Global online confidence declined to its lowest level in six quarters to 89 as economic recovery hit a stumbling block and recessionary jitters again reverberated around the world, according to Nielsen’s quarterly Global Online Consumer Confidence Survey.

The first quarter of 2011 started off slowly, with nominal value rising 2.3 percent across Europe, a slight decrease from the fourth quarter of 2010.

Women across the world are expanding beyond traditional roles to influence decisions in the home, in business and in politics, creating a massive opportunity for marketers to better connect with them.

In the Cross-Platform Report, Nielsen finds a resounding trend: Americans are spending more time watching video content on traditional TVs, mobile devices and the Internet than ever before.

Global consumer confidence rose two points in the first quarter of this year to an index of 92 driven by record confidence gains in the Middle East/Africa following social and political unrest in the region and strong-performing Asia Pacific economies.

According to a new report from The Nielsen Company that looks at family dynamics, media and purchasing behavior trends, American households are getting smaller, growing more slowly and becoming more ethnically diverse than at any point in history.

A recent Nielsen global survey of 26,644 online consumers across 53 countries explored the music industry’s toughest questions: how to optimize marketing and how maximize revenue in a digital and increasingly mobile world.

The number of U.S. mobile subscribers watching video on their mobile devices rose more than 40 percent year-over-year in both the third and fourth quarters of 2010, ending the year at nearly 25 million people.

How and what Americans watch on TV varies to some degree based on their ethnicity according to a Nielsen report of TV viewing and usage trends in 2010.

Overall timeshifting by U.S. TV audiences increased significantly in the third and fourth quarters of 2010, with the average American watching nearly 10 and a half hours of timeshifted TV at the end of the year.