Conversations about how particular social networks may fail aren’t at all rare, but social networking as a whole is doing undeniably well.  A fresh report from Forrester Research indicates that the number of people who visit a network at least once a month has about doubled in the last two years.

The number of people online globally is set to grow more than 45 percent to 2.2 billion users over the next five years, according to a new report from Forrester Research.

Asia will account for 43 percent of the world’s online population by 2013, with 17 percent residing in China.

Growth rates in the U.S., Western Europe, and nations in Asia Pacific such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea will slow to between 1 percent and 3 percent.

People who specialize in interactive marketing hardly have to worry about whether the recession has damaged their industry, according to new data from Forrester Research.  Indeed, it looks like the field of interactive marketing is set to thrive, even as offline aspects may be de-emphasized.

The majority of online retailers (79%) say improving the checkout process is one of their top priorities for the remainder of the year, according to a new Forrester Research report.

Growth in U.S. IT spending is expected to rebound in the fourth quarter of 2009, and 2010 is on track to bring a revival of IT buying in other markets as well, according to an updated forecast by Forrester Research.

Global spending on IT services by businesses and governments in 2009 are projected to decline by 10.6 percent, compared with a 3 percent decrease previously projected at the beginning of the year by Forrester.

New research suggests that email marketing in the US will reach $2 billion by 2014. This isn’t exactly in line with research from JupiterRearch earlier this year, which suggested $2.1 billion in 2012, but it’s looking good for the industry nonetheless.

The economy is making online retailers change their marketing tactics in order to acquire and retain customers, according to findings from the "State of Retailing Online 2009," the 12th annual Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research.

The recession might have some people wandering through children’s sandboxes with metal detectors, but it hasn’t made marketers leery of social media.  Instead, more than half of the marketers who responded to a Forrester Research study intend to increase their social media efforts if the recession continues.

A Forrester report released yesterday kicked off once again the debate over paying bloggers to write about products and companies. Blogging purists, new media marketing experts, and Google’s Matt Cutts have all weighed in, indicating this is hardly a debate that will soon be put to rest.

Forrester Research has released a report (you must fill out a form to get it) that details how much people trust different information sources. At the top of the list is email from people they know. At the bottom are company blogs. This is precisely why company blogs should be treated more like emails to friends.

Online advertising will continue to grow despite economic woes according to the latest analysis from eMarketer.

The majority of analyst firms expect to see spending growth for online advertising to continue to show double-digit increases in 2008 and 2009.

U.S. online retail sales this holiday season will reach $44 billion, a 12 percent increase over last year and the slowest growth rate to date, according to Forrester Research.

Consumers are pessimistic about the state of the economy but they still have a significant interest in the ability of the Internet to save them money. Forty-eight percent of consumers, compared with 41 percent in 2007, said they can find the best values and deals online.

RSS feeds are not catching on like some of us thought they would. New data from Forrester Research indicates that only the slim minority of consumers are using it, and furthermore, a great deal of those who don’t have no intention of doing so in the future. When Forrester asked if people currently use an RSS feed:

Enterprise spending on Web 2.0 technologies such as social networks, blogs, wikis, widgets and mashups will increase over the next five years, growing 43 percent each year to $4.6 billion worldwide by 2013, according to a new report by Forrester Research.

Forrester says that Web 2.0 technologies represent a new way to connect with customers and employees. Large companies such as General Motors, McDonald’s and Wells Fargo have all used these tools and 56 percent of North American and European companies consider Web 2.0 to be a priority in 2008.