Online Retail Sales
Revenue generated from online retail sites between Thanksgiving and Christmas
YEAR SALES
1999 $5.0 billion
2000 $10.0 billion
2001 $8.3 billion
2002 $8.4 billion
2003 $11.0 billion
2004 $13.2 billion* (Forrester)

This graphic from one of our machines sums it up:

An update on Paypal’s problems, which I believe have impacted a few Blogads buyers.

The outages are regrettable and we can all gripe, but in the big picture Paypal is still a miraculous service that has ennabled tens of billions of dollars of e-commerce transactions for small online players (like us!)

CNN reports

It happens every four years. Presidential contenders verbally joust on primetime television and the networks airing 90 minutes of uninterrupted coverage lose tens of millions of dollars in advertising.

This time around, independent research analyst Jack Myers estimated that the four top networks — CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox — are collectively losing anywhere from $40 million to $50 million on each debate.

Funnily enough, the debates are a huge boon for blogs. TV pundits have to shut up for 90 minutes and bloggers are the only game in town, virtual monopolists. We haven’t necessarily picked up that $50 million in revenue, but are working on it.

Steve Outing, critiquing animated ads: “As we observed in Eyetrack when we looked at website banner advertising, the typical amount of time that people spend looking at an ad is usually less than a second — when it’s viewed at all. It varies based on ad content, size, and placement, but even the biggest ads only got a second and a half of viewing time in our study.”

Normally, I’m not a big fan of animated ads, most of which scream out — “I’m an ad, don’t click me.” However, this ad for Cable-safe gets my attention and sells me. A great a ad (like a smart essay) shows rather than tells.

In theory, I’ll be CNBC’s Bullseye tonight at 6.45, piped in from their Raleigh affiliate. I’ll be driving over there in a few minutes.

Those of you who know how much I love TV will get a chuckle out of this. But Thank YOU to CNBC for giving blog advertising more publicity!

(TV star and blogger Jeff Jarvis advises me not to wear a checked or white shirt.)

Daily News media columnist Paul Colford knows a hot thing when he sees it: sex, politics and Blogads. He dug out something I didn’t know: “TBS plans to revisit the blogs with ads for ‘The Real Gilligan’s Island,’ its new reality show, and ‘Too Funny to Sleep,’ its late-night comedy block.”

Meanwhile, the Pew folks concludes that “The campaigns have spent more than $100 on television ads for every dollar they have spent on web ads.” That’s a lotta upside baby.

Debate count:

— hope: Bush 16, Kerry 0.

— Osama: Bush 4, Kerry 9.

— families: Bush 0, Kerry 3.

— Iraq: Bush 52, Kerry 36.

— hard work: Bush 11, Kerry 0.

— government: Bush 4, Kerry 0.

Hanging out with Ken Layne and Marc Brown Thursday night in Reno. A classic conversation ranging across the foothills and peaks of fantasy and pragmatism: Priory of Sion factoids, candidate debates, German pointers, Hunter’s rattler certificate and resurrection, neighbors, VC, incestuous investors, “hip” versus profitable technology, parenthood. Met the lovely Laura, who is due in February. Learned that Charlie and Bonnie also expecing. Marc shot me, mid-night.

(Noticed that CNN now has “blogs” by Novak and Begala. Although they’ve got the reverse chronology, no post-URLs, no links to outside opinion or material, no real personality.)

Friday we drove up the mind-bending Harrah’s casino for Gnomedex. The event was fantastic, but the casino experience soul-shuddering. The weirdness is best summed up by Marc’s fantastic photoblog. Here are the two archive pages: 1 and 2. I met Wil Wheaton, writer, former Trekie and a happy blogad seller. I heard Steve Wozniak tell about the time in High School he put a fake bomb in his buddy’s locker. He got called to the principals office and found himself surrounded by the chief of police, the principal, the vice principal, etc. The principal explained how he’d taken the “bomb” out of the locker and run to the football field to dismantle it. Hearing this, woz started laughing: he’d set the bomb to tick faster when the locker door opened.

Here’s Ken’s account of the weekend: 1, 2, 3, 4, and finally, Ken’s captioning Marc’s photos.

I’d like to call special attention to the couple who got married while attending Gnomedex. Of all the things I saw that weekend — flaming Microsoft-blog toys, flashing Google-lights, 5AM slots players, jazz statues, glowing Google cups, 45-year-old geeks leaping for t-shirts, staggering bachlorette parties, packs of gambling families, elderly cocktail waitresses, a Google staffer who thinks his employer is still in the search engine business, freaky dolls — this was the most disconcerting.