MTV Networks said it will make every clip from every episode of the popular animated comedy "South Park" available online for free next year in an effort to reach a wider audience.

Holiday shoppers are increasingly looking to online ratings and reviews to make decisions about their offline purchases according to Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice data revealed an increase in ratings and review activity for the week of November 19-26,2007, with a peak on Thanksgiving evening as shoppers prepared for Black Friday. Bazaarvoice said it served 1,400 ratings and reviews per second at the peak, which took place at 9:25 pm EST on Thursday, November 22.

Merchants affected by Yahoo’s system outage on Monday have more reasons to be upset, as US consumers parted with $733 million online for the day.

The ability to shop in your underwear, not necessarily get a better deal, is what’s driving most people to do 25-50 percent of their holiday shopping online. No malls, no traffic, no crowds, no all-day outings.

And that sounds good to me, too.

That’s not justification to raise prices. E-tailers still need to compete with other e-tailers.

You may not be too shocked to hear that networks have found themselves with lots of online advertising for sale.  What is surprising, though, is that this isn’t due to a lack of demand; it’s because networks have (in some cases) already fulfilled their first round of obligations.

The broadening growth of Fox Interactive Media’s many properties has prompted News Corp to prepare FIM Serve, an online ad network, for deployment in and out of the company’s Internet reach.

Consumer packaged goods, aka CPG, have been attracting more purchases online by consumers, and brand manufacturers (and their ad budgets) have noticed.

A whopping 72 million people will be shopping online today, the recently-appointed day for it, and the vast majority will be logging in from work.

A 22 percent increase in sales from last year’s day after Thanksgiving put more money in the pockets of online retailers this year.

Give another point to the “print is dying” crowd; new numbers reveal that, in the third quarter of 2007, online newspaper advertising grew and the traditional type dropped.

A few months ago, I wrote about online panels, and I am finding more and more marketers moving their market research online.

Have you heard of “Cyber Monday”? Boomers are a driving force in comparison shopping engines.

Why is this important? How is social media marketing an essential tool behind holiday gift buying? What type of revenue increase are e-commerce engines estimating within the holiday season? Some interesting questions not to say the least and valuable information for any e commerce owner. I have put together some interesting marketing charts and trend analysis for your viewing pleasure.

Although many shoppers will have less to spend during this holiday season, some of that money will find its way to online retailers.

Islamist militants are getting better at gearing their message online to specific audiences including women and children according to a meeting hosted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

More than 14 percent of the almost $160 billion spent on consumer electronics (CE) over the last 12 months was spent online according to a study by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) "The State of CE Retail."

Since tons of people are coming into the online video business it’s good to know about how the money is going to show up.

At OMMA Video, Dynamic Logic’s Research Director, Kara Manatt, released the results of a study on consumers’ responses to various online advertising, MediaPost reports.

In a previous post on MyBlogLog tips, I had mentioned a series of social media marketing posts Online Marketing Blog will be publishing where many of the tips will actually come from the community they’re about.

Social Media is indeed making changes in our lives.  Even Time Magazine, a bastion of old media, hailed user generated content as the single most influential change in 2006.

U.S. online holiday retail sales will reach over $39 billion in 2007, an increase of 20 percent over last year’s holiday season, according to a JupiterResearch report "U.S. Online Retail Holiday Forecast, 2007."

At ad:tech last week, fellow PR/new media marketing practitioner and blogger, Rohit Bhargava and I were talking about his new book, “Personality Not Included – Why Brands Lose Their Authenticity and How Great Companies Get it Back”, and he mentioned that I should send him a list of recommended reading for a new bookstore feature he’s adding to his blog.