Pearl Research estimates that as much as 75% of the $1.7 bln Chinese gaming market is built on virtual item sales.

ZenithOptimedia expects US online ad spending to grow 23.4% in 2008. Global ad spend for online will rise 26.5% in 2008 to $47.7 bln.

The total network disk storage market (NAS Combined with Open SAN) posted 15.8% YTY growth in Q4 2007 to more than $3.9 bln. EMC continues to maintain its leadership in the total network storage market with 27.8% revenue share, followed by IBM and HP with 15.4% and 12.5% revenue share, respectively, according to IDC.

Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posted 9.8% YTY growth in Q4 2007 and totaling $5.3 bln, according to the IDC. For the quarter, the total disk storage systems market grew to $7.5 bln, up 7.6% from the prior year’s Q4 2007. Total disk storage systems capacity shipped reach 1,645 petabytes, growing 56.3%.

The full year 2007 results resembled those in the fourth quarter: EMC held the top market position with 25.8% revenue share, followed by Symantec and IBM with 17.7% and 13.9% revenue share, respectively. NetApp and HP rounded out the top 5 with 8.1% and 4.8% revenue share, respectively.

Ad spending at newspapers and their Web sites totaled $12.6 bln in Q4 2007, compared with $14 bln in Q4 2006, the Newspaper Association of America said. Online ad spending jumped 14% to $847 mln, marking the 13th straight quarter of double-digit growth for Web-based newspaper ads. Spending for print ads in newspapers fell more than 11% to $11.7 bln. For all of 2007, print ad spending fell 9.4% to $42.2 bln. Classified ad spending plunged 16.5% to $14.2 bln.

Pricing strength will contribute to a strong Q1 2008 for small/medium displays, with global revenue reaching $6.4 bln in Q1 2008, up 17.3% from $5.4 bln in the Q1 2007, according to iSuppli. Revenue in Q1 2008 will decline by 6.5% compared to Q4 2007, but such a seasonal slowdown is typical in the small/medium market. For all of 2008, small/medium display revenue is expected to rise to $27.6 bln, up 14.7% from $24 bln in 2007. This represents a significant acceleration compared to 8.8% growth in 2006.

Telecommunications market of Asian countries (defined as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam) will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36% from 2007-2011, according to IDC. The data segment, which includes mobile data services, fixed line corporate data and Internet access services, grew strongly at 258% year-on-year in 2006, reaching $952 mln. While these four country markets will remain generally voice-centric throughout the forecast period, revenue share of the data segment will improve significantly from 17% in 2006 to over 30% by 2011. The mobile data segment from the four countries is anticipated to escalate at 41% CAGR from 2007-2011, driven by expected growth in SMS usage. Fixed lines data, on the other hand, will grow at 24% CAGR from 2007-2011.

Google’s Blogger remained atop the blog site rankings with 37.2 mln unique visitors, up from 23.6 mln in February 2007 - or a growth of 58%, according to Nielsen Online. WordPress was up an impressive 209% YTY, increasing its unique audience to 16.5 mln. Fifth-place TheHuffingtonPost.com’s growth was also impressive: Its unique audience grew from 1.1 mln in Feb. ‘07 to more than 3.7 mln - or 241%.

GPS IC shipments to reach 1 bln annually in 2013. Average Selling Prices (ASPs) will continue to fall, but the effect on vendors’ revenue streams will be more than offset by this strong growth in volume, ABI Research says.

In 2001 19% of US employers told ePolicy institute they were monitoring time logged on and keystrokes. In 2005, it was 36%. In 2007 that number had grown to 45%.

Sales of Wi-Fi phones increased by more than 60% in 2007, according to Infonetics Research. Last year vendors sold 682,000 Wi-Fi phones worldwide, compared to 358,000 in 2006.

Some 16% of mobile phone subscribers already use mobile banking services, and 60% of them use the services at least once a week, the study found, according to Harris Interactive study. Consumers not currently banking or buying on-the-go expressed interest in having such applications on their mobile phones: checking bank account balances/transfer funds (35% selected this app); receiving text message alerts from financial institutions (33%); shopping (16%); making wire transfers and stock-trading (9% each)

Although prices for digital photo frame displays will decline by 3.3% in Q1 2008, prices will increase slightly in other areas, including Portable Media Players (PMPs), mobile handsets, automotive applications, camcorders, cameras and industrial/financial applications, iSuppli predicts. This will cause the overall ASP of small/medium displays to rise to $6.80 in Q1 2008, up 22 percent from $5.60 in Q4 2007, according to iSuppli.

28% of online radio listeners have a MySpace page. 24% have a profile on LinkedIn, according to Arbitron and Edison Media Research.