The notion that teens are too busy texting and Twittering to be engaged with traditional media is exciting, but false. To develop the best strategy around teens and media, start by challenging popular assumptions about teens.

David Martin, Vice President, Primary Research / Sue MacDonald, Research Manager
You’ve probably heard of the Morgan Stanley report that declares “teenagers do not use Twitter,” based on a sample size of one 15 year-old intern named Matthew Robson. Morgan Stanley rightfully disclosed that they do not claim that his study is representational or merits statistical accuracy, so we thought we could provide both with our NetRatings panel of 250,000 U.S. Internet users.
Twitter’s footprint has expanded impressively in the first half of 2009, reaching 10.7 percent of all active Internet users …

When newlyweds Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz asked their wedding party to turn their wedding into a party the result was the latest YouTube hit “JK Wedding Entrance,” which featured the entire cast dancing down the aisle to Chris Brown’s “Forever.” Just five days after it was posted, the video was the most-cited clip according to Nielsen’s BlogPulse, and has recently passed the 10 million views mark after the “Today” show flew the crew to New York to recreate the entire event outside Rockefeller Center.
While it’s great news and great …

There has been increasing mainstream interest in and gravitation towards all things vampire, most recently spurred by the Twilight books/movies and the HBO series, True Blood. And even if these aren’t familiar topics to you yet, marketers are keen to the vampire mystique.
Vampire-related sites are drawing audiences on the Web. In June 2009, the official Twilight movie site was the top online vampire-related destination, garnering 553,000 unique visitors who spent an average of two minutes and 45 seconds on the site during the month (the New Moon trailer is a …

More than three-quarters of Indian consumers base their choice of mobile service on network or price, according to a new study from The Nielsen Company India.  While CDMA technology has an edge over GSM in both voice and data network performance in India, more than a third (33%) of respondents with CDMA service are likely to consider a GSM brand should they choose to switch carriers. Meanwhile, 62 percent of CDMA customers said that they would consider staying with their existing service provider.
Nielsen also studied CDMA and GSM network performance in 39 …

Sue MacDonald, Research Manager, Online Division
After he retired as the anchorman for CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite often said in later-life interviews that he had one regret as a newsman: he was never invited by NASA to fly into space or join the Apollo missions as the first reporter on the moon.
As the U.S. celebrates the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing today, Cronkite is at least sharing the spotlight. The day after his passing at the age of 92, Nielsen’s BlogPulse showed Cronkite to be most-cited person by …

As Myspace.com continues its strategic move toward becoming an “entertainment portal,” the growth to Myspace Music should help cement their presence in this space. Since the site’s launch in September 2008, unique visitors to the music.myspace.com subdomain have increased 190 percent — growing from 4.2 million unique visitors to 12.1 million in June 2009. Year-over-year traffic to the URL has increased 1,017 percent.
When comparing unique visitors of the music.myspace.com subdomain to other sites within the music category in June, it ranked third behind AOL Music and Yahoo! Music and …

Charles Buchwalter, Senior Vice President, Research & Analytics
There has been much talk in the Internet industry around the importance of the “long tail” (niche content and service-oriented sites) and how consumers gravitate to it. The central concept is that people tend to be most engaged in content that is core to their specific interests, rather than more generalized content.
Looking at our newly expanded panel that includes more than 30,000 sites, we have found that short tail sites (those with a greater than 1 percent reach) remain the most engaging …

Joshua Hammond, Nielsen Online
Social media can be a great equalizer. Periodically we see a new consumer generated media (CGM) item that breaks barriers and demands a deeper dive. This month, we saw a true “David vs. Goliath” moment play out online for one of the most widely recognized brands in America.
In the spring of 2008, Dave Carroll and his band, the Sons of Maxwell, were traveling to Nebraska from Chicago on United Airlines. What should have been a routine journey turned into yet another cautionary tale for customer …

Nielsen’s latest automotive industry overview tracked the online conversations, and the steadily declining price, of diesel over the last 12 months. Though diesel has been a hot topic within alternative fuel buzz at times, a downward trend in discussion over the past year speaks to a decline in consumer interest.
Findings & Analysis:

Total diesel buzz decreased 28% from June ‘08 to June ‘09, while diesel fuel fell by $2.15 per gallon or 45%
Domestic trucks and German cars are most prominently mentioned within diesel buzz
Mercedes-Benz and BMW are gaining share of diesel …