Nielsen//NetRatings reports:

Holiday Online Spending Jumps 29 Percent Year-Over-Year as Consumers Spent $4.5 Billion During the First Three Weeks of November, According to the eSpending Report From Goldman Sachs, Harris Interactive and Nielsen//NetRatings.

American consumers spent more than $4.5 billion online during the first three weeks of November, according to the eSpending Report from Goldman Sachs & Company, Harris Interactive®, and Nielsen//NetRatings. Boosted by a 29 percent increase year-over-year, online shoppers spent more than $1 billion more this year than in the first three weeks of November 2001.

The eSpending Report also showed that spending per person increased to nearly $88 during the week ending November 22, surging 22 percent over the previous week and rising 8 percent as compared to the same time last year.

Editor & Publisher: An Exit Interview With WSJ.com's Neil Budde

Interesting interview running through the thinking behind the WSJ online going subscription, the business model in general, and how the website is doing on the advertising front.

Neil Budde: In 2002, advertising was up about 25%. We're not back to 2000 levels, but we were being more attentive to more appropriate advertising formats and placement of advertising. We've attracted a lot of advertisers back in. I still see a lot of upside. Back in 2000, the split between advertising and circulation revenues was about 60%-40%. Then [those percentages] reversed last year. Now it's a bit more tilted toward subscriptions, but advertising is creeping back. As you continue to grow the subscriber base, that's great, but the real opportunity is still to make this a more viable advertising medium and bring in more dollars.

iMedia Connection: Interview: Exile on Seventh’s Scott Symonds

Symonds: Furthermore, as an agency, we also believe in analysis that goes far beyond what merely can be tagged and macro-ed into a spreadsheet. We prefer to work with the client to recognize multiple important touch points - or action metrics - that are important to the client. These may include visits to a product information page, or a site FAQ, and would certainly include something like an e-mail sign-up for more information or a company newsletter – and create a weighted action metric for media evaluation that balances and gives credit to all these factors. We recognize that an advertising campaign does more -- and needs to do more -- than just drive immediate quantified sales (and even latent click-through and view-through activity) but must be the ongoing extension of the client's brand with its potential universe of users.

Yahoo News: marketingfix]

My friend Kimber has been put together Jinglenet — a nice little online business in personalized singing telegrams — just in time for the holiday season.

They cost $4.50 to send, but as a reader of this very blog you get send them free for the next week. Pick a card, go through the customizing routine, and enter 8888 when you get promted for the promotional code.

So go have some fun with it.

A Wicked Cool use of iFrames

Check out what Paolo has done with iFrames and Marc Barrott's ActiveRender.  Sweet! [ Go ]