  In this paper we present the first automatically constructed LASCO CME
catalog, a result of the application of the Computer Aided CME Tracking
software (CACTus) on the LASCO archive during the interval September 1997 -
January 2007. We have studied the CME characteristics and have compared them
with similar results obtained by manual detection (CDAW CME catalog). On
average CACTus detects less than 2 events per day during solar minimum up to 8
events during maximum, nearly half of them being narrow (< 20 degrees).
Assuming a correction factor, we find that the CACTus CME rate is surprisingly
consistent with CME rates found during the past 30 years. The CACTus statistics
show that small scale outflow is ubiquitously observed in the outer corona. The
majority of CACTus-only events are narrow transients related to previous CME
activity or to intensity variations in the slow solar wind, reflecting its
turbulent nature. A significant fraction (about 15%) of CACTus-{\it only}
events were identified as independent events, thus not related to other CME
activity. The CACTus CME width distribution is essentially scale invariant in
angular span over a range of scales from 20 to 120 degrees while previous
catalogues present a broad maximum around 30 degrees. The possibility that the
size of coronal mass outflows follow a power law distribution could indicate
that no typical CME size exists, i.e. that the narrow transients are not
different from the larger well-defined CMEs.
