Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind us, it’s time we enjoy those gadgets that we bought, whether it be a brand new HDTV, gaming system, MP3 player, or computer.  Of course for us techie people, we like to see how this year compares with previous years in terms of money spent.  With the economy in a slump, experts predicted this shopping season to be down, but Cyber Monday managed to persuade many consumers to open their wallets, punch in their credit card number, and eagerly await their arrival of their new gadget(s).

Statistically speaking, last year on Cyber Monday had bought in $733 million in revenue, and this year bought in a 15% increase - an astonishing $846 million spent, stated ComScore in a report.  This came as a relief to many retail stores because sales had dropped by 2% or $12 billion from November 1 to Cyber Monday of this year as compared to last year. 

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With the deal closed on the Dictionary.com purchase, Ask.com has now become, at least according to comScore, the ninth-largest web property. The all-cash deal originally began back in mid-May and had Ask.com purchasing Lexico Publishing Group LLC. The web properties that were included were Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com.

Ask.com is reporting that this will give them an increase of around 15 million additional users on a month basis, which would put them up to a monthly audience of around 145 million. Terms of the acquisition, such as how much was paid were not disclosed.

Read [Reuters]

• Cyber Monday numbers in - 15% more spending than 2007
• Random Amazon game deals
• Deal of the Day: Buy Uncharted 160 GB PS3 bundle, get LittleBigPlanet free

Sections: Web, Websites

We all knew that is was just a matter of time before Facebook would finally catch up with MySpace, well at least in the total number of worldwide unique visitors. The latest numbers from comScore show that both MySpace and Facebook registered around 115 million unique visitors coming from all over the world this past April. So, with that we can officially declare that Facebook is no longer the second largest social network. Likewise MySpace is no longer the largest social network. So whoever is the largest social network today would depend on which of the two you like better.

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Sections: Web, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Websites

Results of the study conducted by comScore shows that the number of U.S. Internet users accessing the web via mobile broadband increased by 154% in Q4 of 2007 as against the same period in 2006. Mobile internet is predominantly used in the work setting rather for domestic use.

The comScore report looked into the usage and characteristics of mobile broadband users from data collected by the research from Internet access using mobile broadband internet service providers (ISPs). This type of internet access is done using mobile phones subscribed through cellular networks and connected to a user’s PC. The study did not cover Internet access through Wi-Fi access which entirely a different thing from mobile broadband Internet access. Mobile broadband Internet usage is measured in terms of subscriber’s data charges from their respective cellular networks. The study also showed that Verizon and Sprint cellular network providers accounted for majority of the mobile broadband market.

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