News & Trends: Fast Facts

5.4 million
Number of items Amazon.com sold on its busiest day of the 2007 holiday season, Dec. 10, which translates to 62.5 items per second. Top sellers in books included “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert, “The Dangerous Book for Boys” by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden, and “I Am America (And So Can You!)” by Stephen Colbert.

40%
Percentage of luxury consumers who visited a social networking Web site, such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, in the past three months. The finding is based on a survey conducted among affluent consumers in October 2007. The average income of respondents was $150,200, and the average age was 43.6 years. Source: Unity Marketing

54.6%
Percentage of book publishing executives who anticipate that their company’s sale of digital content will increase significantly over the next three years. The remaining respondents said that their company’s sale of digital content will increase moderately; no respondents anticipated only minor increases, or decreases. Source: “Commerce in Digital Publishing: Trends” study, Vista

7
Number of minutes of their daily leisure time that Americans ages 15 to 24 spend reading, on average. The same group spends almost two hours a day watching TV. Source: “To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence” study, National Endowment for the Arts