Teenspot asked about 1,150 teens what was on their Christmas "most wanted list" for 2006. These were open-ended questions (not multiple choice) so the answers really reflect what the teens wanted.

Teen girls want:

1. iPod
2. Cell phone
3. Laptop
4. Digital Camera

Teen boys want:

1. Playstation 3
2. iPod
3. Xbox 360
4. Nintendo Wii

And there you have it. If you want to date a gamer girl, the odds of finding one are slim to none. But girls and boys have the iPod in common (Apple must be happy).

It's nice that girls want iPods and laptops. It could've been worse - they could have asked for small brainless yapping dogs and those tiny backpacks with fur trim. Our greatest fear is that Pink may be right - too many parents allow girls to become stupid girls.

What happened to the dreams of a girl president / She's dancing in the video next to 50 Cent

They travel in packs of two or three / With their itsy bitsy doggies and their teeny-weeny tees

Where, oh where, have the smart people gone? / Oh where, oh where could they be?

Still undecided as to what to give yourself this Christmas? If you want something tech-savvy that wouldn't just be some cool display in your flat, then the Mac just might be the thing for you.

Nah, we're not trying to give some kind of sales pitch here (although heaven knows we've had quite a share of false accusations-lol!). We'll just leave that to the Holiday Apple ad, with mainstay Justin Long, inviting you to "Get A Mac". Yup, you guessed it. There's actually this guy zealously delivering a sales pitch. And it's kinda effective, too, albeit the really comic thought bubbles (which aren't exactly bubbles...).

Whatever. Anyway, you can check out the ad by clicking on the Read link below. And may you be happy with your Mac this Christmas and beyond. If ever the sales pitch gets you sold.

If you hear a belly-full of ho-ho-ho's this Season of Shopping, it just may be Steve Jobs laughing all the way to the bank. That is, if Blackfriars Communications' Carl Howe did a Nostradamus. According to Howe, Apple will sell some 20 million units of iPods worth US$ 3.3 billion this last quarter. Howe's forecast is even higher than that of ATI which predicted iPod sales of a "measly" 14 million.

But unlike most predictions, Howe's is based on Apple's marketing strategy:

• iPod pricing is more varied: Last year, the iPod's price range went from a low of $99 to a high of $129. This year iPod shuffles price dips to an all-time low of $79  and within the reach of more consumers. Howe thinks Apple will make a killing from higher sales volumes.
• iPod target market is more varied: Last year, the iPod was basically a digital music player. This year, iPod's services has expanded to include downloadable movies and sports. iPod accessories (and there must be one iAccessory for every iOccasion) and car integration kits are also helping the iPod fit a wider variety of needs.
• iPod is easier to purchase: Over 150 Apple retail stores makes it easy for people to buy iPods. High-end shops such as New York's Fifth Avenue, Tokyo's Ginza , and London's Regent Street stores are also luring the snooty set by selling iPods in fashionable shopping set-ups that makes them feel superior to the rest of us. When products are placed as near as possible to consumers with money to spend, the result is sales. Apple is doing that by positioning its stores and its iPods close to the people for whom an iPod costs less than their average lunch.
  

Finally, Howe says Apple about to reap the fruits of its five years of investments in music and retail because few competitors have done as much for as long. "It will also take years for anyone to dislodge it from its now dominant position,"  said Howe.

Press people and analysts were welcomed back from the Labor Day weekend holiday by Apple with an invitation for a "Special Event" on September 12. We reported about this press event earlier and now were informed that it would be held at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Performing Arts.

The e-mailed invites didn't give out a lot of details regarding the event, but the image embedded in the e-mail of a collection of spotlights highlighting the Apple logo above the words, "It's Showtime" seems to indicate that the event may be the venue for the announcement of iTunes's new movie section which was also speculated by BusinessWeek.

Other announcements slated for the September 12 event might include some updates on Apple's iPod lineup. The last update was already a few months ago, and with the Holidays drawing ever-nearer, perhaps Apple is now getting ready to start revealing their Christmas offerings. We'll be keeping an eye on this event, so stay tuned to QJ for more updates.

And I thought the rumor about Microsoft creating an iPod rival was long gone. Apparently, it isn't...and that rumor's back, providing us with some believable info on Microsoft's plans for this Apple iPod rival. "Sources" close to this matter are saying that the company does have a plan to start the sale of digital music and video players by Christmas.

Since it's aiming to compete with the iPod - which inevitably means also competing with the iTunes Music Store - Microsoft plans to have a wireless feature which will enable the downloading of videos and music over-the-air.

Aside from this, the company has also been reported to be talking with several record companies these past weeks and has been said to be developing a media software application similar to the integrated ecosystem of iTunes for this rumored media player. If Microsoft is going to push through with its plans to go head-to-head with Apple's iPod, it really needs to build an "integrated seamless ecosystem for digital media" like the iTunes.

We'll see soon enough if this rumor turns out to be true.

The BPI is the British record industry's trade association. Their 2005 sales figures, released today, show a massive increase in the sales of legal music downloads in the UK, as part of what has been one of the British record industry's highest-selling years to date.

The total number of legal music downloads in the UK for 2005 was 26.4 million, an increase of 357.3% from 2004. In the final week of 2005, between Christmas and New Year, music download sales broke the magic million-per-week mark for the first time.

Sales of physical compilation albums are down 15.7% however and the BPI's chairman Peter Jamieson is blaming that squarely on digital music consumers. It seems the mass adoption of CD burners in home computers and the habit of consumers burning their own compilation CDs from their digital music collections is set to be the record industry's new bugbear.