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Women are planning to spend less according to two surveys released today.

In a survey by the Marketing to Moms Coalition, moms plan to cut spending on holiday gifts. Offline is expected to be hit the hardest, with an 8% drop over last year. Online will decline by 2%.

• 87% of moms plan to shop at big discount retailers like Wal-mart and Target
• Department stores come in second at 37%.
• Shoe and specialty clothing retailers come in third at 35%.

“Older kids tend to want expensive presents like cell phones, video games, trendy clothes and computer equipment,” says Maria Bailey, a founder of the Marketing to Moms Coalition, and author of the book, Mom 3.0, Marketing with Today’s Mother by Leveraging New Media and Technology. “Moms are telling their older kids that this year, they’re just going to have to wait.”

Another survey from Frank About Women shows that women (not just moms) are planning to cut holiday spending. First on the chopping block? Themselves.

62% of women are asking friends and family to forgo buying them a gift this year due to the economy.

They asked survey participants who would be cut from the gift list that normally would be on.

• 57% of those who normally give gifts to their neighbors plan to forego the gift this year
• 53% will skip their bosses
• 52% will cut employees and service providers (i.e. hairdressers) from their list
• 50% won’t give gifts to co-workers this year

So, who is getting a gift this year?

• 96% said they won’t let a bad economy stand in the way of giving gifts to their kids
• 86% will give gifts to their parents
• 85% will give gifts to their spouse or partner (Stay out of the dog house, guys!)

“Not only are women planning to spend less on others, they are actively encouraging their friends and family to omit them from the gift list this year,” says Nicole Green, senior strategic brand planner at FAW. “This self-sacrificing mindset represents a significant cultural shift as a renewed sense of fiscal responsibility and frugality trump spending and splurging for many women. Marketers who speak to the real meaning of the holidays are more likely to resonate with women this season and benefit from their spending power.”

Related Reading:
Microsoft Study Reveals Online and Digital Behavior of Women
Mom Bloggers Prove Powerful Resource to Marketing and Branding Success
Moms See Search as Task-Oriented; Websites as Entertainment

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One of the most outspoken investors during the Microsoft-tries-to-buy-Yahoo debacle was Eric Jackson. Mr. Jackson leads a group 146 shareholders that owned a collective 3.2 million Yahoo shares. Those shares were sold last month.

Though Mr. Jackson did approve of the Yahoo-Icahn agreement that expanded Yahoo’s board by 3 members, including Carl Icahn, it apparently was not enough.

Jackson, it turns out, has been right about Yahoo all along. He was one of the first to vocalize fears that Yahoo shares would drop significantly without a Microsoft buy. I, myself, was skeptical. But Jackson was right.

While Yahoo is the number 2 search engine, number 1 in email and the owner of several strong web properties, it’s still not enough. Jackson identifies why when he said, “Leadership matters.”

Writing at SeekingAlpha.com, Jackson explained: “I believed that with better oversight from a new board and management, Yahoo could finally capitalize on its many strengths. We’ve had no significant changes at either level. The company is still muddling ahead with just as many priorities, just as many staff and just as many boxes on the organizational chart. I came to the conclusion that this company is doomed to failure with the current board and leadership.”

YHOO was trading at $12.34 at the time of this post.

WebMD is apparently the target of yet another merger by 2 major health web sites. Last week, Revolution Health and Everyday Health merged.

This week, HealthGrades.com has announced its acquisition of WrongDiagnosis.com.

Here’s a Compete.com snapshot at how the 5 sites stack up against each other.

It looks like Revolution and Everyday are in better position to take on WebMD. HealthGrades has a ton of content behind a premium content wall.

But all of them, including WebMD, have a long way to go in catching Yahoo’s Health site:

UPDATE: As a commenter pointed out, Compete can only measure the Yahoo.com traffic. So, I looked up the most recent comScore ratings for the health niche. Here they are, showing WebMD as the clear leader:

On Friday, the YouTube Blog announced that the video sharing site was starting to test full-length programming. Apparently, YouTubers have been asking “to be beamed up with Scotty, to devise a world-saving weapon using only gum and paperclips, and to get your grub on at ‘The Peach Pit’.”

Hey, I’m not making this up. Go to the YouTube Blog and read it yourself.

Through a deal with CBS, YouTube is now offering “Star Trek,” “MacGyver,” and “Beverly Hills, 90210” to the 91 million viewers in the U.S. who watch 5 billion videos a month (54.8 videos per viewer). Yes, yes, comScore Video Metrix reports there are another 19.7 million viewers in the U.K who watch 1.4 billion videos a month on YouTube.com (72.4 videos per viewer). But, I’m sorry, I can’t find out how many there are in Canada.

Nevertheless, the YouTube Blog says, “These shows will be available in the new Theater View style we rolled out earlier this week, which provides optimal experience for watching full-length programming on your computer.”

Yes, yes, but what does this mean to search engine marketers?

The YouTube Blog adds, “As we test this new format, we also want to ensure that our partners have more options when it comes to advertising on their full-length TV shows. You may see in-stream video ads (including pre-, mid- and post-rolls) embedded in some of these episodes; this advertising format will only appear on premium content where you are most comfortable seeing such ads.”

Ah, ha! You knew there was a catch!

Still, in order to make it clear to viewers, YouTube has labeled all full-length videos with a Film Strip symbol so they’ll know what kind of content they’re choosing to watch and what type of ads they might see.

I can’t wait to share this news with Matt Bailey, the founder of SiteLogic. My business partner, Jamie O’Donnell, talked with Matt about Trekkie lore and web analytics at SES San Jose 2008. Matt was the first to analyze “the Red Shirt Phenomenon.” (As any die-hard Trekkie knows, if you are wearing a red shirt and beam down to the planet with Captain Kirk, you’re gonna die.) But, check out the YouTube video below to hear Matt’s analysis for yourself.

Measuring Web 2.0 with Star Trek - & SiteLogic’s Matt Bailey

By the way, Matt Baily will be teaching one of the Search Engine Marketing Training Workshops at SES Chicago 2008. It’s the Search & Analytics Workshop: Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness, which will be held on Friday, Dec. 12, 2008.

To prepare you for Matt’s workshop, here are some basic stats:
The Enterprise had a crew of 430 during its five-year mission (although, the show was only on the air for 3 years). In the 80 episodes that were produced, 59 crewmembers were killed, which represents 13.7% of the crew. So, that’s what Matt uses as the overall “conversion rate.”

Heck, I can’t explain it as well as he does. So, watch the video interview above — read his article over on the ClickTracks site — or prepare to be amazed during his workshop at SES Chicago.

Federated Media has unveiled and launched a revamped version of their self-service advertising platform. Here’s what to expect with the update:

• Transparent site lists
• Real-time inventory availability
• An ad creative upload tool
• The flexibility to buy on a site-specific, categorical, or demographic basis
• Purchasing on either a CPM basis or on a flat rate basis

“With the new functionality available in the self-service ad platform, marketers with smaller budgets have the same access to our sites that Fortune 500 brand advertisers enjoy,” said John Battelle, founder, chairman and CEO of Federated Media. “Conversational media is where consumers congregate, form opinions and make purchasing decisions. It’s not just major brands that need to be here; it’s everybody.”

Related Reading:
Federated Media Grows Network, Partners with comScore
Federated Media to Broker Ad Deals in Facebook Apps
FM’s All-In-One Tech Blogs Page & New Marketing Roundup Page

In Google’s quest to make sure its search advertising deal with Yahoo goes through, it has added yet another defense to its arsenal: a new facts site. If it sounds political, that’s because it is. The Department of Justice opened an official investigation into the deal months ago. It turns out that when the largest search engine teams up with the second largest search engine to combine advertising, it raises antitrust issues!

On the homepage, Google doesn’t waste any time getting to the three major talking points it touts in support of the deal:

• This is a non-exclusive deal that will strengthen Yahoo!.
• Ad prices will continue to be set by competitive auction.
• The deal is win-win for consumers, advertisers and publishers: more and better ads.

On the right hand side is a link to an in-the-tank New York Times article that drinks extremely potent Kool-aid by practically copying and pasting a previous Google blog post supporting the deal.

Underneath that are quotes from rather large advertisers who also support the deal.

But those who have the most to lose from the deal are small businesses and web entrepreneurs who, rightly or wrongly, have built their success on Google. They fear a sharp increase in prices once the deal goes through.

Google assures that hardly anything will change, save for Adsense ads showing up on Yahoo. They also point to their relationship with Ask.com as proof that the marketplace will remain competitive.

But Ask, despite its slight growth, is not Yahoo. And when it comes to politicking, people have been burned far too often by broken promises. Plus, websites have also been burned by changing algorithms and vague policies.

Right now, in the midst of a significant economic prices, people are looking for stability. And they’re not finding it in huge companies with enormous, quick growth. The housing market is certainly different from the search market, but with sensitive emotions running high, Google just seems insensitive right now, another characteristic of companies “too big to fail.”

I don’t know what they hope is the outcome of this site. Do they hope for a groundswell of support and grassroots letter writing campaigns on their behalf? I just don’t see that happening.

Google needs to continue its lobbying and legal advocacy with the Department of Justice. But unless Google wants to suddenly become more transparent on their algorithms and site penalties, then they should just leave the little guy alone in this effort.

AOL’s Platform-A is planning to launch a new self-service marketplace exchange for advertisers. Dubbed BidPlace, the platform will allow advertisers to dynamically bid and manage inventory for display ads across Platform-A’s network. BidPlace will launch in the first half of 2009.

The platform will include:

• Pricing – Change bids at any time
• Creative Gallery – Manage creatives in a central repository for easy access
• Price Volume Analysis – Get forecasts for expected volume at different price points and targeting options
• Budget Allocation – Maintain complete control over how budgets are allocated across campaigns
• Campaign Management Controls – Ability to have full control over campaign delivery
• Reporting – View detailed reporting on campaign and creative performance.

“BidPlace unleashes the industry’s most powerful advertising technologies and puts them in the hands of advertisers,” said Lynda Clarizio, President of Platform-A. “This is the next step in Platform-A’s efforts to provide marketers a unified solution for brand advertising at scale and performance advertising across multiple media. BidPlace gives advertisers what they’ve been asking for — a more accessible and transparent approach and an ability to adjust the dials to get the best results.”

Related Reading:
AOL’s Platform-A Launches iPhone Advertising Solution
Google Barely Inches Out Yahoo for Top Web Property; Platform-A Top Ad Network for June 2008
AOL’s Platform-A to Offer Guaranteed CPM to Facebook, Bebo Developers

Moms are now packing more activity into their day, according to a new data released by AOL’s Platform-A. A survey of 7,000 women found that the average internet-using mom reports conducting 27 hours of activities during the day.

On average they spend:

• 2.6 hours on the internet
• 2.1 hours of television
• 1.2 hours a day listening to the radio
• 30 minutes with newspapers, magazines and games

Parenting was the #1 online activity conducted by moms. They use the internet for advice on parenting and as a resource to help their children learn.

Another popular online activity is shopping

• 79% of those surveyed use the internet for shopping.
• 52% use the internet to find coupons or sales.

So how do moms feel about search? They associated the words “task-oriented,” “focused,” and “interested” with search. 71% use the internet to find information.

Websites were described as “entertainment.”

Hopefully, your website is entertaining to moms and offers them coupons or sales. Because 86% report being the primary decision maker in their household.

52% will recommend a good brand to others (another reason why social media is so hot!).

And moms like to share media with their children. 95% of moms share at least one form of media with their children at least once a week. Here’s what they share.

• 79% share television
• 62% share internet
• 58% share mobile phone
• 48% share digital camera
• 38% share email
• 33% share games

Do moms fit into your target audience? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading:
Playing the Game With Mom
E-Mail Marketers Haven’t Forgotten Mom
Sitting Pretty: Finding Moms Online