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With the 2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament starting next week (March 16), it’s no surprise the majority (83%) of fans will watch coverage on television, while 44 percent will go online and 10 percent will use a mobile device, according to a new survey by Unicast.

Among those planning to follow the tournament online or on a mobile device, a majority will visit ESPN.com (69%). Other branded popular sports sites fans plan to visit include Yahoo Sports (42%), Fox (24%), CBS (29%), and AOL (17%).

More than a quarter of fans following the tournament (26%) will visit NCAA.com, while 17 percent will type in the URL for their favorite team.

Fans will also gather information on the tournament via search engines (22%), social networks (18%), or newspaper/magazine sites (20%).

"On the heels of the extensive online coverage of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament offers online publishers another premium sporting event that will generate high traffic from consumers looking to follow the tournament outside their living rooms," said Bryan Hjelm, VP of Marketing for Unicast.

"Digital innovations like iPhone apps, online bracket tools and streaming video are bringing basketball fever to a growing online audience of fans.

"Sites like ESPN.com and Yahoo! Sports will dominate traffic due to their inherent sports fan user base, which make them prime real estate this month for marketers targeting the typical visitor – men aged 18 to 35."

The most popular online activities for those following March Madness include:

        *58%    Monitor scores
        *54%    Watch games live
        *53%    Check the status of brackets
        *49%    Watch game highlights
        *42%    Fill out brackets/participate in a pool

Nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media when researching products or services locally, according to a new report from BIA/Kelsey and ConStat.

Among consumers surveyed, 90 percent use search engines, 48 percent use Internet Yellow Pages, 24 percent use vertical sites, and 42 percent use comparison shopping sites.

"The Internet has indeed become an integral part of consumers’ local commercial activity," said Steve Marshall, director of research, BIA/Kelsey.

"The data suggest we’re at an inflection point where the balance of power in local shopping is shifting to online."

The study found on average, consumers are using 7.9 different media sources when shopping for products or services locally, up from 6.5 sources in 2009 and 5.8 in 2008, indicating an increase in audience fragmentation.

Additional finding include:

   * 58 percent of respondents report using an online coupon when shopping for products or services in their local area in the past year.
   

 * 19 percent of respondents made an appointment online in the past six months for a service besides a restaurant reservation (e.g., business appointment, health-care appointment, auto service or personal service).

"The increase in audience fragmentation presents challenges for advertisers looking to connect with local consumers," said Peter Krasilovsky, vice president and program director, Marketplaces, BIA/Kelsey.

"These challenges may be outweighed by the targeting opportunities available with tools like coupon promotions and appointment scheduling, the latter being among the best lead sources possible, since you know where people are actually going."

WebMD has launched WebMD Health Exchange, a new health social networking platform.

WebMD Health exchange allows people to connect with health experts and other WebMD members to share experiences, discuss personal challenges, and receive answers and support.

"WebMD Health Exchange is a powerful new way to connect our 60 million monthly users to share their own experiences and personal wisdom across any area of health and wellness," said Wayne Gattinella, President and Chief Executive Officer, WebMD.

"We expect Health Exchange will quickly become a trusted source of information for our users and an important new communications platform for our sponsors."

WebMD Health Exchange is being integrated throughout WebMD.com, giving people the ability to connect with others on relevant topics. Along with expert led communities, members can create their own communities and exchange information with other users. Communities can be created for public access which are searchable on WebMD and online, or members can create their own private communities to share information with others.

Doctors from Duke Medicine will provide expertise for communities ranging from asthma to rheumatoid arthritis. Experts from the National Health Council, National Osteoporosis Foundation, American Gastroenterological Association, North American Menopause Society, and the American Veterinary Medical Association will lead related community discussions.

The WebMD Health Exchange will also allow third party sponsors to create branded exchanges and to host consumer discussions on specific health and wellness topics.
 

Warner Music Group has entered into a licensing agreement with online video sharing site Dailymotion.

Warner will offer music videos via Dailymotion’s website in the U.S., Europe and North Africa.

"We are delighted that our large and growing repertoire of quality music videos includes content from Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, EMI and leading independent The Orchard," said Joy Marcus, General Manager of Dailymotion U.S.

"This breadth and depth of repertoire is a big win for our users who, quite simply, love music. Advertisers will also be pleased with new opportunities to reach a large audience of highly-engaged music fans."

Visitors to Dailymotion will have ad-supported access to music videos, concerts and interviews from Warner Music’s local and international acts. Under the terms of agreement, registered users will be able to create and share video playlists. The first videos are slated to be available within a month.

Outside the U.S., Warner Music and Dailymotion will work together on the sale of targeted advertising and sponsorships embedded in the videos. Warner Music will manage sales inside the U.S.

"Dailymotion understands that offering official artist content is one of the most powerful ways to attract an interested, interactive audience," said Leanne Sharman, Vice President, Commercial Development, Warner Music Europe.

"This partnership further strengthens our premium video strategy, which provides our roster of artists a flexible, wide-reaching distribution footprint through which to monetize and promote their music."
 

Online retail in both the U.S. and Western Europe is set for a strong period of double-digit growth over the next five years, according to new forecasts by Forrester Research.

U.S. online retail will grow at a 10 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years to reach nearly $249 billion by 2014. Online retail within the largest European Union nations in Western Europe will grow at an 11 percent CAGR over the same period, hitting 114 billion by 2014.

Sucharita Mulpuru

"Much of the overall retail sector’s growth in both the US and the EU over the next five years will come from the Internet," said Forrester Research Vice President and Principal Analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.

"To maximize that growth, eBusiness professionals will have to help enable a multichannel strategy that responds to consumers’ increased desire to hop between the offline and online worlds and their increasing mobile and social behaviors. The retail innovators over the next five years will demonstrate customer enablement across all touchpoints, not just via a PC-based Web browser."

Despite consumers’ increasing use of the Internet to research products before purchasing, most retailers fall short on offering a consistent cross-channel experience. According to Forrester’s data, while 82 percent of U.S. online consumers are satisfied with buying experiences that began and ended in a store, satisfaction drops to 61 percent for consumers who began their research online and purchased in a store.

Highlights from the report include:

*In the US, Web shopping will account for 8 percent of total retail sales by 2014.

*Three product categories dominate online retail: apparel, footwear, and accessories; consumer electronics; and consumer hardware, software, and peripherals. Together, those categories represent more than 40 percent of total online retail sales in the US.

*By 2014, 53 percent of total retail sales in the US will be influenced by eCommerce as consumers increasingly use the Internet to research products before purchasing.

People who lie on online dating services are likely people-pleasers who want to present themselves favorably, just as they would in person, according to new research from the University of Kansas.

Jeffery Hall, assistant professor of communications studies, surveyed more than 5,000 participants who used Internet dating services to find out what kinds of people are most likely to lie.

He asked them how likely they were to lie about topics such as assets, relationship goals, personal interests, personal attributes, past relationships, age and weight.

"What people lie about depends on what kind of people they are," Hall said.

"For example, if you’re an extrovert, you might downplay the number of past relationships you’ve had because chances are you’ve had more relationships than an introvert."

Those most likely to lie during the online dating process are people who have a strong awareness of what people like and control their behavior to achieve social ends. Their actions are not necessarily manipulative, but instead reflect a desire to be liked and to fit in.

In the study, men admitted to lying more overall, but women were most likely to lie about their weight. Because online daters hope to meet face-to-face eventually, the amount of lying is quite small.

"Online daters shouldn’t be concerned that most people are presenting a false impression of themselves," Hall said. "What influences face-to-face dating influences the online world, too."

Hall’s research was published in the February issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

The Associated Press said today it is partnering with Livestream to launch AP Live "Oscars Red Carpet," coverage.

AP Live coverage of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards will feature social media elements, on-demand clips, photos and news.

AP Live is available on a Facebook fan page and syndicated to AP publishers and other distribution channels, including AT&T Entertainment.

On March 7, AP Global Entertainment Editor Alicia Quarles will be reporting live from the red carpet from 6, to 8 p.m. During the awards show and the after-parties, AP reporters will post updates to Twitter and Facebook.

AP Live also allows users to embed video to their Facebook profiles or their blogs. After the Oscars, AP Live will continue to focus on entertainment, featuring daily and weekly celebrity interviews and other content such as movie previews and a look at upcoming summer blockbusters.

"Through this strategic content and platform deal, we have launched the AP Live player which will feature year-round entertainment events coverage and daily live celebrity interviews," said Livestream CEO Max Haot.

"We look forward to supporting AP as they move forward to cultivate their events-based reporting for millions of fans across all screens and platforms."
 

Cybercrime syndicates are expanding the base of brands they exploit for online fraud beyond major financial institutions and online merchants, according to a new report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG).

The number of hijacked brands reached a record 356 in October, up nearly 4.4 percent from the previous record of 341 in August 2009.

"No brand is safe from the threat of spoofing for the purposes of online fraud. Once, only the largest banks were targeted," said Peter Cassidy, APWG Secretary General.

"Now, every kind of enterprise from banks and credit unions of all sizes to charities to, in a recent case, a hardware manufacturer, are now seeing their brands exploited in all manner of fraud scheme."

While the number of unique phishing reports submitted to the APWG in Q4 declined nearly 29 percent from a record high of 40,621 in August, dropping to 28,897 reports in December, the stats don’t reflect a more troubling trend. Member reports to APWG and research reviews in Q3 and Q4, reveal a significant increase in phishing focused on high value targets such as people in charge of finances.

"Spear-phishing and whale-phishing, where targeted individuals inside of corporations, or of high net worth, appears to be increasing," said Dave Jevans, APWG Chairman.

"Phishers and malware attackers are sending emails to individuals in a highly targeted fashion, attempting to gain access to corporate online banking systems, corporate VPN networks, and other online resources."

"These attacks do not contribute significantly to the overall number of unique phishing emails that are sent, as they are not using broad-based spam. Rather, the attackers customize their email messages to target individual users," Jevans said.
 

Volusion, a provider of online shopping cart software for businesses recently introduced its newest credit card fraud protection service, Fraud Score.

Volusion spoke with WebProNews about Fraud Score and how it works to protect online merchants of any size from fraudulent transactions.

When an order is placed customer information is cross-checked in real-time with a large database of thousands of online merchants and more than 100 million transactions. Fraud Score screens more than 15 fields which include: proxy detection and risk assessment, IP address, bank identification and address verification. After these criteria are checked, an overall risk score is generated to determine the legitimacy of the order.

There are three levels of risk, minimal, moderate and high. The Fraud Score scale ranges from 0 to 300 with 0 being the highest level of risk and 300 being the lowest level of risk.

"As a former online store owner I can attest to the importance of Fraud Score," said Volusion CMO and COO Clay Olivier.

"I got defrauded out of $900 once and lost all my merchandize on a single order. It was a painful experience and I felt helpless since I wasn’t able to verify the order beyond the basics. Fraud Score will greatly reduce the risk of our merchant customers falling prey to the same scams."

Fraud Score works with both Google Checkout and PayPal as well as with other payment services. 

Unfortunately, fraud remains a concern for all online merchants, but being able to prevent it from happening is key to running a successful ecommerce business.

Apple said today its much anticipated iPad device will be available in the U.S. on Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models and in late April for Wi-Fi + 3G models.

All models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K. in late April.

Beginning March 12, U.S. customers can pre-order both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi +3G models from Apple’s online store or reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.

"iPad is something completely new," said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

"We’re excited for customers to get their hands on this magical and revolutionary product and connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before."

iPad will retail for $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, and $699 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available in late April for $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB.