Changes are afoot, however, as consumers seek out the entertainment option that makes the most sense for them. The number of homes subscribing to wired cable has decreased 4.1 percent in the past year at the same time that telephone company-provided and satellite TV have seen increases of 21.1 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively.

Broadcast-Only/Broadband Homes in Focus
Though less than 5 percent of TV households, homes with broadband Internet and free, broadcast TV are on the rise—growing 22.8 percent over last year. These households are also found to exhibit interesting video behaviors: they stream video twice as much as the general population and watch half as much TV.

Whether they’re cord-cutters or former broadcast-only homes that upgraded to Internet service, these homes represent a very small but growing group of U.S. consumers. Interestingly, roughly the same percentage of consumers in broadcast-only/broadband homes watch traditional TV, stream or use the Internet as in all cross-platform homes; the difference between these groups falls to time spent on these activities. Even broadcast-only/broadband homes spend the majority of their video time watching traditional TV: 122.6 minutes, compared to 11.2 for streaming on average each day.

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Patriots have more online visitors, but Giants fans run up web stats

During the run up to the playoffs in December 2011, the Patriots had 644,000 unique visitors to their official website, topping the Giants’ 574,000 visitors. However, Giants fans were more engaged when visiting their team’s website, viewing nearly twice as many pages (17 page views per person) compared to Patriots visitors, and spending over 10 minutes each on average.

Super Bowl buzz: Giants fans cheer more for team, Tom Brady is MVP of social media

Fans’ excitement throughout the playoffs carried over to social media. The Giants had more buzz about their team each week, with a 59 percent share of buzz compared to the Patriots’ 41 percent of buzz volume on blogs, message boards/forums, public posts on Twitter and Facebook and online news posts.  But Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady surpassed Giants QB Eli Manning, with nearly double the amount of buzz.

Google has the #1 app in terms of reach for 5 out of top 7 genres, while Facebook dominates social networking

Google properties occupy the top spot in five of the top seven genres, by reach. Facebook and Nimbuzz lead the social networking and chat genres respectively.

Google does well in time spent with the top app categories
Google apps dominate in terms of time spent for streaming video, GPS, email, and search. 94% of time spent on streaming video goes to YouTube, while 86% of time spent on GPS is with Google. However, when it comes to social networking and chat applications, Google struggles to obtain more than a few percentage points of time spent.

Google apps dominate across age groups
Google Apps have a fairly uniform usage across age groups indicating the success Google has had in establishing itself with all mobile users.

About Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights
Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights leverages innovative smartphone metering technology to provide insights into evolving consumption patterns of mobile device users. Based on accurate, real-time usage data, we help clients understand consumer behavior and develop product and marketing strategies. Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights maintains opt-in smartphone panels to generate syndicated reports, in addition to building custom panels and conducting custom surveys for clients. Our insights aid decision makers across various segments like operators, OEMs, publishers, advertisers, content creators and aggregators and application developers.

Android continues to hold the lead among all smartphone users, with 46.3 percent of all smartphone owners surveyed in Q42011 reporting they have an Android-based mobile phone.

As of Q42011, 46 percent of US mobile consumers had smartphones, and that figure is growing quickly. In fact, 60 percent of those who said they got a new device within the last three months chose a smartphone over a feature phone.

For more, check out Nielsen’s Mobile Media Report.

Amazon emerged as the clear category leader among mass merchandiser brands. Seventy-two million visitors, about one in three active web users, browsed the online shopping site in September 2011 for an average of 29 minutes per person. Walmart’s followed as the second-ranked site, where 34.5 million visitors spent an average of 13 minutes per person on the site. Target, Shopathome.com, and Overstock.com rounded out the top five most visited mass merchandiser websites.

Women made up the majority of visitors to both categories of websites. More than three out of four women who were active online visited consumer electronics sites during September 2011, compared to seven out of 10 men. Women were also 7 percent more likely to visit mass merchandiser sites. Young people aged 18-34 were slightly more likely than the general population (4 percent more likely) to visit consumer electronics sites.

For additional insights on consumer electronics and media usage, download Nielsen’s State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report.

Among tablet and smartphone users who downloaded only free apps in the past month, 33 percent chose games, 20 percent chose social networking and 18 percent chose music. However, app downloaders are willing to shell out money. Consumers who downloaded just paid apps or a combination of free and paid apps invested the most in games (35%), maps/navigation (29%) and music (27%).

For additional insights on consumer electronics and media usage, download Nielsen’s State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report.

For more insights on usage and trends across TV, mobile, online, and social media download Nielsen’s State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report.