1. Travel vs. Technology: With overseas travel budgets shrinking, international student recruiters are directing more resources online to generate inquiries and enrollees. (For those http://www.USjournal.com/ advertisers who will still enjoy the luxury of travel, please send your Spring itineraries to cheryl@USjournal.com so we can alert targeted students in our database.)

2. Improved ROI Metrics: Shrinking budgets also demand deeper justification for expenses; technology can help. As our colleagues in domestic admissions move forward with better ways to measure Return on Investment, we in international recruitment had better keep pace to ensure a seat at the table during campus-wide budget negotiations. Learn more: http://www.nafsa.org/knowledge_community_network.sec/

3. The World's Internet Penetration Rate increased to about 22 percent as of 30 June 2008, with 1,463,632,361 current users. Another spin on those stats: When you advertise online, in essence you're marketing to the most affluent one-fifth of the world's population. Source: http://www.InternetWorldStats.com/stats.htm

4. More Robust Filtering Mechanisms: As penetration rates increase, so too will prospective student requests for full tuition scholarships. Look for a new electronic funds verification system in 2009, to vastly improve the integrity and efficiency of the current paper-based process.

5. Global Mobile Usage: The International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations organization, notes that the penetration of mobile phones worldwide has surpassed 50 percent. The figure is now approaching four billion users, with an increasing number of devices enabled for impressive internet accessibility. How does your .edu domain appear on the small screen?

6. Online Multi-lingualism: If you want your web site to speak to the world, it needs to speak a lot of languages. Five years ago, a web site that supported more than 10 languages was in rare company. This year, the average number of languages supported by the top 225 global sites is 20, up from 18 last year. Source: http://www.GlobalByDesign.com/

7. Native English Speakers represent only 29.4 percent of the world's 1.46 billion regular Internet users. Chinese continues its steady increase, at 18.9 percent as of 30 June 2008. Source: http://www.InternetWorldStats.com/stats7.htm

8. EducationUSA's Global Marketing Strategy: A new structure (and new faces) within http://educationUSA.state.gov/ promises increased collaborative efforts to drive international education to a new level of success. Stay tuned.

9. The Obama Factor: :-)