The game isn’t over when it comes to online retail sales. Measurement firm comScore noted the rise in year over year sales for the third quarter, including a massive boost in gaming retail.

The video games, consoles & accessories category measured by comScore virtually tripled in US sales year over year. Microsoft debuted its Halo 3 title for the Xbox 360 game console during the period, a move that helped boost their profit to a 23 percent gain over the same period last year.

Consumer electronics, like flat screens and high-definition TVs, grew 58 percent. Toys have been the subject of recalls due to paint containing lead, as used by Asian manufacturers. Despite those highly publicized recalls, the comScore toys and hobbies category grew by 57 percent.

Demand could be challenged by yet another recall, announced by Mattel, due to lead paint on their Go Diego Go toys.

That bodes well for retailers who may have justifiably feared a slowdown in toy sales as the all-important fourth quarter holiday season begins in earnest. Retailers should keep on track with their marketing promotions, rather than taking current demand for granted, as there are four more weeks before shopping demand starts its post-Thanksgiving push.

Including travel, online retail hit $48.6 billion, 18 percent over the same quarter in 2006. Travel retail accounted for $20.1 billion in spending in the third quarter.

Nokia Phone Owners, Check Your Pockets

About 46 million batteries manufactured by Matsushita between December 2005 and November 2006 and branded as the Nokia BL-5C have been recalled due to potential overheating problems.

Fortunately, Nokia noted in its statement about the problem that all of the approximately 100 overheating incidents happened while the battery was being charged.

A web page hosted by Nokia about the batteries lists the models that use the BL-5C, and provides a way to check the battery identification number against ones being recalled.

Nokia and Matsushita will replace batteries that prove to be from the production run in question. No serious injuries or property damage has been reported from any of the short circuiting incidents people have encountered with the battery.

In February there were 9.1 million unique visits to pet sites, and for March the number more than doubled to 19.5 million visits. Menu Foods, the largest pet food supplier in North America announced a recall on March 16th after receiving complaints about kidney failure in pets that had consumed the tainted food.

Masses of pet owners went online to search for products that were affected,and the Menu Foods Web site attracted 12.8 million unique visitors in March. While Menu Foods was not well known to consumers before the recall, other popular brands saw an increase in visitors. IAMS.com had 2.4 million unique visitors in March, and Purina grew 30 percent from a unique audience of 1.5 million to 2 million.

"Consumers have come to rely on company Web sites to provide them with up-to-date information on their products and services, especially in urgent situations," said Michael Pond, media analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings.

"From Jet Blue’s ‘Passenger Bill of Rights’ to ‘Iams Promise,’ businesses are leveraging their online presence to communicate directly with customers and re-establish trust after a crisis. This is especially important for companies that rely on brand recognition and brand loyalty; for them, engaging consumers in an online conversation is a critical step in recovering from a serious misstep."

"Pet food recall" was the most searched pet food term, resulting with 1.4 million queries in March and it was the 75th most popular search term overall. "Dog food recall" and "Menu Foods" were the second and third most popular pet food search terms; with 1.2 million and 485,000 search queries respectively. Total pet food searches for the month were 4.9 million.

"Nearly five million search queries related to the pet food recall demonstrate how heavily consumers rely on search providers for gathering critical information," said Pond.

"In addition to providing easily accessible content on their own Web sites, companies who want to communicate with their customers during a crisis should also consider buying relevant key words to drive traffic to the right place."

 Menu Foods

One dog, nine cats. That’s the death toll so far in a mysterious outbreak of kidney failure linked to Menu Foods, Inc.’s various pet foods distributed by well-known grocers like Kroger, Safeway, Wal-Mart, and PetSmart.

Canadian Menu Foods recalled 40 different brands of wet cat food and 50 different brands of wet dog food, all of the "cuts and gravy" types processed between December and March. The culprit, according to company statements, may be a change in the supplier of wheat gluten, a protein used in the pet food recipe.

Chances are that Internet searches for recall information will only continue to rise as the news continues to travel. Yahoo reports increases in the thousands of percents for various pet food-related searches.

"Product recalls always cause a stir in Buzz," writes Yahoo’s Erik Gunther. "When information is critical, worried folks turn to the Web for answers."

Gunther reveals these queries among the top 18:

_{1.IAMS (+1,528%)     2.Eukanuba (+1,197%)     3. menufoods.com/recall (+1,006%)     4. Dog Food Recall (+806%)}  

_{5. Dog Food (+680%)     6. Cat Food Recall (+678%)     7. Science Diet (+665%)     8.  Pet Foods (+604%)}

_{9. Pet Food Recall (+534%)     10. Cat Food (+522%)     11. Purina (+432%)     12. menufoods.com (+392%)}

_{13. Pedigree (+262%)     14. Pet Food Maker (+256%)     15. Menu Foods Recall (+234%)     16. Menufoods (+191%)}    

_{17. Walmart Dog Food Recall (+142%)     18.  Pet Food Recall List (+83%)}

While pet owners are worried about their sick pets, Menu Foods Income Fund is worried about its stock price. The recall is expected to cost the company $25-35 million. As reported by Bloomberg, share prices of Menu Foods dropped sharply, falling by as much as 26 percent upon the news.

Of course, the recall has been educational for consumers as well. Your cat may only eat Sophisticat-brand cat food, because she’s finicky and highbrow, and hates the Winn Dixie-brand because that’s for poor strays. It may have been that Madame Whiskers couldn’t form the words "it’s all the same crap" to let you know you’re getting reamed at the checkout counter.

The cat foods recalled:

Americas Choice, Preferred Pets; Authority; Best Choice; Companion; Compliments; Demoulas Market Basket; Eukanuba; Fine Feline Cat; Food Lion; Foodtown; Giant Companion; Hannaford; Hill Country Fare; Hy-Vee; Iams; Laura Lynn; Li’l Red; Loving Meals; Meijer’s Main Choice; Nutriplan; Nutro Max Gourmet Classics; Nutro Natural Choice; Paws; Pet Pride; Presidents Choice; Price Chopper; Priority; Save-A-Lot; Schnucks; Science Diet Feline Savory Cuts Cans; Sophistacat; Special Kitty Canada; Special Kitty US; Springfield Prize; Sprout; Weis Total Pet; Wegmans; Western Family; White Rose; Winn Dixie

The dog foods recalled:

Americas Choice, Preferred Pets; Authority; Award; Best Choice; Big Bet; Big Red; Bloom; Wegmans Bruiser; Cadillac; Companion; Demoulas Market Basket; Eukanuba; Food Lion; Giant Companion; Great Choice; Hannaford; Hill Country Fare; Hy-Vee; Iams; Laura Lynn; Loving Meals; Meijers Main Choice; Mighty Dog Pouch; Mixables; Nutriplan; Nutro Max; Nutro Natural Choice; Nutro Ultra; Nutro; Ol’Roy Canada; Ol’Roy US; Paws; Pet Essentials; Pet Pride – Good n Meaty; Presidents Choice; Price Chopper; Priority; Publix; Roche Bros; Save-A-Lot; Schnucks; Shep Dog; Springsfield Prize; Sprout; Stater Bros; Weis Total Pet; Western Family; White Rose; Winn Dixie;Your Pet

The current system uses two electrodes encased in fabric to send an electrical signal through the human body between 500 KHz and 3 MHz. According to the patent the electrode doesn’t have to be touching the body, but must be very close to it, such as in a pocket or on a belt clip. A signal travels through the user’s skin and is transmitted to another electrode on the headset, which then plays the audio signal as any pair of wired headphones would. The patent describes the device as:

A transmitter for generating [an] electric field by transmitting a potential difference signal corresponding to transmission data from a transmitting electrode; and a receiver for receiving the data by reading the potential difference signal in [an] electric field by a receiving electrode.

According to a representative at Sony the company initially sought alternatives to the peculiar skin-driven system, but these posed more problems than one would think. An infrared system would require sensors on both the headset and transmitter to be in direct line of sight at all times, posing a number of usage issues that could render the headset useless. IrDA systems (Infrared transmission protocol) can also malfunction when being used in daylight (the folks at Nintendo had to learn that one the hard way.

Sony also said that Bluetooth would be considered for such a wireless headset, but despite its popularity the protocol poses its share of problems as well. As Bluetooth can broadcast a signal to distances of up to 30 feet, eavesdroppers could easily listen in to whatever was being played on audio source that the transmitter is connected to. And even with deliberate interference, a Bluetooth headset could be easily disrupted by errant Bluetooth signals from other devices in the immediate vicinity.

As such Sony has taken the road less traveled, using the human skin for the first time ever as a transmission medium for consumer electronics. Whether consumers warm up to the notion of voluntarily sending electrical signals through their body remains to be seen, but it seems as though one key design flaw could make that a moot point.

As indicated earlier, the system must be close to or in contact with the human body in order for the signal to be effective. While this would be a very useful technology for athletes, whom might wear their audio devices on an arm band or similar thing, the headset is rendered useless for users who don’t stow their iPod on arm or in pocket. This appears to be a drastic price to pay in the interest of nixing a cable, which can only be so disruptive.

Perhaps Sony is aiming this one specifically toward nano-equipped joggers and similar folk. But even if that’s the case the whole thing begs the question – why not put out a product that’s suitable for everyone? The very entity of the Playstation 3 may prove this to be a question that Sony is incapable of answering.

Via ars technica
Check out Sony’s patent filing.

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Mike Zazaian is the Editor-in-Chief and Webmaster of TechFreep.com, an online publication dedicated to daily technology and science news. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he majored in Film and Video studies with a sub-concentration in screenwriting. While only a minority of Mike’s formal education encompassed the technology field, he has worked as a web developer, a freelance web designer, and has been a tech enthusiast for the better part of his life.

A quick scan of blog posts in Technorati show some people saying it’s the largest product recall in consumer electronics history. Others say Dell has issued a recall for the computers themselves (no, it’s just the batteries).

Many posts I see make reference to the recent cases where Dell laptops have burst into flames, events that clearly triggered the recall announcement.

It’s worth mentioning that the batteries are manufactured by Sony not by Dell. But will anyone make any differentiation in relation to that? It’s doubtful. As far as most people will care, it’s a Dell computer battery. So on the face of it, it’s Dell’s issue not Sony’s, although Bloomberg reports that Sony may share the costs of Dell’s recall.

If I had a Dell laptop, I’d think twice about leaving it running unattended whether or not that laptop is on the list of models affected by the battery recall. And if I were in the market for a new laptop, this battery issue would add a big negative for Dell when I compare different brands and models.

Anyway, they’ve announced the recall and have launched a special website with detailed information.

Some people are saying this is a crisis for Dell.

Yes, I think it is. A crisis to do with Dell’s overall reputation and a crisis of customer confidence in the products they’ve bought.

It’s not the battery recall itself that makes for the crisis, though. I think this latest high-visibility issue just adds icing to Dell’s cake of woes. That’s the crisis.

Last year’s saga of poor Dell customer service has become enshrined in the phrase Dell Hell – just Google that and see what you get. Most recently, there is Dell’s questionable behaviour in China over PCs people bought being different to what was advertised. Dell has started to address that one by apologizing and offering refunds.

Yet all these things leave a bad taste in your mouth. You start to wonder whether this really is a company you want to do business with. Or invest in.

What Dell does now, and how it communicates what it’s doing, could be a tipping point in salving the company’s reputation. It could easily go the other way, too. Direct2Dell, the corporate blog Dell launched last month, should play a prominent role in their overall communication, as no doubt it will. For instance, there are two good posts there
about the battery recall with the beginnings of conversations with customers.

But it’s what Dell do rather than what they say that will have a lasting impact on what people think of Dell. And that will impact Dell’s fortunes. The company will report its latest financial results in two days’ time. More interesting, perhaps, will be the future earnings guidance they offer and what they say about their marketplace.

What will be equally interesting about that earnings announcement will be the people who will write about it and blog it, either live or subsequently, whether they are bloggers or mainstream media journalists. What opinions will people form? What will they say in relation to the cake of reputation woes? And what will those opinions contribute to any reputation tipping point?

For the record, I own a Dell desktop PC which I bought last year and with which I am extremely happy. I have had my own exasperating experience with Dell recently, but that’s another story.

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Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

Apple computers affected include the 12-inch iBook G4, the 12-inch PowerBook G4 and the 15-inch PowerBook G4. These batteries were manufactured by LG Chem Ltd. of South Korea. The numbers on the Apple batteries include:

12-inch iBook G4 – A1061 – HQ441-HQ507

12-inch PowerBook G4 – A1079 – 3X446-3X510

15-inch PowerBook G4 – A1078 – 3X446-3X509

Apple said exchange isn’t a problem. Contact them to verify the information and a battery will be issued. Once received, just send back the defective product. They warned also to check recently purchased replacement batteries for these computers as well as the iBook G3.

HP’s recall seems a little more extensive. Their recalls total about 135,000 worldwide and 85,000 in the U.S. They said they’ve received reports on 16 overheating batteries but no one had been injured. They recommended advice similar to Apple’s. Contact them and they will make arrangements to ship a new battery to the consumer.

The recalled battery packs for HP are labeled with bar codes starting with GC, IA, L0 or L1. There are several models of computer listed including some in the HP Pavillion, HP Compaq, Compaq Presario and Compaq Evo product lines.

The HP batteries were purchased between Mar 2004 and May 2005. The Apple batteries were listed in October 2004 to May 2005. In both cases, computer users should not use the computer with the batteries until the replacement arrives. They said to keep it strictly to the power cord.

This wouldn’t be the first time Apple’s had problems with batteries either. They had problems with iPod batteries several months ago. It took a little effort to get Apple moving but they eventually got it together. Because this particular case is government mandated situation, it’s moving a bit smoother.

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

I’ve just read a very interesting study entitled “Memory for advertising and information content: Comparing the printed page to the computer screen.” A key finding of the study is that, “print is consistently better for recall than screen … The central theme to emerge from this study is that individuals have a better ability to recall after viewing materials in print rather than on screen.”

This is not surprising. Various studies have found that it can be 20-30 percent more difficult to read from a screen than it is from print. The Web has thus become a very functional place. People get on the Web, not to vacation, but to find cheap flights and hotels for their vacation.

“Brand-name recall was substantially lower for screen respondents,” according to the study. Again, this is not surprising. Google has built a major business by selling advertising that relates directly to what people are searching for. There is not a single banner ad on Google, not a single graphic trying to enhance brand recognition. Google knows its audience. It knows what works and doesn’t work on the Web.

“Information content viewed on a screen is nearly as likely to be remembered correctly as the same content in print form,” the study finds. By “information content” the study means content that is genuinely useful to the reader; content that supports the task at hand.

The study goes on to state that, “It seems entirely reasonable to believe that the Internet will do a good job disseminating time-dependent or other important factual information about products and services.”

The Web is not a great place to win hearts and minds. It is not a great place to convince people to do something they did not come to the Web already intending to do. Traditional marketing techniques, such as brand name repetition and the use of images to communicate brand attributes, don’t work as well on the Web.

What works well on the Web is a useful website that wastes no time and gets straight to the point. Vague, meaningless marketing fluff such as “solve tomorrow’s challenges, today” are either ignored or else annoy. They just get in the way of people who want to do things.

The Web is changing the nature of memory and recall. The Web is becoming an extension of our memory. We no longer need to remember as much when we have search engines that can ‘remember’ for us.

That changes the nature of communication. Instead of drilling a message home, hoping that it will stick in memory, communicators now need to be ready to be found when people search. Web communications becomes more about responding to the information needs of people, rather than seeking to influence and shape those needs.

The Web is about empowered information consumers who know what they want, or at least know that they want to find out more. Do you know what your customers want when they come to your website?

For your web content management solution, contact Gerry McGovern http://www.gerrymcgovern.com

Subscribe to his New Thinking Newsletter: subscribe@gerrymcgovern.mailer1.net

Some of the blister packages were designed to be convenient for parents who need dosing flexibility depending on the age or weight of the child. The package design includes blister cavities that contain one tablet while other cavities contain two tablets. Concerns have been raised that labeling on the carton and on the back of the two-tablet cavities could suggest to the consumer that two tablets provide a total of 80 mg of the active ingredient, acetaminophen, when two tablets would actually provide 160 mg of acetaminophen.

Consumers should know that each tablet contains 80 mg of this active ingredient. Each tablet is imprinted with the number "80" to reflect this amount. Caregivers should be guided by the dosage directions in the "Drug Facts" labeling on the carton for the correct number of individual tablets to be given based on the child's age and weight.

In addition, some Children's TYLENOL Meltaways 80 mg are packaged in a bottle. The bottle is packaged in a carton. Concerns have been raised that the information on the front panel of the carton may be confusing to some consumers in figuring out the proper dosage.

The carton labeling says that each dose provides 80 mg of acetaminophen. Consumers should know that each tablet 80 mg of acetaminophen. The dosage directions should guide caregivers on the bottle label for the correct number of individual tablets to be given based on the child's age and weight.

Concerns have also been raised that the carton labeling for Jr. TYLENOL Meltaways 160 mg may be confusing to some consumers in determining the proper dosage. This labeling says that each dose provides 160 mg of acetaminophen.

Consumers should know that each tablet contains 160 mg of acetaminophen. Caregivers should be guided by the dosage directions in the "Drug Facts" labeling on the carton for the correct number of individual tablets to be given based on the child's age and weight.

Taking more than the recommended dose (overdose) of acetaminophen may cause liver damage when taking the product for fever or pain relief over the course of the three- or five-day period specified by the labeling.

McNeil is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in this recall and in the effort to alert consumers and retailers nationwide about this issue. Consumers or retailers who have questions or concerns about a product described in this alert should contact McNeil's Consumer Relationship Center at 1-877-895-3665 (English) or 1-888-466-8746 (Spanish) or visit www.TYLENOL.com. The website contains written material and photos of the product and the packaging. Any adverse reactions experienced with the use of these products should also be reported to the FDA’s MedWatch Program by phone at 1-800-FDA-1088, by Fax at 1-800-FDA-0178, by mail at MedWatch, HF-410, FDA, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852-9787, or on the MedWatch website at https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/.

Some people might remember the tragic bout Tylenol back in the 80s when someone poisoned some bottles of Tylenol several people died. The end results were improvement in the packaging and safety of not just Tylenol but man over-the-counter medicines.

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.