Broadband now 88% of UK internet connections

The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show that nearly 9 in 10 of UK internet connections are broadband. This is great news for those us who design websites. But there are still 39% of households that don't have internet access; merchants can't ignore old-fashioned media yet.

Royal Mail study: home shopping still rising

The annual Home Shopping Tracker Study 2007 from the Royal Mail puts some flesh onto the theory that ecommerce is growing the overall size of the home shopping market. 61% of the population - the highest recorded - now shop from home, and two fifths shop online. In addition, customers ordering online spend 25% more if they browse a catalogue first.

At Digivate we've always predicted that ecommerce would add to home shopping and not cannibalise it. Nice to see that we were right!

Consumer advocates take the reins

Primark announced today that it won't set up a Facebook group. Why is this a story? An existing Facebook group - "The Primark Appreciation Society", set up by Oxford Broookes student Sophie Bellchambers - is deemed by Primark to be "...of far more value than anything we could do."

Primark recognise that independent advocates have more credibility than official campaigns. This is part of the 'Open Brand' trend that is both terrifying and exciting: get it right and your customers will promote you for nothing, but get it wrong and your errors will be spread far and wide.

Comet launches video demonstrations

Comet has created about150 product demonstration videos in a bid to help shoppers choose what to buy this Christmas. It will be interesting to see if the initiative lasts longer than Dabs TV which launched about 4 yeas ago but fizzled soon after. (The announcer's voice is very annoying to me, but perhaps I'm in a minority.)

Now that YouTube has made watching video online a normal activity, I predict that Comet will find the videos both watched and helpful sales tools. How would you get product demonstration videos onto your site?