hitwise

It would be less than shocking if a certain Pink Floyd song has become stuck in the minds of online retailers recently; "Is There Anybody Out There?" seems like a semi-appropriate question as a new Hitwise report explains that fewer people are swinging by their sites.

Today marks Independence Day in Sri Lanka, Across the Universe Day for NASA buffs, and, as you've surely heard by now, Facebook's fifth birthday.  To celebrate, Hitwise took a look at the social network's state of being and some of its more recent achievements.

While the news may not be enough to cause encore performances of "Joy to the World," a new report from Hitwise on Christmas and Boxing Day search and traffic stats isn't all bad.  Interpreted in a certain way, it even provides signs that the UK's economy is doing all right.

If the importance of this presidential election has you feeling anxious, fresh stats from Hitwise may not help much.  Essentially, they act as a reminder that the world's watching, and UK residents in particular seem to be interested in a couple of political figures.There's been a high volume of searches for Barack Obama since (at least) late last year.  Only on a few occasions have searches for the UK's own prime minister, Gordon Brown, become more common.  Meanwhile, interest in Joe Biden has remained quite low even after his nomination.

Common sense says that online retailers are in a better position than their brick and mortar counterparts; consumers will be able save time, gas, and possibly the money that would go towards sales taxes by just shopping from home this season.  Still, according to a new Hitwise report, the winter is shaping up to be pretty harsh.

Like its metallic namesake, Google's browser named Chrome attracted a lot of attention at first, then seemed to lose its shine and fall out of favor.  Still, Hitwise found a surprising side effect of Chrome's introduction, and Matt Cutts believes that it's solid in most fundamental senses.

It's time for another mini-party at Google and some more mourning at Yahoo, Microsoft, and Ask; a certain search giant cornered a U.S. market share of over 70 percent in July, according to new Hitwise data.

YouTube is dominant enough among video websites that, in order to keep its rivals from getting squished together at the bottom, it had to be removed from a graph showing Australian market shares.  Still, MSN Video and CNET TV are doing well under its rule.