Nielsen Online CEO John Burbank takes a look at the economic and advertising impacts of the report.

Highlights Of The Report Include

• The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339 percent since 2003.
• Time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000 percent over the same period.
• In the last year alone, unique viewers of online video grew 10 percent, the number of streams grew 41 percent, the streams per user grew 27 percent and the total minutes engaged with online video grew 71 percent.
• There are 87 percent more online social media users now than in 2003, with 883 percent more time devoted to those sites.
• In the last year alone, time spent on social networking sites has surged 73 percent.
• In February, social network usage exceeded Web-based e-mail usage for the first time.

Read the full report.

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Leading up to the Jan. 8 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, buzz from online boards, forums and blogs increased nearly tenfold from post-2008 holiday levels, according to Nielsen Online.

Key products created much of the excitement, including super-thin, bendable TV screens (using organic light-emitting diode, or OLED technology), new digital cameras and camcorders, smarter-than-ever-smartphones such as the Palm Pre, and tinier, more powerful computers, some of which are being called “netbooks.” Also big: the concept of “convergence,” which means that many electronics devices are now interchangeably converging their functions: computers that download TV content and music and play it throughout the house, cameras that use GPS to tag photos automatically, and phones that serve as music players. Sure, electronics manufacturers are feeling the pinch, but they’re also hoping to benefit from consumers who turn to more home-based entertainment (big-screen TVs, gaming consoles, etc.) to keep their own budgets under control.

Follow more trends at Nielsen Online’s blog, Connecting the Dots.

As of Q3 2008, the average American watched approximately 142 hours of TV per month — five hours more than they watched in a typical month during the same period a year ago.

Americans who used the Internet were online 27 hours a month, and people who used a mobile phone spent 3 hours a month watching mobile video.

Men were more likely than women to watch via mobile phone, while women were more likely then men to watch video online.

DVR usage was up significantly (52.5%) in Q3 2008, compared with Q3 2007.  Americans spent more than six hours per month watching timeshifted TV — double the amount of time they spent watching video online.  The only exception: 18-24 year-olds, who consumed more video online (four hours, 48 minutes) than via DVR (four hours, 36 minutes).

During the 2007-08 television season, the average U.S. household took in eight hours and 18 minutes of TV per day, a record high since Nielsen started measuring television in the 1950’s.

“TV use is at an all-time high, yet people are also using the Internet more often — 31% of which is happening simultaneously,” Susan Whiting, vice chairperson, Nielsen, noted.

Download the report.

Learn more about viewing across the “three screens” – view Manish Bhatia, of Nielsen, addressing the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s December 2008 forum.