Web traffic to the top online shopping sites jumped 10 percent on Cyber Monday compared to last year, says Nielsen Online. So what does that mean? Nothing, really: Assuming the data are accurate, we still don’t know how much people actually spent, and what they spent it on. We’re likely get a few more pieces of the puzzle today, when/if comScore comes out with its online commerce numbers. But the most important data are still locked away in retailers’ databases, and that stuff won’t be public for some time.

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Americans spent billions on CDs last year. But big-box retailers are increasingly uninterested in selling the discs in their stores. Newest data point: Borders Group, which has cut its music inventory by 30 percent in the last year.

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Give the music industry credit–a decade after the original Napster, it’s now standard practice to let fans listen to an entire disc worth of new music, for free, before it ever gets to stores. The latest example: Britney Spears’s new album, “Circus,” which you can listen to at iMeem.com. Or at the bottom of this post, via a groovy embeddable player.

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Next week’s release of “Chinese Democracy”–Guns N’ Roses’ first new album in a gazillion years–is supposed to be a very big deal. But listening data from MySpace, where the album is being previewed, indicate that fans may be disappointed. So may execs at Best Buy, which has an exclusive on the new disc.

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Remember the CD? Few people do, which is why sales are declining faster than ever. But someone is still buying billions of dollars worth of discs each year. Who are they?

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That’s the offer, sort of, being made by something called Datz Music Lounge. Are there catches? You bet–this is the music business, after all. But it’s a potentially intriguing idea that could work both for music fans and the industry.

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Yet another sign that even mighty Google feels unnerved by the slowdown: A “Hey! Don’t Forget About Us!” note sent out to its AdSense customers.

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Yet another digital company is cutting back: eMusic, the digital music subscription service, is firing “about 10 percent” of its 100-person staff. The company says sales are okay, but it’s seeing softness at retail partners like Best Buy. And it’s also still looking for a new CEO.

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