TuneWiki Lands Investment From Motorola

Social media music player TuneWiki has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Motorola Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Motorola.

Other new investors of TuneWiki include Intellect Capital Ventures, a venture fund initiative of TeliaSonera, HillsVen Capital, and Novel TMT. TuneWiki's previous venture capital investor, Benchmark Israel, also participated in the round.

"Teaming up with a global company like Motorola is very exciting for us," said Rani Cohen, CEO of TuneWiki.

"We are passionate about connecting people through music, and having our applications running in many countries with different languages will allow our users to explore the world of music and better understand its meaning as part of a vibrant and engaged community."

TuneWiki said it will use the investment to expand and improve its product offerings fro mobile platforms and the Internet. The company says it plans to focus on new features found in recently released smartphones, including stronger CPUs, larger displays and high-resolution screens. TuneWiki said it will also continue to focus on the use of song lyrics in new ways that connect music fans with new products, including an upcoming mobile game.

"Music is rapidly emerging as a key feature for smartphones, and TuneWiki is changing the experience of listening to music from a solitary experience to a social one," said Reese Schroeder, managing director of Motorola Ventures.

Have You Read This?

> Motorola Offers Baidu Search To China Mobile Users

> Motorola Slates 20-30 Android Phones For 2010 Release

> More Than Half Of Holiday Shoppers Relied On Cell Phones

 

Motorola Making Another Direct-From-Google Phone

Although Nexus One sales estimates haven't exactly blown everybody's minds so far, it seems that the cell-phone-you-can-only-buy-from-Google experiment is going to continue.  Motorola's co-CEO announced today that his company is working on device for it.

According to Scott Moritz, co-CEO Sanjay Jha said while discussing Motorola's Q4 earnings that his company will release "one direct-to-consumer device with Google" sometime this year.  Jha also mentioned introducing 20 Android smartphones in 2010.

These statements help clear up some issues that surfaced last week, when a vice president at Motorola said the company intended to release 20-30 Android devices.  Even allowing for regional variations, it was a little hard to imagine how they could all be markedly different from each other.

Unfortunately, Jha provided little else in the way of Android- or cell phone-related information this morning, so other details regarding what's on tap remain unknown.  It's just a fair guess that the direct-to-consumer advice will be another range-topping model, and that it isn't too close to coming out.

As always, we'll see what happens.  Finally, for the record: Motorola's Q4 report didn't go particularly well, with its stock down 11.42 percent so far today as a result.

Have You Read This?

> Motorola Offers Baidu Search To China Mobile Users

> Motorola Slates 20-30 Android Phones For 2010 Release

> More Than Half Of Holiday Shoppers Relied On Cell Phones

The Top 50 Sites in the US (as of November)

Compete puts together a monthly ranking of the top 250 Web sites in the US, based on unique visitors, and breaks up the data by relevant categories and behavioral segments. The firm is sharing the top 50.

"Despite continued concerns surrounding the economic recovery, holiday shoppers flocked to the Web in November," says Compete. "Of the 20 fastest growing Web categories last month, 13 were shopping related. November 2009 saw consumers shopping online for home and garden merchandise, searching for rebates and reading shopping blogs in record numbers."

Here are the top 50 Sites in terms of unique visitors:

Here are the top 20 gainers in terms of categories:

Here are the top 20 gainers in terms of traffic:

"If Web traffic is an accurate representation, Santa will be wrapping up a sleigh full of electronics this Christmas," says Compete. "In fact, 73.7 million consumers shopped for electronics in November, a 12 percent increase over 2008. Best Buy saw one of the month’s most dramatic Web site traffic increases – 74.6 percent month-over-month; the electronics retailer drew 29.5 million UVs to BestBuy.com. Gamestop.com (6.2 million UVs) and Newegg.com (5.9 million UVs) were also among the top gainers in November."

Unsurprisingly, bargain and coupon sites drew heavy traffic. It will be interesting to see how the lists shake out after the holiday season.

Have You Read This?

> The Top 50 Websites in the US

> Online Shoppers Have Bigger Holiday Budgets Than Offline Shoppers

> Compete Builds "Twitter Down" Case

 

Online Holiday Spending Hits Record $913 Million

Online holiday shoppers have spent a total of $24.8 billion so far this season, representing a 4 percent increase over last year, according to the latest report from comScore.

The most recent week got off to a slightly sluggish start, with sales of $854 million on Green Monday (Dec.14) down 1 percent compared to a year ago, but was followed by three strong spending days that each surpassed $800 million. Tuesday, December 15 was a record spending day reaching $913 million, the first such day to surpass the $900 million mark.

"Going into this most recent week, we had anticipated that Monday or Tuesday would post the highest online spending total of the season and perhaps be the first day on record to surpass $900 million," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. "Despite a disappointing start to the week, with sales on Monday of $854 million down 1 percent versus 2008, we were encouraged to see spending continue strongly throughout the balance of the work week, led by Tuesday's record $913 million."

"In fact, each day through Thursday December 17 - the last day that many online retailers would guarantee free shipping in time for Christmas - saw at least $800 million in spending, which suggests that savvy consumers may have been waiting for those last-minute deals."

The second heaviest spending day was Cyber Monday (Nov.30) with $887 million, the highest it has ever ranked, followed by Tuesday, December 1, with $866 million in spending.

"In a typical year, Cyber Monday tends to be the eighth to tenth heaviest spending day, but this year it moved higher up the list than ever before," added. Mr. Fulgoni.

"In part, this is due to the fact that the day fell fairly late in the season, so that pent up consumer demand likely boosted its performance, but also because of the increasing marketing hoopla and promotional activity that surround the day."

Free shipping has remained a key driver of online shopping throughout the holiday season. During each week, at least 45 percent of all transactions included free shipping. The peak occurred during the week ending December 6, with 50 percent of all transactions including free shipping.

The average order value for online transactions peaked at $117 during the week ending November 29, and the week ending December 6, outpacing the corresponding weeks in 2008. For the week ending November 29, the average order value for transactions including free shipping was $124 while the average order for those without free shipping was $111. For the week ending December 6, the average order value for transactions including free shipping was $134 while the average order for those without free shipping was a much lower $103.
 

Have You Read This?

>Cyber Monday Deals Attract Online Shoppers

>Walmart Wins Thanksgiving, Amazon Wins Black Friday

>Online Retailers See Strong Cyber Monday Sales

 

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