For the past several years, the movie industry has seen a decline in summer movie goers. The reason is more and more people have built their entertainment nests and watch newly released DVDs in front of their High Definition flat screens with surround sound systems that literally do this. Today, the magic of going to the movies can be brought to your living rooms and consumers are making sure they are ready. But this summer’s movie season has been, well, not as bad as most people thought. Thanks, in large part, to Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest which, according to the Internet Movie Database, is estimated to bring in close to a billion dollars globally. So far it’s the 12th largest box-office gross of all time and we still have a month left of the summer movie season. Not bad for a marketing budget that was estimated to be in the $100 million range. According to our data, Internet Movie Database has seen 5.7 million people a week visiting their site throughout the summer.

This summer movie season is going to finish much better than last year and it looks like creative marketing is making the difference. If you haven’t gotten the call yet from Samuel L. Jackson, I’m sure you will as more and more people virally hear about how to prank their freinds with this movie promotion. Just go to the Snakes on a Plane website and set up a call to anyone you’d like. I had Sam call my mom. She wasn’t that impressed and was actually quite scared. Regardless, I bet your friends will find it funny and I guarantee Snakes on a Plane opens big this upcoming weekend.

Doing the laundry is possibly my least favorite thing to do in life. It’s tedious, takes forever and is never fun. Plus, my clothes always turn gray for some reason. But Proctor and Gamble has been taking strides to make doing the laundry, well, bearable. Tide.com has been redesigned and one of Proctor and Gamble’s best selling products is trying to engage and excite their consumers online. Tide.com was the number one top mover for Week 29 (July 16th-22nd) and our data is showing an increase of traffic by 418%!! Why are almost 650,000 people a week visiting Tide.com?

Tide.com has shown that you can grow a brand’s online presence with a quality redesigned website and of course a sweepstakes that will entice the consumer to stop by. Once at Tide.com you should register to get a free sample of any of their new products so you don’t have to use dish soap anymore. Seriously, according to Tide…this isn’t a good idea, I asked. Also, you can play their sweepstakes for a chance to win an iPod decked out in a Tide Skin. Make sure you go and play before the game ends on 9/26.

It seems that one of the best ways drive traffic to your site is to have a sweepstakes and give away an iPod. I know I wasn’t registering so Tide could inform on how to clean different fabrics in their newsletter, I was all about the iPod…its just too bad I’ve never won.

Social networking is all about the ability to create an online identity, share something about yourself with others and most important…have fun. And sites like flickr are being flooded by people who want to share and blog about photos from around the world. Our data is showing flickr receives 4.9 million people a month. You can get lost on Flickr for hours while you tag and comment on some ridiculously funny photos. You can also be blown away by some amazing photography. Either way, it’s about sharing your photos with your friends and having fun.

Well, corporate social networking has reached a new level. Designed to engage and create a viral buzz with their teenage consumers, this month Wal-Mart launched a social-networking site called The Hub. Teens 13-18 have the ability to join and start their own pages, share photos and videos, and give the retail king some much needed advice on how to engage the teen consumer. The problem isn’t the effort or the site design; it’s the restrictions Wal-mart has put on the teens. Wal-Mart screens all the new page submissions to make sure it is appropriate, informs parents that their kids have joined, bans music, and does not allow e-mail between users. We understand that Wal-mart is looking out for the safety of their young consumers, but why be the mean baby-sitter who shuts the TV off and tells us to go to bed early? We bet the only buzz Wal-mart hears is the sound of the TV going on in the other room.

It’s been years since Dunkin Donuts commercials have featured that guy who looks like Mario from Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers. His uninspiring “It’s time to make the donuts” line had run its course and was exasperatingly tiresome to the consumer. And if you weren’t living in the northeast during the 80’s and 90’s you probably don’t know what we’re talking about. Dunkin Donuts is now taking America, including the The President of the United States, by storm.

The “America Runs on Dunkin” campaign, in which the company has taken a major position on expansion and growth, launched this past April to great fanfare. As Dunkin Donuts moves away from being strictly a northeast brand and heads west, they needed a new advertising campaign which would be catchy and irreverent. They got one. The new creatives feature songs by They Might be Giants and are extremely witty and frustratingly catchy…a perfect ad campaign. Our data is showing that over 170,000 people a month are visiting dunkindonuts.com. This is up 36% since the campaign launched. Their new site is extremely interactive and the consumer can watch all their new creatives, play games and shop… So the next time you go to Dunkin Donuts and are picking up coffee for 5 friends, make sure you download and print out The Dunkin Run form and have your friends fill out exactly what they want. This way there’s no mistaking who got the blueberry iced coffee and who got the cream with 2 sugars.

The iPod. What can we say about the leader in portable digital devices that hasn’t been said already? We’re huge fans of the iPod. All generations…except the one where the battery didn’t last very long. Not cool apple, not cool.

Today, you can buy just about anything to accessorize your iPod; customized skins, shields, wallets, docks, clips, cables, speakers, earphones, sneakers and car products to name a few. You can find all the reviews of these accessories at CNET. Our data is showing that just under 3 million people are going to CNET a month. Of these browsers, 59% spend time in the review section. I recently visited CNET to research the iPod wallet. After hearing good things I then went to my new favorite iPod site, Dlo.com (Digital Lifestyle Outfitters) to make the purchase. Dlo.com is receiving about 5,000 people a month but is growing quickly.

iPod docking stations are becoming the new iPod accessory of the season. Personally I have the Altec Lansing InMotion and I would argue that this system is just as good as the Bose SoundDock at a fraction of the cost. In researching the different docking stations I came across this little number at atechflash.com. What do you think, will it stay afloat, or be flushed?

Online fantasy sports are big… really big.

In September 2005, over 9.5 Million people in the United States were involved in a fantasy sports league through one of the three largest fantasy services - Yahoo, Sportsline and ESPN. To put this in perspective, the volume of people playing fantasy on these three sites equates to the population of Michigan (the 8th most populated U.S. state)!

As such, fantasy sports have emerged as big business and changed the way sports are viewed, reported and discussed. I won’t go so far to say Fantasy Sports has changed the world, but it certainly is an interesting topic to investigate from a social and business perspective.

To peel back the layers of Fantasy Sports, we analyzed the online fantasy sports activity of the 2 Million+ strong Compete member community and also conducted a targeted survey of over 300 fantasy sports fans.

Some of our interesting findings:

1. Enthusiasts participating in Fantasy Sports at Yahoo, ESPN and Sportsline are 31% female
2. Respondents that pay to play are seasoned veterans - 37% have been in the game for more than 7 years
3. Yahoo captured 68% of the fantasy market share in paid and free services, while Sportsline at 18% and ESPN at 13% lag behind
4. 47% of all respondents owned a video game console - Sony’s Playstation was the most popular