Since 2003, the Call of Duty video game series has been providing PC, PlayStation and XBox users with some of the most popular first-person shooters on any platform.

Never before, however, has a release left this kind of mark.

On November 10th, Activision released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the sixth installment in the much-heralded series. Not only has the new release received much critical acclaim (scoring 94% on Metacritic on both consoles), it’s also broken many of Grand Theft Auto IV’s sales records — including fastest-selling game of all-time.

Not at all surprisingly, then, the keywords “Call of Duty” are doing pretty well on eBay…

The above is a 30-day total sales trend for anything that pertains to “Call of Duty” — and that spike you see represents the day after Modern Warfare 2’s release. In the seven days following release, in fact, those keywords totalled more than $1.5 million in sales across the six eBay sites Terapeak covers, with close to 20,000 listings.

Stepping away from the actual game’s sales, it’s interesting to see where eBay sellers are capitalizing on the release’s success. Other items that have sold include action figures, keychains, and — no joke — night vision goggles.

Sales will undoubtedly continue on as the holidays approach, so if you’ve got any ideas yourself of how to take advantage, use them!

A couple days ago, Wired posted an interesting little news story on its blog, about a recently-launched site for anyone wanting to sell books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. The site, called Glyde, was created by former eBay executives, and its beta is worth checking out if you’re into media reselling.

As for the article, we’re not sure about the writer’s  decision to call online sellers “lazy” in its headline, but it’s always nice to get a shout-out from a major publication like Wired. And if you look close enough… Yup, there we are!

Not too long ago, we announced that Japanese eBay service provider 500RPM would be launching a locally-translated Terapeak tool for Japan-based sellers…

Today, we’re happy to announce that the site is already up and running!

The Japan team has done a great job getting the site together, and we encourage you to go check it out. There’s even a pretty cool welcome video halfway down, featuring AERS/Terapeak’s very own CEO, Fred Speckeen.

Congratulations, Terapeak Japan! Welcome aboard!

Two weeks ago, we told you that Terapeak’s parent company, Advanced Ecommerce Research Systems, would be making a pair of exciting announcements at the inaugural PayPal X Innovate 2009 Developer Conference… and now that the cat’s out of the bag, we can tell you more!

At the event in San Francisco, the AERS team unveiled its plans for Terapeak Analytics, a family of tools that uses your historical and real-time PayPal data to deliver visual and statistical insight into your ecommerce business. With Terapeak Analytics, you’ll be able to better understand your business, and make faster, more profitable decisions.

The first of two tools is called Terapeak Mobile Merchant, a real-time business analytics application designed for use with the Apple iPhone. You can see sales trends and transaction details quickly and visually, and review your recent and real-time PayPal data any time, any place.

The second application is Terapeak Merchant Analytics, a real-time business monitoring and analytics solution. You can gain insight into important facets of your business, from buyer gender to currency breakdown, by viewing analytics from up to five years of historical and real-time PayPal merchant data. With Terapeak Merchant Analytics, you can base your business decisions on real-time insights from your own data.

The AERS/Terapeak teams are excited to bring you more about these new tools and developments, and if you’d like to stay in the loop, there’s a sign-up form on the Terapeak Analytics information page over at AERS.

Congratulations, team!

Terapeak is proud to announce that its parent company, Advanced Ecommerce Research Systems, has been chosen as a silver sponsor of PayPal’s Innovate 2009 developer conference this November!

Founded in 2004, AERS has long been a market leader in advanced transactional data processing, and is today the exclusive distributor of eBay market data. At Innovate 09, which takes place November 3-4 in San Francisco, CA, members of the AERS team will deliver a speech detailing the value of ecommerce-based transaction data (which all of you Terapeak users experience every day), as well as how to harness that data and use it to build applications.

They’ll also makea pair of very exciting announcements!

Innovate 09 is PayPal’s first dedicated developer conference, and will feature keynote addresses from O’Reilly Media CEO Tim O’Reilly, eBay CEO John Donahue, PayPal President Scott Thompson, and others.

Congratulations once again to the entire AERS team!

In 1963, Maurice Sendak published a little book called Where the Wild Things Are, about the wild adventures of a boy named Max who is sent to bed without dinner. Max dons a wolf costume and becomes leader of some weird creatures, and the entire story is told with just ten brief sentences.

Many of us still treasure it.

Tonight, as you may know, marks the book’s long-awaited film release. Adapted by a pair of Terapeak faves, director Spike Jonze and author Dave Eggers, the film may well have been geared toward adults as much as (or more than) children… Though of course we’re not complaining. And neither, according to this 30-day total sales trend, are eBay buyers:

Perusing some of the closed listings, many are original copies of Sendak’s book, with first editions routinely fetching several hundred dollars (a hard cover sold for $1,175 USD!). But Wild Things is also one of those gold mines for merchandisers; we’ll bet everything we’ve got that Max and monster costumes will be popular this Halloween, as will Wild Things toys and stuffed animals come holiday time.

We’re also pretty pumped for Eggers’ novel adaptation — released last week in both hardcover and fur-covered formats!

As for the movie itself, we’re not quite sure what to expect. We like that the monsters are in costumes, and not CGI. We like that Karen O. from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is doing the music. We like the idea of watching something new and feeling young again… And we like that the wait for this thing is finally, finally over.

Over the past several months, Terapeak has been conducting studies that analyze the impact of market research on eBay sellers’ sales and success rate. We’re very grateful to all those who’ve participated, and with the results from our first group of sellers now compiled, we’re excited to present the outcomes!

A little background first: the group of sellers was selected randomly, and features sellers specializing in collectibles, home safety products, antiques and more. Eight performance indicators were tracked for three months for each seller. Statistics related to each indicator were compared on a pre- and post-Terapeak basis, and were then used to determine a percentage of growth or decline.

Some sellers showed improvement in nearly every business facet, while the improvement of others focused on specific statistics. And when averaged across the entire group, every indicator showed at least some improvement.

Here’s a breakdown of the group averages and best results:

As you can see, those are some pretty impressive numbers!

One of the most entertaining parts of the study was researching each seller’s highest priced times. Among the most curious results: a vintage men’s watch worth over $2000, model train accessories, Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, X-Men comics, jewelry, radio equipment, and collectible coins.

All of the participating sellers were a pleasure to interact with, and all were generous with praise for Terapeak’s research tools. Here are a few anecdotes they shared:

[Terapeak] has enabled us to identify a range of products that our competitors are selling that we previously weren’t! And, just as importantly, has helped us to decide which products our competitors have not been able to sell, and [which] we shouldn’t be stocking either! – economiccomics

That’s where Terapeak comes in handy for me. I call my husband (who is more than happy to stay at home while I foray to yard sales and auction previews), tell him to get on Terapeak and check out items while I’m still at a sale. In many cases, that’s been very helpful in determining what or what not to buy. – 6regentspark

I must say that [Terapeak] has changed how I do business and it has also allowed me to look into other markets that I might not have perhaps looked at before. - global-gadgets

We love the Terapeak service. – shiponsiteyng

I cannot say enough [about Terapeak]. Our customers now know that when we say we “Terapeak-ed it” that it’s good info. It makes our life so much easier when we can show people the true ebay value of their items. – quick2sellpgh

As if that other vampire-riffic phenomenon couldn’t get any bigger, we were peeping the Terapeak Hot DVDs section this morning and noticed a TV series atop the list…

For those keeping score, your crazy-colored vampire eyes don’t deceive you: that’s HBO’s True Blood laying a whuppin’ on the former undead champs.

But unlike Twilight, which has more than its share of detractors, we’ve heard almost exclusively good things about the HBO series. Now in its second season, the show stars Oscar-winning actress Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress, and chronicles the mystifying events of a small town in Louisiana.

Below is a 90-day total sales trend for “True Blood,” produced by Terapeak’s All Sites package:

We’re not actually sure what’s produced such a spike — the DVDs were released several months ago, and the show’s second season only just began — but then we also haven’t had a chance to really bite into the television series… (hah!)

Maybe if there weren’t so many freakin’ Twilight books to finish?

By now, you’re probably aware of the For Dummies book series — its classic yellow dust jacket, that little cartoon dude on the front. Since 1991, the series has published over 1,500 different titles, all with the subtitle “A Reference For the Rest of Us.” Several even deal directly with eBay — which, of course, is why we’re mentioning  it now…

In particular, eBay for Dummies has been a go-to for sellers since its original publication in 1999. Recently released in its sixth edition, written by author and eBay expert Marsha Collier, the book is a 408-page opus that details everything you’d ever want to know about buying and selling on eBay.

Here at Terapeak, we were particularly stoked to see this little snippet in Chapter 5:

Getting professional info from Terapeak Research

If you become an eBay fanatic someday, you may find yourself praising the genius of an amazing service offered by eBay and Terapeak. Terapeak Research allows you to research pricing further back than the 14 days of completed listings that the normal eBay search allows. If you come across a special or very old item, and there are not many on the site, you can use this tool to find how much the item has sold for in the past few months.

“Genius”? “Amazing”? We’ll take it!

Okay, that’s enough horn-blowing for now. But seek the book out if you’re looking to step up your eBay game, especially as the holidays approach. You don’t have to be an eBay dummy to reap the benefits!

In case you haven’t heard, there’s this wild new video game out, where you and a few friends get to be English kids with bad haircuts, who sing cute little pop songs that eventually become more complex, and eventually you pioneer this thing called rock and roll and take over the world… It’s pretty “out there”, but a lot of fun!

Okay, obviously we’re talking about The Beatles: Rock Band, which released just over a week ago, and which features some crazy specialized instrument add-ons, like Paul’s signature Hofner bass and Ringo’s branded drum kit. Not coincidentally, the game also launched in conjuction with remastered reissues of the band’s catalogue — which, here in the office, we’re pretty stoked on.  Of course, $250 retail (the cost of the 13-part box set) is a lot of dough to spend on tunes you’ve pretty much heard before — especially when paired with all the Rock Band packages — so for any fan to get in on the action, they’re looking at a hefty financial commitment.

As a result — and you know what we’re gonna say — eBay sales have gone through the roof.

Check out this 30-day All Sites total sales trend:

… and that’s just any listing with the keyword “Beatles” in it!

If total amounts aren’t your thing (fair, considering the new release factor), consider this: in the two weeks leading up to release date, sell-through also shot from 38% to 51%,  while bids per listing nearly doubled. And if holiday patterns are any indication… well, that’s only the beginning.

Terapeak’s Hot Media charts for September won’t come out for another couple weeks, but do you remember the following from a couple months back?

… Okay, we still can’t get over how unbelievable that is. Jaw-dropping. Inconceivable.

But don’t be surprised to see some kind of Beatles “lite” version as holiday sales pick up…