This years online holiday sales stats are pretty impressive and companies should take note. Companies that depend on the holiday season for huge revenues need to evaluate their online marketing strategies and allign them with where their consumers are buying. The first 48 days of the holiday season approximately $20.65 billion dollars were spent online. This is an increase of 25% over last year.

Top 12 Days of 2006 Holiday E-Commerce Shopping, November 1 to December 18
Rank	Date	E-Commerce Spending (Millions)
1	Wednesday, December 13	$666.9
2	Monday, December 11	$660.8
3	Monday, December 4	$647.5
4	Friday, December 8	$638.2
5	Thursday, December 14	$634.4
6	Wednesday, December 6	$630.06
7	Thursday, December 7	$629.4
8	Friday, December 15	$623.9
9	Tuesday, December 12	$619.8
10	Tuesday, December 5	$612.3
11	Tuesday, November 28	$608.2
12	Monday, November 27 - "Cyber Monday"	$607.6
Note: Ranked by dollars spent, non-travel retail spending, excludes auctions and large corporate purchases
Source: comScore Networks

As a company you need to either bring an SEO/SEM (search engine optimizer / search engine marketer) person in house or outsource the work. As more consumers shift their buying habits online you need to be there when they search for your products.

A larger strategy for any business would be to incorporate your PR, traditional advertising and online advertising. A prime example of this is say you sell blue widgets and you happen to get mentioned on the Oprah's show or even something smaller such as an industry magazine. With 75% penetration of broadband in US homes a consumer wanting your blue widget will at some point go online to search for your blue widget. If you competitor comes up first in the search they may click on their site first. And purchase the blue widget from them.

Now lets say the blue widget buyer finds your site first but does not buy at that time but finds out one of your resellers is in his city and goes there to purchase the blue widget. Perfect! Now this type of sale is harder to track but not impossible.

In the end you need a strategy for your online marketing or you will be missing growth and missing sales.

Blogged with Flock

I recently found out that you can show your friends what music you're listening to via Google Talk. When you play a song in iTunes the track information is displayed below you name. This information is show normally were your status is displayed.

You have to download the stand alone version. The Google Talk within your Gmail does not support this but your track will be displayed within in your Gmail. After you download the software your name will appear at the top of the talk window with an arrow next to word "available" expand that menu by clicking on the arrow. Then pick show current music track. It only supports iTunes, Windows Media Player, Winamp and Yahoo Music Engine.

In a perfect world it would support Pandora b/c I tend to switch between Pandora and iTunes. It is a fun little feature for Google Talk. It more or less allows you to discover new music via your friends. The beauty of this is that it is built in to my instant messenger which contains most of my friends. I don't have some new program that is obtrusive that I have to convince my friends to use so I can see what music they are listening to.

One example of this is iLike which is an add on for iTunes. It is a good idea but not perfect. iLike also has put my iTunes on the fritz. Everytime I close iTunes it gives me an error.

Blogged with Flock

"Wouldn’t it be amazing if no matter where you were in the world, you had an “in” – someone to show you around and clue you in to the local knowledge?"

I recently met a great Chicago entrepreneur, Michael Salvatore, who recently launched AudioSnacks.com. AudioSnacks is a site that has audio tours for great locations around the world but with a twist. All the tours are user generated so if you have some cool hot spots in your hood then you could record a tour for people to listen to when they visit. All you have to do is upload it to the site. Plus you get cut in on the action. The writer of the tour sets the price and the prices are reasonable. Some tours are free.

I know the initial reaction is that some tours must suck but that is not the cas.  All content is reviewed and there are a set of guidelines.  To get a feel for it there is a Training Page that breaks it down.

I see AudioSnacks as the travelers cool friend that knows all the cool spots that your don't find in Frommers.

I have another post for the future about Michael's The Uncle John Project.  Which is a photography site with a unique story as to how the prints came back to life.

Blogged with Flock

I am obviously not a heavy blogger but if you are or you just want a browser that allows you to easily upload photos, easily blog, easily connect with other people then Flock is for you. This is my first post using Flock's built in blogging tools. It automatically signs me into my blogger account and lets me easily add photos to my post. Very simple. I am sure there are more tools but I just haven't had a chance to read about them.

The other tool I have used is the photo uploader tool for Flickr. It is a drag and drop function thats lets me bulk upload photos into my Flickr account but I stay in the browser and don't have to sign into Flickr. Because the browser does it for me.

The other nice features are similar to Firefox in that you can open multiple tabs, import your bookmarks, RSS feeds etc....

It is still pre- 1.0 but it appears to be stable and can only improve.

Blogged with Flock