase Influencer in US, Rubicon Survey Finds Online reviews and comments written by users are second only to word of mouth as a purchase influence for most Americans, according to a survey of Web users released by tech strategy firm Rubicon Consulting.

October 24, 2008 Adoption of SaaS and Cloud Computing Is Increasing, Keynote Survey Finds Keynote Systems has announced the results of a new survey of 600 conference attendees, which found that 48% of the respondents have already deployed, or plan to deploy applications or services via Cloud Computing or SaaS in the next six months.

October 24, 2008 Marketsmith, Inc. and Lett Direct, Inc. Announce Alliance Lett Direct, Inc. and Marketsmith, Inc. have formally announced they have signed an agreement to offer services and expertise jointly to the clients they serve. The alliance shows a long term commitment to each other, a mutual platform, and the mission to serve the catalog community with excellent service, low cost, high value solutions and a wide breadth and depth of expertise.

October 23, 2008 Amazon.com Announces Third Quarter Sales up 31% to $4.26 Billion Amazon.com, Inc. has announced financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2008. Operating cash flow was $1.27 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $1.0 billion for the trailing twelve months ended September 30, 2007.

October 23, 2008 Economy to Significantly Slow US Online Holiday Sales, Forrester Predicts US online retail sales this holiday season will reach $44 billion, a 12% increase over last year and the slowest growth rate to date, according to Forrester Research. Forrester says that this year's weakened growth is indicative of the difficult economic environment catching up with formerly resilient Web buyers.

October 23, 2008 CHIP Selects Northern Lights as Direct Response AOR CHIP Home Income Plan, a leading provider of reverse mortgages, has named Northern Lights Direct Response as its Direct Response Agency of Record (AOR). As the Direct Response AOR, Northern Lights will lead the charge on the media management, creative, and production for CHIP's DRTV and DR online campaigns.

October 23, 2008 IWCO Direct to Close Elm City, North Carolina Plant IWCO Direct, a leading provider of integrated direct mail production services and marketing solutions, has announced it will immediately close its facility in Elm City, North Carolina and will transfer equipment and production operations to three other IWCO Direct facilities in Minnesota.

October 20, 2008 Postmaster General Names William Gilligan Acting Chief Postal Inspector Postmaster General John E. Potter has announced the appointment of William Gilligan as acting chief postal inspector to replace Chief Postal Inspector Al Lazaroff, who retires Nov. 3.

October 20, 2008 Acxiom Study Reveals Which Consumer Groups Are Most Likely to Spend During Challenging Economic Times Acxiom Corporation has announced the release of the first issue of its Retail Consumer Dynamics Study (RCD), an industry-specific analysis of consumer shopping behavior and attitudes in today’s difficult economic times.

October 20, 2008 Convergence Helps Companies Be 45% More Productive: Aberdeen The latest ERP benchmark report "Do More with Less: Merging Enterprise Applications with Desktop Tools" (September 2008) found that top performing companies are integrating enterprise and desktop applications, and as a result, are seeing significant improvements in corporate productivity and profitability.

October 17, 2008 Gartner Identifies Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2009; Virtualization, Cloud Computing Top List Gartner, Inc. analysts have highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations. Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years.

October 17, 2008 73% of Best-in-Class Companies to Increase Budget for Enterprise Use of Social Media Technologies: Aberdeen A recent study, "Sales 2.0: Social Media for Knowledge Management and Sales Collaboration," conducted by the Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company, reveals that 59%of Best-in-Class companies consider the use of social media collaboration tools within the sales department to be a priority to the organization, compared to 35% of all others.

October 17, 2008 Tech Giants Increase Paid Search Spending Despite Weak Economy, Finds Covario Covario, Inc. has announced the release of the Q3 2008 edition of its Global Search Spend Analysis series. Despite the faltering economy, Covario has observed a spike in year-on-year (Y-o-Y) paid search spending growth to 51% from 43% growth rate in the previous quarterly analysis.

October 17, 2008 Nanci Langley Named PRC Vice-Chairman Postal Regulatory Commission Chairman Dan G. Blair announced that Commissioner Nanci Langley has been named Vice-Chairman of the Commission, succeeding Vice-Chairman Mark Acton.

October 17, 2008 Small Business Remains Confident Despite Wall Street Turmoil: Opinion Research Corp. Despite the turmoil on Wall Street, small business owners and managers remained positive about the condition of their individual businesses, according to a survey taken Sept. 25 through Oct. 6 by Opinion Research Corporation, an infoGROUP company.

October 17, 2008 US Economic Slowdown Continues to Affect Display Advertising, Finds PubMatic PubMatic, which provides online publishers with real-time ad optimization, has unveiled the PubMatic AdPrice Index for Q3 2008, a quarterly industry-wide measure of online ad network pricing for publishers. The index shows that online ad prices declined overall this past year by 27%.

October 17, 2008 ShopperTrak Reports Total US Foot Traffic Falls 9.3% in September ShopperTrak RCT Corporation's Retail Traffic Index has reported that total US foot traffic for the month of September fell a sharp 9.3% while the company's National Retail Sales Estimate reported retail sales fell 1.0% for the same period – the first year-over-year sales decline since March 2003.

October 16, 2008 Google Continues to Dominate Search Advertising, But Yahoo Gained Ground, Finds Study Efficient Frontierhas released the "US Search Engine Performance Report: Q3 2008." The report, the largest independent research in the search marketing industry, was based on an analysis of 60 billion impressions and 428 million clicks across an index of Efficient Frontier advertisers.

October 16, 2008 Mintel Comperemedia Sees Green Marketing, Business Tactics Used to Weather Financial Crisis Mintel Comperemedia, a service that tracks direct marketing and print advertising, observes more financial services companies going green in recent months. Because green marketing and eco-business tactics can save companies money and help them attract new customers, Mintel expert Susan Menke thinks this is a wise strategy.

October 16, 2008 USPS Committed to Continued Affordable Universal Service; Tells PRC No Need for Change to Monopoly The US Postal Service submitted a report to the Postal Regulatory Commission on its position related to the Universal Service Obligation (USO) and postal monopoly. In its report, the USPS confirms its continued commitment of trusted, affordable universal service to the US public.

October 16, 2008 Shoppers Plan to Spend 1.9% More This Holiday, Use Internet to Compare Prices: NRF Survey According to NRF's 2008 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, US consumers plan to spend an average of $832.36 on holiday-related shopping, up 1.9% over last year’s $816.69.

October 10, 2008 Companies Fail to Realize Customer Revenue Potential, Reports CMO Council The shift to Individualized Relationship Marketing (IRM) is one of the key preliminary findings from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council's new thought leadership initiative, "Precision Promotion: Timely, Targeted and Trackable," sponsored by the InfoPrint Solutions Company, a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh.

October 10, 2008 iPerceptions Study Uncovers Consumers' Real Online Ad Preferences iPerceptions Inc., a leading provider of Web-focused voice of customer analytics, today announced the results of a new study that delivers accurate insights into which types of online ads are popular with consumers.

October 10, 2008 Consumer Spending on Mobile Broadcast TV to Reach $2.7 Billion by 2013: Juniper Research The increasing availability of mobile handsets capable of receiving free-to-air analogue and digital terrestrial TV signals will adversely impact the prospects for dedicated mobile broadcast TV networks, according to a new report from Juniper Research.

October 10, 2008 Financial Institutions Not Communicating with Customers Enough, Opinion Research Finds According to a survey from Opinion Research Corporation (an infoGROUP Company), banks, savings and loans, and credit unions appear to be doing a poor job of keeping their customers informed in this turbulent economic climate.

October 10, 2008 Viewers Changing the Way They Watch Sports Events, Finds Optimedia Don't just take those TV ratings as an indication of a sports worth--especially in this growing digital age. Publicis Groupe’s media agency Optimedia says there is a lot of other media to consider.

October 9, 2008 Discover US Spending Monitor Down 2.2 Points to 86.5, as Consumer Confidence Falls The Discover US Spending Monitor dipped 2.2 points to 86.5 in September, as consumers grew increasingly concerned about the US economy and worked hard to hold-the-line on future spending plans. More than 55% of the nation’s adults rated the economy as poor.

October 9, 2008 Coupons Make Comeback as Consumers Spend Less, Finds Harris/RetailMeNot Survey The results of a consumer survey conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by RetailMeNot.com found that 45% of adults plan to spend less money on gifts this holiday season compared to last year, given the current state of the economy, and one in five plan to spend significantly less.

October 9, 2008 Americans View TV, Daily Newspapers as Most Credible, Finds Opinion Research A new survey finds that Americans consider television and daily newspapers the most credible sources of news and information. Television was viewed as the most trusted media source, scoring a 6.6 on a one-to-10 credibility scale.

October 9, 2008 Consumers Concerned Retailers Not Doing Enough to Protect Financial Data, Solidcore Survey Finds Solidcore Systems, Inc. has announced the results of a consumer confidence survey linked to data security at retail locations. Solidcore surveyed more than 500 consumers nationwide about credit card use, and to gauge their privacy fears and buying habits when shopping at various retail stores.

October 9, 2008 UPS Joins EPA's 'Climate Leaders' Program As part of its continued commitment to sustainable business practices, UPS announced its participation in the US Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Leaders program. UPS is the first shipping company to join the program.

October 9, 2008 Industry Visionary Dave Lewis Joins Message Systems as CMO Message Systems, a global leader in digital messaging solutions, announced that Dave Lewis has joined the company as chief marketing officer.

October 8, 2008 Americans Are in a Pessimistic Mood, Finds CNN/Opinion Research According to the latest CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 80% of Americans think that things in the country are going either “pretty badly” or “very badly.” The poll, conducted October 3-5, 2008 by Opinion Research Corporation (an infoGroup Company), showed that economic conditions are taking their toll on the mood of the nation.

October 8, 2008 Internet Advertising Up 15% in First Half of 2008, Reports IAB Internet advertising revenues (US) for the first six months of 2008 were $11.5 billion, setting yet another new half-year record that represents a 15.2% increase over the first half of 2007, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau(IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC),

October 8, 2008 Google Unveils AdSense for Games in Effort to Fuel Online Gaming's Growth To continue to fuel the growth of online games for users and as part of its ongoing efforts to develop new ways for publishers to earn revenue, Google has announced the availability of AdSense for Games, a program that integrates video advertisements into Web-based games, complemented by text and image ads.

October 8, 2008 Olympics Drive a Banner August for Sports Websites at Work, Reports Nielsen Online Nielsen Online, a service of The Nielsen Company, has reported a 26% year-over-year increase in unique visitors at work to online sports destinations, growing from 33.4 million unique visitors in August 2007 to 42.3 million unique visitors in August 2008, driven in large part by the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the kick-off of football season.

October 8, 2008 'Hire Slow and Fire Fast,' Advises JoAnne Dunn at Hudson Valley DMA Masters of the DM Universe Event At the Hudson Valley DMA’s seventh annual Meet the Masters event, held Oct. 1 at the Fairview Country Club in Greenwich, CT, special guest speaker JoAnne Monfradi Dunn shared twenty-five years of ups and downs from her beginnings in direct mail to her current role as the entrepreneurial leader of Alliant Data Systems.

October 7, 2008 Neel Kashkari Appointed Interim Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability; Treasury Announces Solicitations for Agents Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. has designated Neel Kashkari as the Interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability pursuant to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. In this capacity, Kashkari will oversee the Office of Financial Stability, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

October 7, 2008 World Adspend to Grow 4% in 2008 and 2009 Despite Economy, Forecasts ZenithOptimedia ZenithOptimedia has reduced its forecast for advertising spend growth to 4.35 in 2008, down from the 6.6% growth forecast it published in June. It has also reduced its growth forecast for 2009 from 6.0% to 4.0%.

October 7, 2008 MySpace and Facebook Taking Lead in Mobile Social Networks, Says ABI Research According to a recent online survey conducted by ABI Research, nearly half of those who use social networks have also visited a social network through a mobile phone. Of these, nearly 70% have visited MySpace and another 67% had visited Facebook.

October 7, 2008 Ask.com Launches Next Generation of its Site Ask.com, an operating business of IAC, has announced it has unveiled a new version of its site that the company says includes significant relevance, user interface, and speed enhancements.

October 7, 2008 Marketing M&A Activity Resilient but Slowing for Third Quarter 2008, Petsky Prunier Finds According to Petsky Pruner, merger and acquisition activity in the marketing, advertising, and digital media industries proved surprisingly resilient during the first two months of the third quarter of 2008, but began to soften in September.

October 7, 2008 SkyMall Launches Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews Bazaarvoice, a worldwide leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, has announced that leading multi-channel retailer SkyMall has launched Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews on its website, skymall.com.

October 7, 2008 Fingerhut Direct Marketing Poised for Strong Holiday Season Fingerhut Direct Marketing, Inc. (FDM) yesterday announced it is well-positioned for the upcoming holiday season and anticipates slightly better sales than it enjoyed last year.

October 6, 2008 Americans Expect Companies to Have Social Media Presence, Reports Cone Study Nearly 60% of Americans interact with companies on a social media website, and one in four interact more than once per week. These are among the findings of the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study.

October 6, 2008 Postal Regulatory Commissioner Ruth Goldway Confirmed for Third Term Postal Regulatory Commissioner Ruth Y. Goldway has been confirmed by the US Senate for her third term as a Commissioner of the Postal Regulatory Commission. Goldway was nominated by President Bush on July 10, 2008. Her term will extend through November 22, 2014.

October 6, 2008 Companies Need to Connect to Social Applications to Engage Customers, According to Gartner To do business with the growing "Generation Virtual" population, companies will need to provide or connect to social applications to attract and engage customers, gathering information about their future wants and needs to lead them toward products and services, according to Gartner, Inc.

October 6, 2008 Direct Marketing Fourth Quarter Hiring Plans Plunge, Bernhart Survey Finds Direct marketers are coping with the slumping economy by making deep cuts in their hiring plans for the remainder of 2008, according to the latest Bernhart Associates employment survey. According to the survey, 31% of companies responding said they plan to add to headcount during the current Q4, down sharply from 47% last quarter.

October 6, 2008 eBay Buys Payments and Classifieds Businesses, Reduces Global Workforce by 10% eBay has announced it is acquiring the US-based online payments business Bill Me Later, and Denmark's online classifieds site dba.dk and vehicles site bilbasen.dk. eBay will also reduce its global workforce by approximately 10%, affecting about 1,000 employees in addition to several hundred temporary workers and the reduction of open positions.

October 3, 2008 M&A Activity Continues for Mid-Sized and Smaller Transactions, Reports JEGI So far, 2008 is a tale of two markets, according to The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc. (JEGI). Banking and debt market upheaval and an incipient pullback in advertising spending have led to an overall slowdown in M&A.

October 3, 2008 US Postal Service Releases New Five-Year Plan; Focuses on Meeting Customer Needs The US Postal Service (USPS) has released Vision 2013, its new five-year strategic plan that balances near-term priorities with long-term needs to adapt to changing customer needs.

October 3, 2008 US Postal Service 'Unplugs' -- Postmaster General Kicks Off Conservation Campaign Unplug. Turn off lights. Close doors. Adjust thermostats. Report HVAC problems. Turn off unused equipment. Become personally responsible for conservation. Simple steps that, taken collectively among the 685,000 employees at the USPS and throughout its 34,000 facilities, will have a dramatic impact on the environment.

October 3, 2008 Retailers Apprehend Record Number of Shoplifters, Finds Jack L. Hayes International Shoplifters and dishonest employees stole over $6.7 billion in 2007 from just 24 major retailers, according to the 20th Annual Retail Theft Survey conducted by Jack L. Hayes International, a leading loss prevention and inventory shrinkage control consulting firm.

October 2, 2008 Contrasting Views on Cloud Computing Creating Confusion, Finds Gartner The term “cloud computing” is being loosely applied and defined differently, and it's creating a lot of confusion in the market, according to Gartner, Inc. Analysts say it is imperative to understand these different perspectives and set the proper expectations to obtain the anticipated benefits.

October 2, 2008 More Shoppers Plan to Spend More for Halloween, Reports NRF The spookiest holiday of the year may bring a bit of needed relief to consumers and retailers. According to the National Retail Federation's Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, more consumers plan to celebrate the holiday this year (64.5%vs. 58.7%).

October 2, 2008 FTC's Cyber Security Site Gets an Upgrade; Makeover Marks National Cyber Security Awareness Month FTC's website that helps consumers stay on guard against Internet fraud is revamping to provide extra tools for cyber safety. The FTC's announcement of the newly designed and improved site comes on the first day of National Cyber Security Awareness Month.

October 2, 2008 President Bush Nominates Robert McGowan to USPS Board of Governors President Bush on Sept. 30 sent to the Senate the nomination of Robert W. McGowan, of Nevada, to be a Governor of the US Postal Service for a term expiring Dec. 8, 2015. McGowan served as the elected Assessor of Washoe County, NV from 1984 through 2006.

October 2, 2008 National Advertisers Interested in Local Online Advertising, Finds Sterling Study Among national advertisers there is significant interest in local online advertising, according to a new study conducted by Sterling Market Intelligence and commissioned by Marchex, Inc., a local search and advertising company.

October 2, 2008 Contact Center Compliance Launches New Employee Training Solution Contact Center Compliance has announced a full range of online training solutions that will help clients cultivate an ethical corporate culture that will effectively help manage the governance, ethics and compliance processes throughout the entire organization.

October 1, 2008 Consumers Trust Online Payment Providers More Than Traditional Banks, Finds Cisco Important consumer segments such as baby boomers trust online payment providers more than they trust traditional banks, according to a survey recently conducted by the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG). Consumers are demanding the same convenience they receive online when shopping in a brick-and-mortar environment.

October 1, 2008 Online Reviews Significantly Influence Mobile Phone Purchases, Finds Ad-ology Research According to the September 2008 Ad-ology Media Influence on Consumer Choice survey, 60.5% of US consumers who recently purchased a mobile or wireless phone said online product reviews and user comments had some or significant influence on their purchase decision.

October 1, 2008 Presidential Campaigns Should Harness the Power of Search, According to eMarketer Voters are online to find out about issues, not just candidates. According to eMarketer, 42% of US adults said they look to the Internet for political information—but they are not necessarily looking for ads. Despite the hype surrounding social media, only 7% of voters are visiting social networks to find out about candidates and issues. But eMarketer estimates that 83.5% of US Internet users will use search in 2008.

October 1, 2008 dELiA*s, Inc. Enters into Agreement to Sell CCS Brand dELiA*s, Inc., a direct marketing and retail company, has announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell the assets related to its CCS brand to Foot Locker, Inc. The purchase price for the transaction is $102 million in cash, subject to adjustment as provided in the agreement.

October 1, 2008 Lisa Olson Joins infoGROUP's Leadership Team as SVP Corporate Communications infoGROUP, a leading provider of proprietary business and consumer databases, sales leads, direct marketing, email marketing and global information solutions, has announced the appointment of Lisa Olson as the senior vice president of corporate relations. In this role, she will be responsible for investor relations, public relations, internal communications, government, and community relations.

October 1, 2008 Message Systems' Delivery Manager Selected by mobileStorm to Boost Email Marketing Email solutions provider Message Systems has announced that its Delivery Manager has been selected by mobileStorm to boost the performance of its email marketing service and scale with the company’s growth, while ensuring client campaign deliverability.

September 30, 2008 USPS Announces New International Shipping Requirements, Effective Sept. 30 Effective Sept. 30, the US Census Bureau is requiring mandatory filing of export information through the Automated Export System (AES) or through AESDirect for all international shipments, where a Shipper’s Export Declaration (SED) was previously required.

September 30, 2008 Small Business Economic Confidence Falls, According to Discover Small Business Watch Economic confidence among small business owners declined sharply in September amid rising concerns about economic conditions for their businesses and a bleak vision of where the economy is headed. The Discover Small Business Watch fell to 74.6 in September, down 12.3 points from August.

September 30, 2008 Google TV Ads Platform Adds Bloomberg TV to US Inventory Continuing efforts to make TV advertising more relevant, accountable and measurable, Google has announced that the Bloomberg Television network will make national cable advertising time in the US available through the Google TV Ads platform.

September 30, 2008 Facebook Visits Up 50% Year over Year, According to Hitwise MySpace.com received 67.54% of the market share of US visits in August 2008 among a custom category of 56 of the leading social networking websites according to Hitwise. The market share of US visits to the social networking custom category decreased 2% in August 2008 to 6.40%of all US visits compared to July 2008.

September 30, 2008 Green Consumers Don't Always Practice What They Preach, Finds Information Resources A New study by Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), a leading global provider of market insights, revealed revealed significant disparity in how well environmentally conscious consumers actually follow their convictions by purchasing environmentally friendly products.

September 30, 2008 Salesgenie.com Teams with Google Maps to Map Sales Leads Salesgenie.com (an infoGROUP company)has announced that subscribers can now improve planning and efficiency for B-to-C and B-to-B sales calls through new sales lead mapping capabilities.

September 30, 2008 MBS Promotes David Braunstein and Michele Jones MBS, a leading provider of advanced direct marketing services, has announced that it has promoted David Braunstein to senior VP, strategic services, and Michelle Jones to VP, account services.

September 29, 2008 Prospects Want Answers Fast, Finds Silverpop B-to-B Study A new Silverpop study of online lead management practices found that people are willing to answer a lot of questions as long as they can do it quickly, and once registered, are anxious to hear from companies.

September 29, 2008 E-Commerce May Cure Retailers' Holiday Blahs, Says Turner Investment Partners According to the latest Sector Focus commentary by analysts at Turner Investment Partners, consumers may be especially discretionary in their discretionary spending during the holiday shopping season. Even so, they are likely to increasingly patronize retailers with strong e-commerce businesses.

September 29, 2008 Visa to Develop Mobile Payment-Related Services for Android Platform Visa has announced plans to make mobile payment-related services broadly available to US consumers by the end of the year. Central to this effort is Visa's delivery of mobile applications for the Android platform, which will be available for download on Android-powered handsets and initially available to Chase Visa cardholders.

September 29, 2008 RadioShack Sees 8.4% Brand Awareness Increase with Mobile Ad Campaign Greystripe, creators of a leading in-game mobile ad network, has announced the results of a recent mobile advertising campaign with RadioShack. Results indicated a significant statistical increase in unaided brand awareness from exposed respondents.

September 29, 2008 Consumer Reports Poll Finds Americans Extremely Concerned About Internet Privacy A poll released by the Consumer Reports National Research Center shows that most Americans are very concerned about what is being done with their personal information online. According to the poll, 82% of consumers are concerned about their credit card numbers being stolen online, while 72% are concerned that their online behaviors were being tracked and profiled by companies.

September 25, 2008 USPS Says Challenging Economic Conditions Continue to Reduce Mail Volume, Revenue As the current economic climate continues to contribute to a decrease in mail volume, and with no reversal in the trend in sight, the US Postal Service reported it expects to end the current fiscal year with a volume decline of nine billion pieces. In its third quarter, total mail volume dropped 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year.

September 25, 2008 Quill Founder Jack Miller Presents Lessons of Entrepreneurship in New Book, Simply Success' In his recently published book Simply Success, Jack Miller, former chairman and founder of Quill Corporation, presents key lessons of entrepreneurship, including getting started, vision, financing, forecasting, customer service, and building a successful corporate culture. Based on his own experience, Miller shares his most hard-earned lessons, in order to help others avoid learning the same lessons the painful way.

September 25, 2008 CRS Prepares Report for Members of Congress, Titled 'Do Not Mail Initiatives and Their Potential Effects.' The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has released an updated version of a 29-page report titled “Do Not Mail Initiatives and Their Potential Effects: Possible Issues for Congress.”

September 25, 2008 USPS Issues Service Update for Hurricane Ike The USPS has issued an update regarding Hurricane Ike as of Thursday, September 25 at 9:00 a.m. (EDT). The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) will continue to update this information — via its homepage “Marketing News” and “3D-DMA Daily Digest” — as the USPS makes it available to the public.

September 25, 2008 Yahoo Launches Transformative Digital Ad Platform Called APT Emmy Award nominee and Golden Globe Award winner Jon Hamm of AMC's drama series Mad Men, joined Yahoo's CEO Jerry Yang, President Sue Decker, and EVP of Yahoo US Hilary Schneider for the fifth annual Advertising Week conference in New York City to announce the launch of APT from Yahoo.

September 24, 2008 Yahoo Forms Digital Advisory Council to Drive Discussions with Advertisers on Open Marketplaces, Digital Media Convergence Yahoo has announced the formation of a Digital Advisory Council that will consist of industry executives from its agency and advertiser partners. The council will work collaboratively to explore the continued evolution of digital media and online advertising.

September 24, 2008 TNS Media Intelligence Reports US Ad Expenditures Down 1.6% in First Half 2008 Total measured ad expenditures in the first six months of 2008 declined by 1.6% as compared to the same period in 2007, according to data released by TNS Media Intelligence. Ad spending during the second quarter of 2008 was off 3.7% versus last year, the steepest quarterly drop since 2001.

September 24, 2008 Gartner Dispels Common Myths, Misconceptions and Paranoias About Information Security In the keynote presentation at the Gartner IT Security Summit, Gartner security, privacy and risk analysts Andrew Walls and Eric Ouellet said security professionals need to qualify threats that are reasonably anticipated, and dispel those which are pure myths, misconceptions, or based on paranoia of the unknown.

September 24, 2008 USPS Issues Service Update for Hurricane Ike: Wednesday PM The USPS has issued an update regarding Hurricane Ike as of Tuesday, September 23 at 6:00 p.m. (EDT). The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) will continue to update this information — via its homepage “Marketing News” and “3D-DMA Daily Digest” — as the USPS makes it available to the public.

September 24, 2008 Economy Triggers Decline in Charitable Donations, Finds Capital One A recent online National Survey of US Adults on Current Charitable Giving Practices conducted by Capital One reveals that, while 73% of surveyed adults report that they have a credit card for personal use, as few as 185 have ever made a charitable contribution via an online Web site using their credit card.

September 23, 2008 NRF Foresees Challenging Holiday Season, Forecasts Meager Sales Gains of 2.2% The National Retail Federation (NRF) has released its forecast for the upcoming 2008 holiday season, projecting that sales will rise 2.2% this year to $470.4 billion. This gain would fall well below the ten-year average of 4.4% holiday sales growth and would represent the slowest growth since 2002, when holiday sales rose 1.3%.

September 23, 2008 Texting Now More Popular than Calling, Finds Nielsen The Nielsen Company has released figures showing that the typical US mobile subscriber now sends and receives more SMS text messages than they do mobile telephone calls.

September 23, 2008 USPS Issues Service Update for Hurricane Ike The USPS has issued an update regarding Hurricane Ike as of Tuesday, September 23 at 9:00 a.m. (EDT). DMA will continue to update this information — via its homepage “Marketing News” and “3D-DMA Daily Digest” — as the USPS makes it available to the public.

September 23, 2008 USPS Publishes Final Rule for Parcel Select Marking Requirements The US Postal Service (USPS) has published in the Federal Register, a final rule that revises its mailing standards (Domestic Mail Manual) to reflect changes to the marking requirements of its Shipping Services product, Parcel Select.

September 23, 2008 Buying Online for Pickup In-Store Is Becoming Part of Retail Culture, Finds e-tailing Group A recent study by the e-tailing group concludes that buying online for pickup in-store is definitely becoming more a part of stores' culture. According to Lauren Freedman, e-tailing group’s president, "Customer adoption coupled with growth among key multi-channel merchants embraces cross-channel customer convenience."

September 22, 2008 comScore Releases August 2008 US Search Engine Rankings comScore, Inc. released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the US search marketplace. In August 2008, Americans conducted 11.7 billion core searches, virtually unchanged from July, as Google Sites extended its lead in core search market share by 1.1 percentage points.

September 22, 2008 National Study Reveals How Teens Are Shaping & Reshaping Their Wireless World A generation widely defined by mobility, today's teenagers are now making demands of their mobile devices and, in doing so, redefining what mobility will be in the future, according to a national survey, "Teenagers: A Generation Unplugged," released by CTIA – The Wireless Association® in conjunction with Harris Interactive.

September 22, 2008 Year-Over-Year Retail Sales Rise 5.0% for Week Ending Sept. 13, Finds ShopperTrak ShopperTrak RCT Corporation's National Retail Sales Estimate™ (NRSE) has reported that year-over-year retail sales for the week ending Sept. 13 rose 5.0%, while week-over-week sales fell a sharp 8.4% as compared to the previous week ending Sept. 6.

September 22, 2008 USPS Issues Service Update for Hurricane Ike The following is the USPS's service update regarding Hurricane Ike as of Monday, Sept. 22 at 12:00 p.m. (EDT).

September 19, 2008 USPS Issues Service Update for Hurricane Ike The USPS has issued a service update regarding Hurricane Ike as of Friday, September 19 at 9:00 a.m. (EDT). DMA will continue to update this information — via its homepage “Marketing News” and “3D-DMA Daily Digest” — as the USPS makes it available to the public.

September 19, 2008 US Ad Spending Down Slightly, Nielsen Reports Advertising spending for the first half of 2008 declined slightly compared to the same period last year, according to preliminary figures released by Nielsen Monitor-Plus, the competitive advertising information service of The Nielsen Company.

September 19, 2008 PRC Approves Negotiated Service Agreements; Enhancing Postal Service Pricing, Product Flexibilities Continuing its implementation of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA), the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) this week approved seven competitive negotiated service agreements requested by the United States Postal Service (USPS). Approval was contained in Commission Order No. 107.

September 19, 2008 comScore Releases Asia-Pacific Search Rankings for July 2008 comScore, Inc. has released its ranking of the top search properties in the Asia-Pacific region, revealing that Google Sites continued to lead the region with 33.5% of the more than 27 billion searches conducted in July. Baidu.com ranked second with 27.4% search share, followed by Yahoo! Sites in third with 19.7% share.

September 19, 2008 Nielsen Launches New Service to Measure Out-of-Home Video Network Advertising Industry The Nielsen Company has expanded its suite of out-of-home media measurement services to cover the $1.3 billion advertiser-based video network business. The new service, Nielsen On Location Media, will provide syndicated reporting for ad-backed video networks in health clubs, gas stations, hotels, retail outlets, amusement parks, arenas, on airplanes, and other commercial locations that are estimated to have combined revenues of $1.3 billion.

September 18, 2008 Advertising to Fuel Mobile Social Networking Growth, Juniper Report Reveals Ad-funded social networks will provide the bulk of revenues in the mobile user-generated content (UGC) space by 2013, according to a new report from Juniper Research.

September 18, 2008 Retailers Believe Online Shopping More Resilient Than Other Channels, According to Shop.org/Forrester Research Study According to The State of Retailing Online 2008, the 11th annual Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research, Inc., 72% of online retailers believe that the online channel is better suited to withstand an economic slowdown than offline channels.

September 18, 2008 Rapp Collins Worldwide Becomes Rapp; New Brand Is Manifestation that 'All Marketing Is Direct Marketing' In a move that emphasizes its leadership position as a best-in-class global direct marketing network, Rapp Collins Worldwide has announced that it is changing its name to Rapp. The new branding is the manifestation of Rapp's point of view about the future of direct marketing: as a result of the digitization of content and communications channels, all marketing is Direct Marketing.

September 18, 2008 Postmaster General Cautions of Perfect Economic Storm; Outlines Plan to Tackle Tough Times Postmaster General John E. Potter challenged the mailing industry yesterday, cautioning mailers about the severity of the current economic climate and urging them to create new growth opportunities.

September 18, 2008 RFID Adoption Spreading Across a Broad Range of Verticals, According to ABI Research An online end-user survey recently completed by ABI Research has found that RFID is being used or evaluated for a growing number of applications across a wide range of vertical industry sectors.

September 18, 2008 USPS Issues Service Update for Hurricane Ike The USPS has issued a service update regarding Hurricane Ike as of Thursday, September 18 at 11:00 a.m. (EDT). DMA will continue to update this information — via its homepage “Marketing News” and “3D-DMA Daily Digest” — as the USPS makes it available to the public.

September 18, 2008 dComm Productions Teams with International Commerce Agency for Total Gym Infomercial dComm Productions, LLC and International Commerce Agency, LLC have been selected by American Telecast Products, LLC to produce and distribute a new 15-minute infomercial program featuring a smaller, sleeker Total Gym model.

September 17, 2008 US Shoppers Plan to Cut Back On Holiday Gifts, Finds Reuters/Zogby Poll Reuters today reported that nearly six times as many US shoppers say they will cut back on gift-buying this holiday season than those who plan to spend more, according to a new Reuters/Zogby poll.

September 17, 2008 New Study Shatters Stereotypes About Teens and Video Games, Pew Research Finds A survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that virtually all American teens play computer, console, or cell phone games and that the gaming experience is rich and varied, with a significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement.

September 17, 2008 USPS Issues Service Update for Hurricane Ike The USPS has issued an update regarding Hurricane Ike as of Tuesday, September 16 at 6:30 p.m. (EDT). DMA will continue to update this information — via its homepage “Marketing News” and “3D-DMA Daily Digest” — as the USPS makes it available to the public.

September 17, 2008 US Postal Service Website Gets a Makeover The USPS has announced that its award-winning website USPS.com has been simplified and is now easier to navigate. The revamped site launched Monday with a new look and feel aimed at even further improving customer satisfaction and ease of use.

September 17, 2008 eBay Top Paid Search Term in August, Hitwise Finds The top US paid search term in August 2008 was "ebay," receiving .12% of paid clicks among all websites reported Hitwise, an Experian company. The top organic search term was ‘myspace’ receiving 3.1% of organic clicks in August.

September 17, 2008 Product Placements Decline By 15% in First Half, Nielsen Reports The Nielsen Company has reported that product placements for the first half of 2008 fell by almost 15% on primetime programming for the 11 measured networks on broadcast and cable TV. Broadcast TV placements grew by almost 12%, while placements on cable television declined by 20%.

September 17, 2008 Acxiom Acquires Alvion Unit to Improve Online Access to Products and Services Acxiom Corporation, a global interactive marketing services company, has announced the acquisition of the direct marketing technology unit of Alvion, LLC.

September 16, 2008 USPS Issues Service Update for Hurricane Ike The USPS has issued an update regarding Hurricane Ike as of Monday, September 15 at 5:00 p.m. (EDT). DMA will continue to update this information — via its homepage “Marketing News” and “3D-DMA Daily Digest” — as the USPS makes it available to the public.

September 16, 2008 Search Beats Display Ad Spending in the UK, eMarketer Finds As Yahoo tries to assert itself globally against Google, it rebranded its advertising network this week, which it says reaches 80% of Web users in the UK and Ireland. Search will be more and more important, according to eMarketer.

September 16, 2008 JoS. A. Bank Announces Leadership Succession Plan; R. Neal Black New CEO JoS. A. Bank Clothiers, Inc. has announced the implementation of its leadership succession plan under which three top officials will remain with the company and assume new roles. Robert N. Wildrick will become chairman of the board; R. Neal Black will become chief executive officer and a director of the company and Andrew A. Giordano will become chairman emeritus.

September 16, 2008 More Than Three-Billion Videos Watched Online in UK in June 2008, comScore Finds comScore, Inc. has released data indicating that more than 27.4 million UK Internet users (78% of the total UK Internet audience) viewed 3.2 billion videos online in June 2008.

September 16, 2008 Startup BlueKai Offers 'True Intent' Data to Boost Ad Targeting Omar Tawakol, and team of seasoned executives with decades of experience in online advertising, behavioral targeting and data mining, have announced the launch of BlueKai, a data exchange focused on intent data and consumer control.

September 15, 2008 USPS Issues Service Update for Hurricane Ike The USPS has issued a service update regarding Hurricane Ike as of Sunday, September 14 at 9:00 p.m. (EDT). DMA will continue to update this information — via its homepage “Marketing News” and “3D-DMA Daily Digest” — as the USPS makes it available to the public.

September 15, 2008 Postmaster General Jack Potter Names Cochrane and Betman to VP Positions Postmaster General Jack Potter has announced the appointment of Jim Cochrane as VP of Ground Shipping and Mitzi Betman as VP of Corporate Communications. "Both have been acting in their respective positions for several months, and each has done an outstanding job during that time," Potter said.

September 15, 2008 Retailers Report Weak August as Sales Increase Just 1.1% Over Last Year, NRF Finds Retailers’ summer started off with a bang but ended with a whimper. According to the National Retail Federation, retail industry sales for August decreased 0.35 seasonally adjusted month-to-month and increased 1.1% unadjusted over last year.

September 15, 2008 Mobile Search Grew 68% in US and 38% in Western Europe in Past Year, Finds comScore comScore, Inc. has announced that mobile search is gaining in both popularity and frequency of use in the US and Western Europe. comScore M:Metrics reports that in June 2008, 20.8 million US mobile subscribers and 4.5 million European mobile phone subscribers accessed search during the month, an increase of 68% and 38% from June 2007, respectively.

September 12, 2008 FTC Testifies on the 'Call Center Consumer s Right to Know Act' The FedFTC has provided testimony before the US House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection regarding the "Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act" (H.R. 1776). Lois Greisman, Associate Director of the Division of Marketing Practices, Bureau of Consumer Protection, testified on behalf of the FTC.

September 12, 2008 PRC Proposes Regulations Prescribing Accounting Practices and Procedures for USPS The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) has published proposed regulations prescribing the accounting practices and procedures to be followed by the USPS, along with substantive rules for determining the assumed Federal income tax on competitive products income.

September 12, 2008 USPS Issues Latest Service Update for Hurricane Ike The USPS has released its latest update regarding Hurricane Ike as of Friday, Sept. 12 at 11:00 a.m. (EDT). DMA will continue to update this information — via its homepage "Marketing News" and "3D-DMA Daily Digest" — as the USPS makes it available to the public.

September 12, 2008 Google Receives 71% of US Searches in August 2008, Hitwise Finds Google accounted for 71.01% of all US searches in the four weeks ending August 28, 2008, Hitwise has announced. Yahoo Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 18.26%, 5.32%, and 3.45% respectively. The remaining 46 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.95% of US searches.

September 12, 2008 ForeSee Results to Support Online Comparison Shopping Site Customer Satisfaction ForeSee Results has announced they will be measuring customer satisfaction internationally for Shopping.com, an eBay company. ForeSee Results will apply the methodology of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) to help Shopping.com understand and improve customer satisfaction online.

September 11, 2008 YouTube Draws Five Billion US Online Video Views in July 2008 comScore has released July 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, reporting that Americans viewed more than 11.4 billion videos for a total duration of 558 million hours during the month, with Google sites maintaining a dominant position.

September 11, 2008 Email Aggregation Launches on AOL.com AOL has announced the launch of a new feature on AOL.com that allows consumers to access multiple email services from one convenient online location. The move comes as the company has revealed plans to revamp AOL.com to offer more consumer choice and customization.

September 11, 2008 AOL Launches New Online Safety Site, Upgrades Parental Controls AOL has launched a new online safety education website, SafetyClicks.com, and introduced an improved version of its free, downloadable parental controls software (parentalcontrols.aol.com). The upgraded software no longer requires an AOL screen name and now works with any e-mail address.

September 11, 2008 Pitney Bowes Launches New Mailstream Productivity Series Pitney Bowes Inc. a leading mailstream technology firm, has announced the introduction of the new Mailstream Productivity Series, a new generation of ultra high-speed production mail systems.

September 11, 2008 Online Brokerage Sites See Increased Visitors, Finds comScore comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, has released a study of the online trading and brokerage industry showing strong visitor growth to online brokerage sites coinciding with heavy online advertising efforts by several of the key brokerages.

September 11, 2008 Edith Roman Launches New Nielsen Business Media Mailing Lists Website Edith Roman and Nielsen Business Media have jointly announced that they have launched the Nielsen Business Media Mailing Lists website. Marketers can now explore the multitude of list opportunities offered by Nielsen Business Media online.

September 11, 2008 USPS Issues Service Updates for Hurricanes Ike and Gustav The following is the USPS's service update regarding Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Gustav as of Thursday, Sept. 11 at 3:00 p.m. (EDT). DMA will continue to update this information — via its homepage "Marketing News" and "3D-DMA Daily Digest" — as the USPS makes it available to the public.

September 10, 2008 Online Health Info Category Grows 400% Faster than Total Internet, Finds comScore comScore, Inc. has released results of a study showing that the health information site category has grown 21% during the past year, which is more than four times the growth rate of the total US Internet population.

September 10, 2008 Mobile Payments to Grow Nearly Ten Fold by 2013, Juniper Research Forecasts Purchases via mobile devices of digital and physical goods, contactless NFC (Near Field Communications) transactions and money transfers will together generate transactions worth over $600 billion globally by 2013, according to Juniper Research’s Mobile Payments Study.

September 10, 2008 No Turnaround in the Job Market Anytime Soon, Conference Board Index Suggests The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI) continued its year-long decline in August, suggesting even more softening to come in the labor market. The index fell in August to 110.8, down 0.5% from July's revised figure of 111.4, and down more than 8% from a year ago.

September 10, 2008 Pitney Bowes Appoints CEO Murray Martin Chairman of the Board The Board of Directors of Pitney Bowes Inc. yesterday announced that effective January 1, 2009, Pitney Bowes CEO Murray D. Martin will become chairman of the board of directors.

September 10, 2008 infoUSA Announces Partnership with TCS infoGROUP, a leading provider of proprietary business and consumer databases, local business listings for directories, points of interest (POI) for navigation systems, sales leads, direct marketing, email marketing, and global information, has announced TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (TCS), a leading provider of mission-critical wireless communications, has entered into an agreement with infoUSA's license division to obtain 14 million US and 129,000 Puerto Rico business records.

September 10, 2008 Stratmark Hires James Dunne III to Spearhead its For-Profit Expansion Stratmark has named James E. Dunne III as its senior VP of market and product development. Dunne, former president of Rapp Collins Worldwide, will pilot the addition of commercial marketing services for Stratmark, which, since 1978, has catered almost exclusively to non-profit organizations.

September 9, 2008 USPS Issues Service Updates for Hurricanes Ike and Gustav: Monday Morning The USPS has issued updates regarding Hurricanes Ike and Gustav, which struck the Gulf Coast states one week ago, as of Monday, September 8 at 12:00 p.m. (EDT). DMA will continue to update this information — via its homepage “Marketing News” and “3D-DMA Daily Digest” — as the USPS makes it available to the public.

September 9, 2008 Google and NBC Universal Partner to Bring New Ad Clients to TV As part of its continuing effort to offer innovative advertising solutions to its clients, NBC Universal will join forces with Google to form a strategic multi-year advertising, research, and technology partnership. The two companies will work together to develop more effective ad metrics, attract non-traditional ad partners to NBCU, and incorporate self-service buying opportunities through the Google TV Ads platform.

September 9, 2008 IT Security Spending Rising, Finds Forrester Survey Spending on IT security will continue to grow next year, according to new data unveiled by Forrester Research. The survey found that 21% of respondents expect to increase their IT security budgets in 2009, while nearly 75% of those surveyed expect no cutbacks in their security spending.

September 9, 2008 Residential Finance Appoints Jessica Manna VP, CMO Residential Finance Corporation (RFC), a nationwide mortgage lender, has announced the recent addition of Jessica Manna to its executive management team. Manna joins RFC as VP and CMO to direct marketing, communications and business-growth strategy for the mortgage lender.

September 9, 2008 Wired Baby Boomers Are Going Digital, NPD Report Finds According to The NPD Group, online activities once mainly popular with teens and young adults, are now enjoying active participation by baby boomers, too. Recent consumer surveys of US consumers show that 61% of baby boomer Internet users had visited sites that offer streaming or downloadable video, while 41% had visited social networks.

September 9, 2008 Users Don't Search Google Effectively, Finds Boost eLearning Survey Boost eLearning has announced results of a new survey indicating 39% of all Google searches fail, leading to more than 40 hours of lost productivity per user per year. The online survey found that respondents perform about 12 searches per day and, statistically, 4.7 of those searches do not obtain the desired results.

September 9, 2008 Small Business Owner Optimism Continues to Drop, Wells Fargo/Gallup Survey Finds Reflecting signs of a weaker economy and rising costs, small business owners’ optimism continues to decline. According to the recent Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index, surveyed in July, small business owner optimism has fallen to 45, the lowest score reported since the survey began five years ago. The Index has been declining since mid-2007.

September 9, 2008 Majority of Consumers Cite Interest in Mobile Banking Services, According to Fiserv Study Consumer interest in mobile banking and payments services offered by their financial institution has increased significantly in the past two years, according to new findings from a consumer research study released by Fiserv, Inc.

September 8, 2008 USPS Issues Service Updates for Hurricanes Ike and Gustav: Monday Morning The US Postal Service is now issuing service updates for Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Gustav, which struck the Gulf Coast states one week ago. DMA will continue to post these updates.

September 8, 2008 FTC to Host Second Roundtable, 'FTC at 100: Into Our Second Century,' on Sept. 25 in Chicago The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced its second US roundtable to be held as part of the ongoing agency initiative “FTC at 100: Into Our Second Century.” The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held at the Searle Center at Northwestern University School of Law on September 25, 2008.

September 8, 2008 Europeans and Americans Agree Purchasing Power is Sharply Lower, Finds Harris According to new Harris survey, all across Europe and the US, people are concerned about their country’s purchasing power, and many feel that certain countries fare worse than others. When focusing on the purchasing power of the individual, the feelings of Europeans and Americans are strikingly similar -- and negative.

September 8, 2008 Research Corporation Launches CARAVAN International Opinion Research Corporation has announced the launch of CARAVAN International, weekly Online omnibus studies which, according to the company, will provide clients with cost-efficient international consumer research for obtaining measurements including brand awareness, product image, advertising awareness, concept testing and emerging market trends as well as answers to topical questions of interest to marketers.

September 8, 2008 AT&T Launches Yahoo oneSearch as the Default Mobile Search Engine on AT&T MEdia Net AT&T and Yahoo have announced that oneSearch now powers mobile Internet searches made through AT&T's on-deck MEdia Net portal. AT&T is the first US carrier to integrate Yahoo's innovative mobile search service directly into their portal. This announcement builds on the expanded strategic alliance the companies announced earlier this year.

September 5, 2008 comScore: All Consumer Income Segments Cutting Back; Majority Use Internet to Find Better Prices comScore released the results of a study examining recent changes in consumer attitudes and perceptions about the state of the US economy. The study showed that consumers in all income segments are cutting back on spending.

September 5, 2008 FedEx Express to Deliver Broadest Next-Business-Day Service from Europe to the Eastern US FedEx Express has upgraded its next-business-day delivery service FedEx International Priority® from Europe to major US East Coast cities.

September 5, 2008 Nielsen and IMMI Begin Providing First Daily All-Electronic Ratings for Viewing Outside the Home The Nielsen Company and Integrated Media Measurement Inc. have begun delivering the first daily all-e