According to the JupiterResearch report, following cheaper prices, the option of a la carte channel selection proved the second strongest motivator for switching pay TV services, attracting 46% of consumers. There is little interest in high definition programming; only 6% of consumers prioritized this feature. And only 3% of consumers are attracted to a greater selection of VoD services. 52% of consumers would switch pay TV services if they could get a better price for the same channel selection.

55% of suburban Internet users are online several times a day, Pew Internet & American Life Project reports.

According to NPD Group, retail sales for camera accessories in the US grew 27% to $598.1 mln, compared to $472.8 mln in 2004. Accessories include bags and cases, tripods and monopods, accessory and starter kits, lenses, flashes, and batteries. In 2005, over $5.9 bln was generated from the sales of digital and film cameras in the US, with digital single lens reflex (DSLR) revenue experiencing the most growth for the year, increasing 44% from 2004. This helped fuel accessory purchases despite the fact that 75% of all DSLRs sold 2004 came with kits that included lenses. Lens sales, both fixed focus and zoom, saw revenue increase 43% to $235.1 mln in 2005, making lenses the most lucrative accessory. Camera cases/bags also generated impressive revenues in 2005, increasing nearly 24% from the prior year to $128.1 mln. Flashes generated $54.6 mln in 2005, while battery sales generated $49.9 mln and accessory/starter kits produced $33.1 mln in sales.

Overall, rural Internet users perform an average of 1.9 online activity a day.

In 2005, 45% of all mobile phones sold in the US were camera phones, up from 26% in 2004. Asia followed a very similar trend. Western Europe had a higher incidence of camera phones at 64%, and Japan had a much greater adoption rate with more than 90% of all mobile phones sold with camera capabilities both in 2004 and 2005, NPD Group reported. Asia saw the biggest digital camera unit growth from 2004 to 2005 with a 36% increase. In North America sales increased 19% and in Europe they grew 15%. The only area to see a decrease was Japan with a slight drop of 2.5%.

Availability of home high-speed service is one likely reason for the rural gap in home broadband adoption. Pew’s February 2004 survey asked respondents with dial-up service at home whether broadband service is available where they live. Among all dial-up users, 58% said broadband was available, 15% said it was not, and 26% didn’t know. For rural dial-up users, 38% said it was available, 27% said it was not, and 35% didn’t know.

These self-reported numbers are not without problems. Asking people whether the infrastructure in their neighborhood supports a particular service may be hard for some people to answer. They may not know ? as a large share of respondents said ? and some may be incorrect in whatever answer they do give. However, the internal consistency of the numbers (i.e., that rural users are more likely, as expected, to report lack of availability) suggests that infrastructure is partly behind lower broadband uptake in rural America.

Other forces are also likely behind the broadband gap. As noted, rural Americans are less likely to have online access by whatever means than non-rural Americans, and lower overall online penetration means lower broadband penetration. Demographics explain to some extent the lower penetration. Rural Americans are, on average, older, less educated, and with lower incomes than people living in other parts of the United States ? all factors associated with lower levels of online use.

40% of search marketers are missing out by using only Google and/or Yahoo! for their campaigns, JupiterResearch says. One-third of sophisticated marketers find that adding new search engines drive up their clicks. 19% of search marketers make the cut as sophisticated - the ones using the technology to enable testing and expansion.

DSL remains the leading broadband technology in the United States, Pew Internet & American Life Project found. 46% of rural users and 47% of urban and suburban users use DSL.

According to NPD Group and GfK Group, in 2005, 5 megapixel cameras captured a 37% unit share in the US, up from 20% in 2004, while unit share for 3 megapixel cameras dropped from almost 37.5% in 2004 to 13% in 2005. In Japan, which tends to be a more mature market, over 90% of digital still camera (DSC) unit sell-through was 5 megapixels or greater in Q4 2005, with 6 and 7 megapixel models on the rise. In Japan, digital single lens reflex cameras (DSLR) now hold nearly 7% of the country’s DSC unit share. In 2005, DSLRs in the US and Europe had 5.2 and 4.2% unit share, respectively. That same year in the US, DSLRs reached sub $900 and sub $800 price points for the first time, motivating the advanced amateur to purchase an upgrade.

Pew Internet & American Life Project published the results of its findings regarding broadband usage in the United States in Septemer 2005.

Preliminary data indicates Q1 2006 sales of mobile phones will be up 20% or more over Q1 2005 as the Chinese new year becomes more significant and Christmas campaigns in many other markets are extended, Gartner said. In Q4 2005, the mobile phone market remained strong with sales exceeding 235 mln units. Gartner analysts say that based on preliminary data for the first two months of 2006, there will be a drop in Q1 2006 over Q4 2005 of 5-8%. Gartner isn’t changing its full year outlook of 10% to 15% growth from the 817 mln mobile phones it estimates were sold in 2005.

Pew Internet & American Life Project published its data from 2001 to 2005 on Internet reach among various US communities.

According to IDC, the Western European market for CRM applications reached $2,549 mln in 2004. The five major countries - France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK - made up 72% of the total market. Siebel and SAP each lead five vertical industries.

By the end of 2005, 24% of rural Americans had high-speed internet connections at home compared with 39% of adult Americans living elsewhere. In 2003, 9% of rural Americans had broadband at home, less than half the rate (22%) in urban and suburban American. For overall internet use (by whatever connection from any location) the penetration rate for adult rural Americans lagged the rest of the country by 8% at the end of 2005 (a 62% to 70% margin). This is about half the gap that existed at the end of 2003, Pew Internet & American Life Project reports.

SAP leads all 11 vertical segments covered in IDC study focusing on the $7.1 bln Western European enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications market. Manufacturing is approximately 40% of the total market with discrete manufacturing being almost twice as large as process manufacturing. Retail/wholesale is the third largest industry. Compared to the overall software spending by vertical, discrete and process manufacturing, transport, communications, utilities, retail/wholesale, and business services recorded relatively high levels of ERP spending, while financial services, government, education and healthcare, and other industries recorded relatively low levels of spending. SAP dominated the Western European ERP applications market with a 41% market share in 2004, up 2% compared to 2003. Oracle ranked second. While SAP was more than five times larger than Oracle during 2003, this was reduced to less then four times the size of Oracle in 2004 when measured by ERP application revenues, due to Oracle’s acquisition of PeopleSoft. Sage ranked third, Microsoft Business Solution held fourth place, and SSA Global ranked fifth.

In Q4 2005, Syntax-Brillian was the 8th largest seller of LCD TVs in the United States, according to iSuppli. At the same time, Vizio TVs made by V Inc. emerged from obscurity to #11, notching a 2% share, just under Toshiba, which had 3%. Olevia and Vizio are nipping away as Sharp fights to hold onto its leading 13% share, with Sony on its tail and stiffening competition from such other makers as Philips and Samsung.

Just 9% of Internet users read blogs frequently, 11% do so occasionally, 13% rarely bother, and 66% never do, Gallup says.

InfoTrends tells USA Today the online photo developing market is headed by Kodak Gallery, followed by Shutterfly and Snapfish. While camera sales rose 19% in 2005, according to NPD Group, camcorder sales were flat.