New research shows that advertisers looking to build their brands online will need to look beyond traditional web metrics to determine if their investments are paying off.

Despite overall growth of 5.7 percent for the advertising industry in Q2 2011, ad spending fell in nearly half the world’s key markets in the second quarter of this year as economic concerns continued to impact the advertising industry, according to Nielsen’s quarterly Global AdView Pulse report.

Google was the most visited website during August 2011 with 176 million unique US visitors. The Top Sites among U.S. web users remained largely the same as the month before, with Amazon increasing its rank to become the 9th most visited site during August 2011.

Africa is in the midst of a technological revolution, and nothing illustrates that fact than the proliferation of mobile phones.

New research from Nielsen, commissioned by Google, shows that advertising on multiple platforms substantially increases consumers’ ability to remember an ad campaign compared to when the ad is viewed on TV alone.

Nielsen’s Top 20 Games to Watch reveals the most anticipated games of the 2011 holiday season, with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 the most coveted among active U.S. gamers.

New research by NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey Company, explores the reasons U.S. social media users visit social networkings.

According to an August survey, 43 percent of all smartphone owners have an Android device. But if you ask only those who got a new smartphone in the past three months what kind of phone they chose, more than half (56%) will tell you they picked an Android device.

The court of (social media) public opinion has voted, and the Emmy winners are in. An analysis of online buzz reveals that of all the best actor/actress nominees, Michael C. Hall’s performance as Dexter generated the most buzz.

According to the first mobile media rankings based on audience measurement data from metered smartphone usage, aside from the Android Market app itself, Facebook, Google Maps and Gmail were the most used among U.S. Android users 18 years and older.