Some people are really good at their job, and that’s sexy. One day I’ll post a Missed Connection for all of the eMarketer employees.

Not surprisingly, around 85% of studied population across all age groups would not buy online because they prefer to see the product first. Hence the importance of reassuring your consumers, especially 1st time buyers or product trials. Zappos’ success was mainly based on their no-hassle free returns.

My dear favorite Canadian clients, we’re definitely working on that FREE RETURN stamp that we talked about during our last meeting in Montreal and will submit it to you before the end of the week!

Remember my desperate cry for help to get an invite for FFFFOUND? Well, I never got one but it doesn’t really matter. Now I can play with We Heart It.

It’s pretty much the same concept, a social bookmarking tool for images and videos, except that it’s open to everyone. Great inspiration igniter for designers.

But can the 2 sites co-exist or will only one survive the design bookmarking war? Will the invite-only kill FFFFOUND or will it do the opposite, re-enforce the quality of the shared items while We Heart It becomes too mass-market to be considered by the design industry people?

More details at eMarketer.

Few factors that can explain this surge: number of high-speed internet connections rose by 45% in the same period, the multiplication of video-sharing sites, the increased interest for user-generated content and, last but not least, the Writers Guild of America strike that deprived the US TV viewers from new series and talk shows, forcing networks to broadcast re-runs. And the strike is not over, no movie nor TV series have been shot in months and things probably won’t resume to normal anytime soon, meaning that no fresh content will air for a while. It’s time to work on this little animation project you’ve been putting aside for too long now, it’s the perfect timing to show off your skills, there is nothing on TV!

It’s Friday, it’s the day when we, at the Trendwatch, share a bunch of links with you. We’ve been pretty pretty busy finalizing the Winter 2008 issue of the keynote, which left us with very little time to surf the web to harvest the best and/or most relevant sites and articles around.

So there will be only one, but its quality will, I promise, counterbalance the lack of quantity.

How many times a week are you stuck with a big (and of course legal) file that you need to share with your co-workers, friends or Mum? That video of your nephew trying to strangle the family cat, too heavy for emailing? The zip file compressing your own band’s tracks to a size that is still not suitable to send to (those so 2006) record labels? Well, maybe you should meet Senduit, the most amazing one-trick site I’ve ever had to visit. The picture up there sums it all pretty well. Locate the file on your hard drive, choose the file-sharing expiration date, and you’re all set. Or almost. All you have to do now is wait for the file to be completely uploaded and copy-paste in an email the short link that will be given to you.

Cleverly made by the guys behind Tumblr (it’s like a blog for lazy guys like me), there is no ad, no waiting time, and its quiet design makes the Apple website look cluttered.