Per capita online shopping in the UAE reached $1,193 (Dh4,378) in the fourth quarter of 2008, the highest in the Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa region, according to the latest MasterCard survey.

Online shoppers made an average of 3.6 purchases in the four quarter of 2008, compared with 3.1 during the same quarter in 2007.

Surprisingly, not only have UAE consumers shopped more frequently despite the economic situation, with the exception of Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong, all other markets showed an increased intention for future online shopping compared to a year ago.

Another week another Google killer. Last week, it was Twitter as Google killer. This week it's Wolfram Alpha. The difference with Wolfram Alpha is that it has the pedigree, engineering heft and perhaps a better mousetrap to actually live up to the billing.

Stephen Wolfram is a scientist who has recorded a few breakthroughs and a little controversy. In a nutshell, Wolfram Alpha blends natural language, a new search model and an algorithm that takes all the data on the Web and makes it "computable."

For the brainiacs in the house, Nova Spivak has a long post outlining Wolfram Alpha (it's a must read). Simply put, if Spivak's outline is only half on target Wolfram Alpha could be big.

Preliminary results from a survey conducted by online polling company Real Opinions for AME Info has shown that over 60.12% of respondents companies have used the internet to conduct marketing exercises, and a further 19.65% say that they have not yet but plan to.

A further 37.57% of respondents said that they had advertised on other websites, with 30.64% saying that they had not but planned to. Only 15.03% of those surveyed said that they had not and never planned on doing so.

Interestingly just over 40% admitted that they had monitored online discussion and message boards for comments about their organisation.

Today, Google announced its annual Zeitgeist, a look at 2008 through the collective eyes of the world on the web.

The 2008 Year-End Zeitgeist offers a unique perspective on the year's major events and hottest trends based on global searches, as well as searches conducted in UAE and 35 additional countries.

In the UAE the fastest rising lists of 2008 proved to be quite interesting with the Beijing Olympics, Sheikh Nasser Bin Zayed and the Atlantis Hotel rising to the top ten searches for this year. We also looked at what the top 10 most popular search terms related to the economy and the fastest rising lists of vacations, famous people and restaurants residents of the UAE are searching for.

Regional spending on online advertising is expected to grow by 25-35 percent as a result of the downturn, according to a study released on Thursday.

The region will witness a greater shift from print to online advertising as budgets are slashed, according to "Game Not Over", a report by global management consultant firm, Booz & Company.

"Online advertising is cheaper compared to other mediums such as television and print and is far more targeted. It offers better investment and a better return," Gabriel Chahine, a partner at Booz & Company told Arabian Business.