E-Commerce Just Got Interesting

Apple's Piping Hot Innovation - Forbes.com

In an application with the U.S. Patent Office published on Dec. 20, the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer and gadget company described a wireless system that would allow customers to place an order at a store using a wireless device such as a media player, a wireless personal digital assistant or a cellphone.

The system could go far beyond the program that Apple announced with Starbucks in September, which allows iPhone users to press a button and wirelessly download the song playing in the background as they sip their soy lattes.

Apple's application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office describes a process for placing an order and then notifying customers when an order is ready to grab at a pick-up station. One goal, the patent application notes, is to avoid an "annoying wait in a long queue if the purchaser arrives before completion of the order."

Seth Godin Experiments With SEO

Seth's Blog: ...and your clicks for free (the new ebook)

TV on Your Phone ... Coming After Jan 08

MediaPost Publications - Google, Verizon, AT&T Vie For 700MHz Spectrum - 12/20/2007

Google, Verizon, AT&T Vie For 700MHz Spectrum
Thursday, Dec 20, 2007 7:00 AM ET
GOOGLE, VERIZON WIRELESS AND AT&T are among 266 companies competing to bid for the 700MHz spectrum auction set for January. The field of potential bidders, released late Tuesday night by the FCC, so far has accepted 96 applicants--and another 170 have until Jan. 4 to complete their paperwork. Verizon and AT&T were among the bidders whose applications were marked as "incomplete" by the FCC. Other companies bidding for a chunk of spectrum include Cablevision Systems Corp., Cox, Qualcomm, Towerstream and Frontline Wireless. Paul Allen is also planning to bid through his Vulcan Ventures investment firm, as is a Guam-based phone company backed by an investment firm run by Roy Disney. The auction could raise up to $15 million for the government.

Advergaming for QSR

Thought you might be interested in checking this out. I like the countdown aspect ...and the play on hungry as a ....

http://hungryasa.com/ I stink at the game but it is interesting....

Checkers Launches Virtual Game to Promote Double Value Menu

Checker's/Rally's is running an online game to promote its Double Value menu.

Checkers Drive-In Restaurants has rolled out an online game to promote its new Double Value menu.

A microsite at http://hungryasa.com/ teases the new menu, which launches Dec. 31. On the site, visitors can play a virtual eating game for a chance to win Checkers/Rally’s coupons.

In “Hungry As A,” players select from a dog, a bear or dinosaur icons and use their keyboard arrow keys to grab, eat and fend off competitors. At the end of the game, players receive a printable coupon offer based on their score for a discount off Checker’s Spicy Chicken Combo meal, a Big Buford combo or a free Loaded Fry upgrade.

The promotion runs through Jan. 31.

The online game supports Checkers/Rally’s’ new value menu. It will offer 17 items, 10 of which start at $1 and seven double burgers and chicken and fish sandwiches offered at “2 For” prices ranging from $3 to $5. It’s the first time the company is adding a permanent value menu to its restaurants, spokesperson Elizabeth Sheridan said.

Checkers/Rally’s is promoting the game online, on its bags and through blog sites. ML Rogers is handling the campaign.

The Minorty of Time Shifters Do The Most Time Shifting

MediaPost Publications - Interpublic Unit Finds 28/72 Rule For DVRs: Minority Represent Majority Of Time-Shifting - 12/18/2007

"A small group accounts for a dominant share of DVR usage: Applying conservative assumptions, it appears that slightly more than a quarter (28%) of DVR users account for almost three quarters (72%) of total marketplace time shifting -implying that the vast majority of consumers with DVRs use them on a limited basis, and continue to watch most TV in real-time," Wieser wrote

MEDIA>> interviews the Long Tail guy

MediaPost Publications - Free Thinker - 12/18/2007

How does Chris Anderson chase his own Long Tail? Last year, the editor-in-chief of Wired gave us such a compelling name and a theory for the digital economy that hardly a business plan goes by this year without dropping the term. After showing us how the Internet helps empower and monetize niche markets and tastes, Anderson will explore what he calls "the radical price of zero." Free, planned for late 2008, suggests that the new economies of abundance that he outlined in The Long Tail make it possible for companies to succeed by charging consumers little or nothing. After reviewing some of Anderson's preliminary musings on the topic at conferences and on his longtail.com blog, we put his model to the test. We asked for a free preview.

Older dude from Forbes finally likes LinkedIn

Why you'll finally use LinkedIn - Dec. 14, 2007

For years, I've been befuddled by LinkedIn. I knew it was supposed to be the social network for work, but to me it was like war. "What is it good for?" I asked myself repeatedly, even as I occasionally poked around and accepted requests to link with people. I belonged to it, but I really didn't know why.

Sent from my iPhone. So what.

The Convergence backslides ... Momentarily ...

Online Video Traffic Drops 6 % | WebProNews

The top five online video sites switched their ranking order and site traffic in October, according to Compete

Frustrating news for mobile internet freaks

Mobile Web: So Close Yet So Far - New York Times

Similarly, surveys by Yankee Group, a Boston research firm, show that only 13 percent of cellphone users in North America use their phones to surf the Web more than once a month, while 70 percent of computer users view Web sites every day.

“The user experience has been a disaster,” says Tony Davis, managing partner of Brightspark, a Toronto venture capital firm that has invested in two mobile Web companies.



While many phones have some form of Web access, most are hard to use — just finding a place to type in a Web address can be a challenge. And once you find it, most Web content doesn’t look very good on cellphone screens.

Social bookmarking's effect on rankings

Ben Cook created a blog with a single post
and submitted it to Digg. The post reached Digg's front page, a deluge
of visitors ensued, but what's next? High search engine rankings and a
continuous trickle of visitors, Ben Cook explains



MIT Adverlab links to a recent experiment by some guy who claims to be trying to "make it" as a blogger or quit. He documents how he's used Digg to grow his audience, and we can learn a thing or two about social bookmarking for brands by association.

Emerging media meets sports

Sports Marketing Gets Digital Boost

One emerging area of opportunity is targeting fans on TV and the Web simultaneously. About 58% of fans watching a game on TV are also using their mobile devices for instant messaging, e-mailing, text messaging or talking on the phone, the study found. In addition, research shows that these multitaskers are more engaged and have better recall of the ads they see than the viewers who are only watching the game, the report said. This provides an opportunity to engage fans using multiple media at the same time.

- This is real. It's happening now. And we know how to take full advantage of the emerging media within target consumers' lives.

The End Game is Upon Us ...

Use Of Broadband Service To Overtake TV Viewing

Tuesday, Nov 20, 2007 7:01 AM ET

WITHIN THE NEXT THREE YEARS, more than 16 million U.S. households with televisions will use their broadband service more than they use their TV sets today, says technology consulting firm In-Stat. Up to 30% of viewers will drop subscription TV and use the Internet for watching TV, according to a recent survey by the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based In-Stat. More than 40% say they aren't getting enough international news and information from their current TV service, despite having hundreds of channels to choose from. Respondents had a broadband connection, a TV, and were 18 or older. --Mark Walsh

In-Game Ads ... Still Emerging

Google Optimistic About In-Game Ads, Dabbles Lightly with AdSense - MarketingVOX
n July, Microsoft and EA developed a dynamic in-game ad platform for the Xbox 360. Google's budding interest in in-game advertising will likely bode badly at Steve Ballmer's breakfast table.

MediaPost Publications - Wal-Mart to Reveal Holiday Promotions Online - 11/08/2007

Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez estimates many of the 10 million people who visit Walmart.com on Thanksgiving Day will end up in the store on Friday. "The same behavior driving Google's growth reflects the increase in visitors we see on our Web site traffic," he tells MediaPost.

BullsEye BBQ Drummer

Drummer rocks the kettles brandishing brushsticks and barbeque sauce. Featuring David Suycott from the indie rock band Stabbing Westward, who wrote and performed the drum solo.

read more | digg story

Mobile video still growing but still small ...

MediaPost Publications - Mobile Video Audience Grew To 8 Million: MMetrics - 10/25/2007

THE U.S. MOBILE VIDEO AUDIENCE has grown by more than one-third this year to eight million, according to a new study by mobile market research firm MMetrics. With 6.8 million viewers, viral clips have proven to be the most popular category of mobile video.

Search Marketing Vital for Brand Building and Driving Offline Sales for Consumer Packaged Goods Companies

“While search marketing has long been recognized as an effective direct response vehicle, it’s been largely overlooked by CPG companies who focus on brand advertising and promotional efforts to drive in-store purchasing,” commented Gord Hotchkiss, Chairman of SEMPO. “This study seeks to demonstrate the potential brand-building impact of search for CPG marketers.”

Millions of Consumers Use Search to Learn About CPG Products
Search appears to represent a significant marketing opportunity for CPG brands. The study found that a majority of U.S. consumers visited Web sites for CPG product categories during the three months ending April 2007, with search driving a significant percentage of visitors in all the categories. Food products represented the largest search marketing opportunity with nearly 44 million category site visitors searching. Baby products attracted 15.7 million searchers, followed by personal care products with 9.8 million and household products with 1.7 million.

The study also found that a substantial percentage of the visitors to category Web sites arrived as a result of a search query. Among visitors to baby products sites, 60 percent arrived via search, followed by 47 percent in food products, 27 percent in personal care products, and 23 percent in household products.

TV Viewing Habits - A Long March Uphill ...

Advertising Lab: future of advertising and advertising technology: TV Viewing, 1952-2007

Historical TV viewing activity among households, from about 4hr 48min a day in 1952-53 to 8.14 in 2006-07.

Bring on the IPTV Device Wars ...

SanDisk to debut USB drive, video service - Yahoo! News

Similar to using a USB drive to store and move data files, users of TakeTV can drag-and-drop video files stored on their computer — Fanfare downloads, home videos or other unrestricted video content from the Web — onto the device. Users can then plug it into the cradle connected to a TV.

A simple menu appears on the TV to scroll through the files for playback.

The TakeTV player is $99.99 for a 4 gigabyte model and $149.99 for an 8 GB one that can hold up to 10 hours of video. Fanfare, in a test stage, offers premium TV shows for $1.99 per download — roughly the same price as rival services, but SanDisk says it hopes to ultimately provide a broad mixture of free and ad-supported content as well as pay-per-download videos.



Fanfare's catalog at launch is small, with about 85 titles. It features TV shows from CBS, including "CSI" and "Survivor," Showtime, TV Guide, and Smithsonian Networks. Dozens of titles are being added each week, SanDisk said.

Convergence ... Was: Weird, Is: Strangely Normal

TV Wonder Combo 650 USB from ATI - New York Times

"For computer owners who want to see what convergence is all about, the TV Wonder Combo 650 USB from ATI, out this week for $150, will pump lots of television into a PC."

So let's get this straight: You plug this doo-hickey into your PC's USB port, and it gets over-the-air HDTV which you can watch live or record in a Tivo-like manner onto your PC's hard drive.

You plug it in. And it works.

Plug. And play.

Plug and play. No pay.

You think people are going to mind seeing commercials with that? (Maybe not.)

The Meth Minute 39: Internet People

It all started with South Park and the Star Wars kid, Numa Numa did his thing and the Back Dorm Boys lipsynced... An animated tribute to the internet people of the world. First episode of the series The Meth Minute 39. Animated by Dan Meth, with music by Dan Meth and Micah Frank.

read more | digg story

Facebook Gets Personal With Ad Targeting Plan - WSJ.com

Social-networking Web site Facebook Inc. is quietly working on a new advertising system that would let marketers target users with ads based on the massive amounts of information people reveal on the site about themselves.

Eventually, it hopes to refine the system to allow it to predict what products and services users might be interested in even before they have specifically mentioned an area.

Pay attention to this ... Really ... Today ...

New Web Sites Aim for TV Experience - Los Angeles Times

Watching video online in small, fuzzy boxes is heading the way of rabbit ears.

Some highly anticipated Web sites are being modeled on making the experience of watching video online more like watching television. These sites rely on software that enlarges the interface so that it fills your computer screen -- from edge to edge.

This new wave of applications is led by Joost and includes VeohTV and Babelgum. Though all are in beta (testing) phases, the hype has been mounting -- leading many to claim the next big advance in online video is imminent.

- Veoh (Windows and Mac)
- Babelgum (Windows PC only)
- Joost (Windows and Mac; invitation only)

Women so do too use games online ...

50 Million Adults Play Casual Video Games to Bond with Children, Grandchildren - MarketingVOX

Some 79 percent of those "family gamers" were female and 95 percent were age 30 or older - figures that closely reflect the overall casual gamer audience, according to PopCap.

As many as 44 percent of survey respondents identified themselves as mothers of children who play casual games, and 36 percent said they were grandmothers. Among males, 16 percent and 6 percent of respondents identified themselves as fathers and grandfathers, respectively.

Super Surfing Moms Rely Heavily on Search for Purchases - MarketingVOX
Moms rely heavily on search engines for both online and offline purchases, and when coordinating travel and planning a host of other activities, according to a study unveiled by DoubleClick Performics last week, reports MarketingCharts.

The "Searcher Moms - A Search Behavior and Usage Study" was conducted in cooperation with Microsoft and ROI Research.

"Of the nearly 1,000 moms surveyed, 89 percent use the internet at least twice per day, and 90 percent have been using it for more than seven years," said Stuart Larkins, VP of search for DoubleClick Performics. "A whopping 86 percent of respondents said search engines are the most efficient way to find information."

Draftfcb Paris Gets Funny in Second Life ...

Graham Cousens writes ...

Interesting article entitled "Marketers Start to Use Social Networks for CRM
Instead of Ads" in Adage at the following URL:

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=119918

In addition to the article, I'd like to share a current State Farm campaign
that's happening on MySpace that is pretty cool.

In addition to a nifty microsite at http://nowwhat.com, they have a
community site at http://www.myspace.com/nowwhat.

Right now there is a 6 hour webcast concert featuring Linkin Park, My
Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, Him and Placebo. In 3 weeks, they've
built up 65,000 friends.

MySpace is regarding this as best practice in leveraging their site.

Essential Web 2.0 Reference ...

From quirky applications to venture-funded startups, a wide variety of new services are being launched leveraging Google’s APIs, helping users perform a multitude of tasks. Here is a non-technical introduction to some of the company’s most popular APIs and some of the most interesting applications built on top of them.

Dow does it the right way ...

Advertising Age - Rance Crain - Dow's Corporate Ads Have Great Chemistry, but Will Respect Follow?
The "Human Element" push, now a year old, has boosted Dow's brand-equity rating, as measured by Core Brand, 25%, but here's how Dow's CEO Andrew Liveris reckons the campaign will be successful: when a Dow employee in a bar anywhere in the world can tell the guy next to him where he works and get the response, "Oh, Dow. That's good."

Simple solutions, people ... Tag your ads with a short code not a URL.

Mobile Shortcodes Boosts Advertising Recall
The research revealed that 44% of mobile users between the ages of 18 and 60 fail to respond to advertising campaigns because they simply forget the brand name and contact details when the moment their interest was captured by the advertisement had passed - with many people wasting time later, trying to find the company, and eventually giving up.

Other key findings highlighted that more than one in three mobile users have sent a text message to a five digit shortcode, primarily in response to TV and radio advertisements, and competitions. When asked if they would find it useful using text as a response mechanism to an offline advertisement, to then be forwarded to a mobile internet site for more details, more than 51% of consumers said they would be quite keen or extremely keen to use it.

Like Gizmoz and Oddcast ...

Personiva
Personiva enables consumers to become brand stars, delivering higher levels of entertainment, brand engagement and community.

Personiva (pronounced Per-saw-niva) lets consumers relate to a brand’s personality through entertaining, personalized experiences, and then share them with friends, family and the rest of the world.

Create your Gizmoz and audition to star in a Taco Bell TV commercial!

Required Viewing (who reads?!?!?)

Canneslions Live 2007

More on the recent Pew study ...

ClickZ: Pew Study: Web Users Want Professional Video

Sixty-two percent of online video viewers express a preference for video created by professionals, versus 19 percent who would rather watch video produced by amateurs. Eleven percent remains agnostic to the skill level of the creator. YouTube, which provides a mix of consumer-generated and professionally-produced video, is frequented by 27 percent of the online video audience.

Social video arrives to herald the dawn of Web 3.0 ...

Broadcaster Launches Social Video Network - 7/25/2007 1:02:00 PM - Broadcasting & Cable

Broadcaster Inc. has launched a two-way interactive video and chat tool to complement their current interactive community. Users can broadcast to one another using a webcam interface with interactive controls.

Users can choose to air their feeds live or record them for later, and can communicate one on one or one to many, depending on their needs. The interface will feature three windows and a text chat: the first window will have the user’s feed, the second will feature the people the user has selected to view, and the final window will show the people who are watching the user’s feed.

More support for online video ...

Pew Internet: Online Video

Fifty-seven percent of online adults have used the internet to watch or download video, and 19% do so on a typical day. Three-quarters of broadband users (74%) who enjoy high-speed connections at both home and work watch or download video online.


The Pew Internet & American Life Project's first major report on online video also shows how many video viewers have contributed to the viral and social nature of online video. More than half of online video viewers (57%) share links to the video they find with others, and three in four (75%) say they receive links to watch video that others have sent to them.

Casual gaming is still the next, next big thing ...

Future Bright for Ad-Supported Casual Gaming - MarketingVOX

Casual gamers are serious about their gameplay, with 28 percent reporting they clock more than nine sessions per week - and 32 percent of those sessions lasting at least an hour, according to last year's survey.

Some highlights of the current casual-gaming survey:


* Some 83 percent of survey participants - casual gamers - are willing to view a 30-second ad in order to play a game for free.

* 53 percent are willing to purchase the game only after they have played with a trial version. Of this segment, 54 percent say they would decide whether they are willing to purchase a game within 60 minutes of play time.

* The percentage of survey participant that rely on promotional emails for more information about new games rose from 14 percent last year to 34 percent.

* The percentage of survey participants that use gaming websites to find out about new games rose from 28 percent to 45 percent.

Video calls on mobile phones arrive in the US ... finally! ...

AT&T Video Share Arrives in Nearly 160 Markets Nationwide

AT&T Inc. has announced the nationwide launch of AT&T Video Share in nearly 160 markets. Video Share is the first-ever service in the U.S. that enables users to share live video over their wireless phones while on a voice call.

Throw your allergy to complexity out the window ...

Forrester: ‘Social Technographics’ a Prerequisite for Social Strategy - Marketing Charts

Before brands and online publishers attempt to deploy social technologies, they must understand their target audience - specifically its social “technographic” make-up - and only then create a social-computing strategy, according to a just-released a Forrester Research report titled “Social Technographics: Mapping Participation in Activities Forms the Foundation of a Social Strategy.”

The term refers to the levels of audience participation in social computing rather than specific technology adoption, writes the report’s lead author, Charlene Li. Forrester groups users into six participation categories, using a ladder metaphor, with “Inactives” at the bottom rung and “Creators” at the topmost rung.

Not surprisingly, the Inactives constitute the majority (52%) of US adult online consumers - followed by, in ascending hierarchical order, Spectators (33%), Joiners (19%), Collectors (15%), Critics (19%) and Creators (13%).

--

The vast majority of agency people - creatives, account managers, media, planners, et al - express to me their avoidance of ideas and strategies that sound too "complex." I think it's time to re-think that. There's no way to deal with today's media without wholly embracing its complexity. And it's only getting more dense. There's no simple way out of this anymore.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Revenge of the Ad Nerds, pt. XIII ...

DRTV spots being watched: TiVo

The least fast-forwarded television campaigns in April were dominated by direct response ads that ran during the day.

That was a key finding from TiVo Inc.’s first Top Commercial Rankings report. Using TiVo’s Stop-Watch service’s ability to track consumer viewing behavior on a second-by-second basis, in both Live and Timeshifted viewing context, TiVo will release these reports monthly.

Mall-vertising metrics are up, and they're good ...

Study Reveals Shoppers Watch Mall Advertising

Nearly half of mall shoppers (47 percent) viewed content provided on the Adspace Mall Network and, of those viewers, 34 percent had an average recall of specific ads they saw on the network, according to a study by Nielsen Media Research. Adspace Networks, owner of the largest in-mall digital video advertising network in the country, commissioned Nielsen Media Research to measure the percentage of mall visitors viewing their Smart Screens, including each viewer's frequency and duration.

The ads follow the viewer ... Creepy ... But Effective ...

Heavy to Launch 'Sequential Advertising'

Heavy.com is set to launch what it is calling “sequential advertising,” a new offering that will provide advertisers with the ability to run a series of spots featuring a continuous narrative during the course of a video program or content block, which may eventually contain elements of branded entertainment.

File under: The end of advertising as we know it ...

Advertising Lab: Skip Ads With Hand Wave

"Scientists [Dr Prashan Premaratne and Quang Nguyen] have come up with a box that lets television viewers change channels, switch on the DVD player or switch off an irritating presenter with the wave of a hand. The controller's built-in camera can recognise seven simple hand gestures and work with up to eight different gadgets around the home."

File under: WTF ...

PocketTweets: Twitter For Your iPhone

PocketTweets is a Web-based Twitter client for the Apple iPhone. See the latest tweets from your contacts, update your status remotely, or see what's happening around the world by viewing the public timeline. -- all via EDGE or WiFi.

Powered by ScribeFire.

First signs of YouTube mainsteam-ism ... "YouTube Inside" ...

Hands on with Casio's YouTube digital camera - Yahoo! News

Casio Computer has developed its first digital cameras with a video mode optimized for YouTube. They come with software that can upload clips to the popular video-sharing Web site with a single click.

More BW widget propaganda ... er, coverage ...

Online Extra: Living in a Widgetized World

With widgets, any page on the Web can be your point of sale. Marketers met at a conference to figure out how to spread them far and wide

Sittin' on a fence over Widgets ...

BusinessWeek seems to think that widgets will tip the Web 3.0 era into being. I remain skeptical. Little tiny apps seem to be nice to have, but the "next big thing"? I don't know.

The Next Small Thing

Bits of code called widgets open the door to viral marketing across social networks. Silicon Valley sees them as a Web revolution in the making

Tailgate: Fully Transactional Web 2.0 Banners

ailgates technology delivers ecommerce transactions from the banner itself. Essentially users can purchase items by interacting with the banner as opposed to having to click through to another page. The benefits from web sites owners are immediately obvious: using Tailgate, advertisements will no longer take users from their sites. For advertisers, capturing impulse buyers just became that much more easy.

Live Earth Breaks the Record ...

Live Earth Internet streaming sets record: MSN | Technology | Internet | Reuters

The Live Earth global pop concerts on Saturday broke a record for an online entertainment show by generating more than 9 million Internet streams, Microsoft Corp. Web portal MSN said.

Women Rule the Net ...

Women: Internet Is Indispensable - Marketing Charts

Women not only outnumber men online but also rely on the internet for the conduct of their daily lives - so much so, that two-thirds (66.1%) of online women say their lives would be disrupted if they were left without internet access for a week, according to a recent Burst Media survey.

Some 66.1% of surveyed women say their daily routine would be disrupted - and 43.6% say significantly so - if internet access were not available for a week, according to Burst, which in June surveyed some 1,800 women age 25+ who visit content sites.

New generation of lighter displays to take on LCDs - Yahoo! News

A new generation of super-thin, power-sipping displays is making its way to the market, stretching battery lives to new limits and perhaps one day posing a challenge to heavier, energy-gobbling LCDs.

New screens that glow on their own are taking on their clunkier liquid crystal display rivals -- which require powerful backlighting -- by producing sharper video images for smartphones, game consoles and portable media players.

But industry watchers say it will be years before a clear winner -- if any -- emerges with the clout to outdo LCDs.

Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and bi-stable technologies are the most likely challengers to LCDs.

An OLED screen uses as much as 40 percent less power than a comparable LCD and could be twice as thin because it does not need backlighting.

In case you were wondering ...

Online Video, Social Networking to Drive Global Digital Lifestyle · MarketingVOX

Online video activities are outpacing the growth in popularity of other digital media, while social networking is quickly becoming the dominant online behavior globally, according to the latest "Face of the Web," Ipsos Insight's annual study of Internet and Technology trends, writes MarketingCharts.

Internet users have grown accustomed to streaming and downloading music in the past three years, and now it's apparently online video's turn.

Participation in online video activities is climbing quickly in many developed markets of the world, and that growth is most prevalent within the US, Ipsos said.

Well over one-third (36 percent) of recent adult US Internet users have watched a TV show or other video stream online, compared with 28 percent at the end of 2005, and three-quarters of those users have done so in the previous 30 days, Ipsos found.

YouTube Owns Online Video ...

YouTube visits larger than rivals combined: survey - Boston.com

The U.S. market share of visits to YouTube, which Google Inc. bought for $1.65 billion last November, rose 70 percent from January through May, online audience measurement firm Hitwise Inc. said in the survey published on Wednesday.

By contrast, visits to the next 64 largest sites tracked by Hitwise rose only 8 percent during 2007's first five months.

"As of May 2007, YouTube's market share was 50 percent greater than those 64 sites combined," Hitwise research director LeeAnn Prescott said in a summary of her firm's data.

YouTube's share of the U.S. online video market was 60.2 percent in May, according to Hitwise. Its closest rival, News Corp.'s MySpace Videos site, had 16.08 percent of market share, the survey of Web surfing habits showed.

YouTube's sister site, Google Video, held 7.81 percent, while Yahoo Inc. had 2.77 percent and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, 2.09 percent, according to the study.

Start-up Metacafe ranked No. 8 in U.S. visitors to video sites with 1.07 percent, Time Warner's AOL Media had 0.94 percent and Veoh was No. 10 at 0.86 percent, Hitwise said.

The "semantic Web" is coming, be afraid ... (or not) ...

Web 3.0: No humans required - July 1, 2007

To take the Web to the next level -- to move from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 -- the information in those documents will have to be turned into data that a machine can read and evaluate on its own. Only then will computers be able to take over tasks we now do by hand: find the nearest restaurant, book the best flight, buy the cheapest CD.

Think of it as the difference between two dimensions and three dimensions. "People will see the Web start to become smarter," Spivack says. "Eventually it will have some reasoning capabilities built into it."