Top social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn may be well-established, but that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped growing.
Nearly half of the biggest social networking sites are also among the fastest growing, according to data released Wednesday by Nielsen Online.
These top sites have also expanded beyond the youthful audience the social networking space initially captured — to find a place in older visitors’ professional lives.  Facebook, LinkedIn, and Reunion.com are most popular among visitors ages 25-34, 35-49, and 55-64, respectively, Nielsen reported.

Rank
(by Sept. YOY UA growth)
10 Fastest Growing
Social Networking Sites: Sept. 2008
Sept. 2007:
Unique Audience …

Melissa Davies
Several of our staff have touched on the economy in recent days. As consumers’ healthcare costs continue to climb, it seems natural that healthcare cannot be immune to the effects of the downturn that has our world reeling. The New York Times on Tuesday published an article about a trend in patients stopping certain medications because they can’t afford them. Other news sources have reported on various patient cost-saving measures, from splitting pills in half to taking a medication every other day instead of every day.
I wondered if we …

According to Nielsen Online, in September NYTimes.com was the top U.S.-based online newspaper site, while MSNBC Digital Network (MSNBC) was the top U.S. online news outlet, Editor & Publisher reported this week.
The NY Times’ website drew just over 20 million unique visitors in September — a 37% increase over unique traffic to the site last September.

Sept. 2008 Rank
Top 10 
Newspaper Sites
(ranked by unique users)
Sept. 2008 Unique Traffic
(in 000’s)
% Growth
Vs. Sept. 2007 Unique Traffic

1
NYTimes.com
20,068
37%

2
washingtonpost.com
12,956
43%

3
USATODAY.com
11,439
33%

4
LA Times
10,022
102%

5
Wall Street Journal Online
9,047
94%

6
Boston.com
8,610
122%

7
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle
5,129
18%

8
New York Post
4,815
98%

9
Politico
4,605
219%

10
Chicago Tribune
4,558
46%

Source: The Nielsen Company (September 2008).

Meanwhile, MSNBC saw 44% year over year growth, …

With Nielsen Business Media’s Marketing to Men 18-34 conference convening in New York City Tuesday and Wednesday, Nielsen assembled a full round-up of TV, online, mobile, and gaming data to illuminate how these younger male consumers use media.
Television
-Men typically watch less TV than women their age — with one exception: male teens actually watch more TV than female teens.  Men ages 18 to 34 tend to watch more cable and pay channels, while women gravitate to broadcast networks.
-When it comes to sports programming on TV, men 18-34 are more attentive viewers (+12%) than women of the …

Online buzz surrounding Senators Barack Obama and John McCain remained strong during the three presidential debates in September and October, but voters’ engagement in the debate TV broadcasts declined significantly after the first debate, according to an analysis released Tuesday by Nielsen IAG and Nielsen Online.
“Engagement” refers to the amount of attention paid to a television program by the average viewer.  Nielsen measures TV engagement by questioning a representative panel of viewers about their recall of specific telecasts’ content.
Online consumer discussion of both candidates spiked before and after each of the four …

Charlie Buchwalter
The recent cataclysmic events in financial markets have jolted many of us into a “back to basics” mentality. Basics such as “what goes up must come down.” Basics such as “live within your means.”
Over the weekend, my colleague Dave Martin and I reviewed a 100 year trend of price/earnings ratios for the S&P 500. For the last 18 years or so, the average has driven far north of the long term average of 15, and a “back to basics” mentality would have indicated that sooner or later it would …

The G1 smartphone — due out next week — is poised to give Apple’s iPhone its first serious challenge.
For its part, the iPhone 3G has maintained strong growth, with a steady flow of mobile subscribers switching to AT&T for the iPhone in the two months since the device launched in mid-July, Nielsen Mobile reported Thursday.
Between June and July, the number of customers switching to AT&T for the iPhone increased by 97%.  Postpaid network adds for AT&T grew by 70% during the same period, according to Nielsen.
So far, the iPhone 3G has …

Throughout the presidential and vice presidential debates, certain words (change, maverick) and phrases (my friends, Joe six-pack) used by John McCain, Barack Obama, and Sarah Palin, have driven post-debate conversation as tracked by Nielsen Online. At the final presidential debate on October 15, “Joe the Plumber” from Ohio, also known as Joe Wurzelbacher, was unwittingly added to the conversation after media outlets recorded his recent tax discussion with Senator Obama. During a discussion about tax policy, the candidates referred to Joe at least 20 times, subsequently driving discussion and debate …

Women ages 25 to 54 with at least one child are nearly twice as likely as the average American Internet user to provide frequent online advice about parenting and family issues (88% more likely), non-food household products (84% more likely), and beauty/cosmetics (82% more likely).
These “power moms” are also 51% more likely than average Web users to provide frequent online advice on clothes and fashion, food and beverage products (39% more likely than average), home decorating (36% more likely than average), and health, dieting and exercise (27% more likely than …

Yahoo! Sports was the number one-ranked sports website in September, edging past second-ranked ESPN.com, Nielsen Online reported Monday. 
Sports-related websites in the U.S. drew a total unique audience of 77.5 million visitors in September.

RANK
WEBSITE
UNIQUE AUDIENCE
(in 000s)

1
Yahoo! Sports
26,003

2
ESPN
22,834

3
FOX Sports on MSN
16,023

4
NFL Internet Network
15,037

5
CBS Sports
13,278

Source: Nielsen Online, NetView (September 1, 2008 – September 30, 2008).

View complete data on the top five sports websites.