The iPad as a shopping venue

Black Friday online shopping uncovered a surprising theme -- the iPad is a popular tool for browsing and buying products on the Internet. Darcy Travlos at Forbes took a look at the data and found some tidbits that point to an interesting conclusion; "e-commerce may become the killer app for the iPad."

As Travlos points out, it's not that there are more iPads out there than any other tablet -- iPads only have a slight edge in installed base at 52 percent of the market share to 48 percent for Android tablets. But that 52 percent of installed base accounts for 88.3 percent of all of the tablet online shopping.

Travlos speculates that the screen size of the iPad has a lot going for it, in particular in terms of watching video ads that are very effective on tablets. She mentions that online shopping is extremely popular during leisure hours, and that "if shoppers arrive through iPads, retailers and advertisers will notice and allocate resources appropriately. This is just one more area where Apple is building up an ecosystem around creating delightful user experiences."