Average Order Size for ...

According to Kenshoo's "2011 Online Retail Holiday Shopping Report - Early Edition," consumers are buying more and are buying more at a time this holiday season. Also, holiday season search advertising budgets were up nearly 30 percent, while the paid-search average cost per click (CPC) was up...

Old Spice Guy Goes Cros...

Old Spice Guy gets a little more depth this holiday season courtesy of Wieden+Kennedy.

eBay’s iPad App Now Sho...

eBay and PayPal are both pushing the term ‘couch commerce,’ in which consumers will be using their tablets and mobile phones from the comfort of their couches to shop this holiday shopping season. eBay is launching a new feature of its iPad app, which should help take couch commerce to another level. A new “Watch with eBay” tab has been added to the e-commerce giant’s iPad app that allows users to shop a selection of items on the marketplace related to what they are currently watching on TV. Users tap “Watch with eBay” and type in their zip code, cable provider, channel and the program they are currently watching; and using show and event-specific key word searches, the app will surface relevant merchandise from the more than 200 million listings available on the eBay marketplace. eBay says this is just the beginning. The company plans to partner with networks, stations, cable providers and studio to identify products featured in each scene of a movie or show. eBay believes there’s huge potential in blending couch commerce with TV content. According to the company, 86 percent of mobile internet users are using their devices while watching TV. A quarter of these users are browsing content related to what they are watching. In fact, eBay and PayPal are predicting the first mobile shopping spike this holiday season will take place after dinner on Thanksgiving Day, when people will head for the couch, armed with their smartphones and tablets.

Nintendo 3DS Gets Camer...

Nintendo has just wrapped a press conference going over some developments for the 3DS . The platform has seen strong but lower than expected sales, though the pricing do-over in August has spurred adoption. This update seems like a sort of holdover while the big games are still unreleased, but any improvements to the platform are always welcome. First, a system update brings new options to the camera. You can now record 3D movies of up to 10 minutes in length, and it will also capture time lapse or multiple shots per second or stop motion. They also enabled the ability to shift data to a new 3DS, which some are taking as an indication of a “3DS Lite” or the like (perhaps one with two circle pads ) arriving down the road. 3D makeovers of a few classic games were also announced. Kid Icarus and Kirby’s Adventure will be gaining an extra dimension the same way Excitebike and Xevious have. Not the biggest news of all time, but Kid Icarus is one of my favorite NES games and I think this is simply wonderful. Hopefully Metroid and Blaster Master aren’t far behind. Lastly, they are initiating a sort of raffle this holiday season in which if you buy two Nintendo games, you’re entered in a drawing to win one of the cute Mario-themed 3DSes pictured above. That mushroom one is calling my name. Unfortunately it seems unlikely that the contest will actually be offered here in the US, but we can always hope. You can find a few more game-specific details summarized over at 1up.

Advertising Network Lon...

Ad network Longboard Media is announcing $6 million in Series A funding today, from Level Equity .  Managing the ad inventory for over 30 online properties including  thefind.com ,  shop.com ,  overstock.com ,  buzzillions.com  and  become.com , Longboard Media likens itself to a “Glam Media” for e-commerce sites. Longboard Media has been profitable since it was founded by former eBay employees Scott Engler  and  Jim Barkow  in 2008, and its ad network has potential to tap into an audience of over 63 million people, according to its financing release. The company is reporting that it served over 3 billion paid impressions in the 2010 holiday season and grew its publisher base more than 40% in 2011. The formerly bootstrapped company plans on using the money to bulk up on staff and further invest in it its ad targeting technology. Crunchbase LONGBOARD MEDIA Company: Longboard Media Website: longboardmedia.com Launch Date: August 11, 2008 Funding: $6M Longboard Media is the leading commerce vertical ad network representing only premium shopping, product review and retail publishers. Longboard Media provides the single largest audience of shoppers reaching 48-55M+ consumers each month across sites such as Overstock, Shop.com, Become.com, Smarter.com and thefind.com. Learn more