In the audience-centric Web, metrics will answer traditional marketing questions: Who saw my ad? Did I affect the way they think about my product? Did they actually buy more?

More than 11 billion video streams were served up in the U.S. in the month of November, a 17% jump from the same time period last year.

The Nielsen Company today reported November 2009 data for the Top Parent Companies/Divisions and Top Web Brands, as well as average Internet usage.

As a preview of key media themes for the 2010 CES, Nielsen Executive Vice President and Vice Chair Susan Whiting recorded a podcast with UpNext at CES, to discuss time-shifting, consumer choice and how ratings are becoming smarter across all three screens.

While people 65 and older still make up less than 10 percent of the active Internet universe, their numbers are on the rise. In the last five years, the number of seniors actively using the Internet has increased by more than 55 percent, from 11.3 million active users in November 2004 to 17.5 million in November 2009. Among people 65+, the growth of women in the last five years has outpaced the growth of men by 6 percentage points.

The media has relentlessly covered the Tiger Woods story, but lately, Woods’ presence as product pitchman has been scarce. In addition to Tiger’s personal troubles, Nielsen data shows that brands associated with the golfing great are becoming part of the collateral damage.

Preliminary figures show that expenditures fell $10.9 billion to a total spend of $83.4 billion in the first nine months of the year.

Meet the mini media moguls who are dictating electronic sales and media utilization patterns in American homes: kids. TV still dominates with children of all ages, but older children gravitate toward the Internet and younger kids hang on to DVDs.

When it comes to “success” for a major advertising spend, we should spend more time worrying about the time consumers spend with a site, and not just the incremental audience generated.

Given the consistent spike in usage among the three screens of television, Internet and mobile, consumers are clearly adding video platforms to their schedule, rather than replacing them.