According to Passlogix, roughly 40% of calls made to corporate help-desks are related to password problems. 220,000 USPS employees made 30,000 calls each month to have their passwords reset, Business Week says.

CraigsList, sites by Trader Publishing, Cars.com and Apartments.com were the leading online classifieds sites in September 2005.

Nielsen//NetRatings published its findings regarding Black Friday online shopping. EBay was the top online retailer on Black Friday, with 9.5 mln unique visitors, followed by Amazon and Wal-Mart Stores, which drew 4.6 mln and 3.4 mln unique visitors.

Semiconductor equipment from US-based manufacturers will account for 50% of the global front-end wafer processing market in 2005, up from 49% in 2004. China front-end equipment sales in 2004 represented only 7% of US-based companies revenues and 6% of Japan-based companies, but 31% of Europe-based companies such as ASM International and Unaxis. China?s equipment purchases, which we forecast in January 2005, will drop from $2.8 bln in 2004 to $1.9 bln in 2005 and European suppliers will take a big hit, The Information Network says.

The storage debate between NAND flash memory and hard disk drives (HDDs) for the portable consumer electronics market will continue and likely increase with price disparity decreasing over the next 4 years, IDC believes. NAND memory average selling price is expected to decrease at a 43% compound annual growth rate from 2004 to 2009.

Cyber Monday generated $485 mln for online retailers in 2005, a 26% jump on $386 mln in November 2004, comScore Networks reports. As far as totals for the entire Thanksgiving weekend (Thursday through Sunday), online retailers pocketed $925 mln in 2005, 26% growth on $737 mln in 2004. ComScore projects online spending will reach $26.5 bln for Q4 2005, and $82.7 bln for entire 2005.

Although organizations have traditionally focused security efforts on external threats posed by the explosive growth of viruses, spam, spyware, and blended threats, there is an emerging threat to corporate security that comes from inside the organization. According toIDC, the detection and prevention of outbound content that violates corporate policy and government and industry regulations is critical. This new security market segment, which IDC has termed outbound content compliance (OCC), will swell to $1.9 bln in 2009.

Cost per click prices for search engine terms fell by 4% in September 2005, to $1.44, a decline of 26% from the 12-month high of $1.95 in April 2005, according to Fathom Online. Average prices reached their lowest point since October 2004, when the mean cost-per-click was $1.55.

Most web retailers have already made a multi-year investment in affiliate marketing and count on a network of several thousand affiliates to drive visitor traffic, according to Internet Retailer. 43.2% of web merchants indicated that their affiliate marketing program is at least 4 years old, compared with 23.2% who say they’ve had a program in place for 2-3 years, 10.5% with programs only about a year old and 23.2% with programs in operation less than a year. Almost 12% of companies operate networks of more than 10,000 affiliates. That number compares with 8.6% with 5,001-10,000 affiliates, 24.9% with 1,001-5,000 affiliates, 13% with 501-1,000 affiliates, 7% with 251-500 affiliates and 35% with fewer than 250 affiliates.

65.2% of survey participants said they offer higher commissions to better-performing affiliates, compared with 34.8% that don’t. Consumer brand manufacturers which sell direct to the public with an e-commerce site are especially likely to pay higher commissions to motivated affiliates, with 83.3% of manufacturers in the survey saying they offer better commissions to some affiliates. In comparison, 73% of store-based merchants say they offer higher commissions to better-performing affiliates, followed by catalog companies (70.7%), virtual merchants (61%) and consumer services companies (52.2%).

16% of web merchants count on affiliate marketing to generate more than 21% of their total sales, compared with 17.9% of retailers who say affiliates drive 11-20% of all sales, 25.5% who realize 6-10% of all sales from affiliate marketing and 40.8% who say that affiliate marketing accounts for less than 5% of total annual merchandise sales. 86.2% of store-based merchants participating in the survey said affiliate sales account for 20% or less of their total sales, compared with 90.2% for catalogers, 85.7% for virtual merchants, 100% for consumer brand manufacturers and 66.7% for consumer services companies.

77% of respondents surveyed by BURST! Media said they were online shoppers, meaning that they either make purchases or seek out product-related information online. 63% said the Web was the primary source of information for comparing products. 49% of online users surveyed rely on the Web more than other sources for prices and specs of potential purchases.

25% of the European Internet population visited a job site in Q3 2005. 43% visited a university site. Overall, 68 mln Europeans visited careers and education sites, an 18% increase YTY. 29 mln visited job sites (a 25% increase) and 53 mln visited university sites (a 21% increase YTY). 6 mln Europeans visited a job site whilst at work during this period, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

JupiterResearch says that European consumers who download music from illegal file sharing networks currently outnumber those downloading from legal services such as Apple’s iTunes Music Store by a factor of three to one: 15% file share while just 5% pay to download. There is solid demand for paid downloads, however, 10% of European consumers are willing to pay, rising as high as 31% in Sweden. File sharing penetration in Europe is highest among younger consumers (34% of 15-24 year olds) and is impacting the way they value music with many having little concept of music as a paid commodity. Among the 46% of European online 15-24 year olds who use the Internet to consume music, the CD is becoming increasingly irrelevant: 40% do not consider the CD to be a good value for money and 43% prefer to copy rather than buy CDs.

Significant growth in the small form factor and mobile PC hard disk drive (HDD) segments will more than counterbalance flat growth in the desktop PC and enterprise HDD segments to accelerate worldwide semiconductor revenue growth through 2009, IDC forecasts. While the worldwide HDD semiconductor market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.6% from 2004 to 2009, chip revenue in the small form factor HDD will experience the healthiest growth rate with a 39.4% CAGR over the same period. IDC expects, small form factor HDD chip revenue will represent nearly 25% of the market by 2009.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics found investors committed $8.23 bln into venture capital funds during 2004-05, up from $9 bln the previous financial year.

Genius Insight surveyed Americans 13-49 regarding their brand awareness. Most well-known US brands are:

1. Hershey’s
2. M&M’s
3. Reeses
4. Oreo
5. Sony
6. Kellogg
7. Kleenex
8. Kraft
9. Nestle
10. Google

According to the Federal Reserve Board, total US credit card debt recently topped the $800 bln mark.

24% of US Internet users (35 mln people) have participated in an online auction, selling or buying something, Pew Internet & American Life Project says. In March 2000 only 15% of Internet users reported that they had ever used an auction site. Over time, the daily use of auction sites has risen slightly, as approximately 2% to 3% of Internet users use these sites on a typical day.

Shop.org says more than 58 mln consumers are expected to shop online on Monday, November 28th, 2005, from home or at work. Nielsen/NetRatings said traffic to online shopping sites grew 29% YTY on Friday, November 25th, 2005. Yahoo! Shopping reported that the number of visits to its site rose 52% on Nov 25th, 2005, better than the 30% jump expected.