Nielsen’s regional experts share insights on confidence, media trends, and what next for the increasingly diverse, demanding, and connected global consumer.

Thirty-nine percent of Facebook users in the U.S., U.K. and Australia have already donated to the Haitian earthquake relief efforts. Another 21 percent still plan to do so, according to a joint survey conducted by Facebook and Nielsen.

Today’s presence of underwater mortgages, or homes with negative equity, seem to be correlated to two common regional U.S. population trends: domestic immigration from the Northeastern region to the South and Southwestern and migration from coastal California inland.

An aging population will completely alter the marketplace for consumer products in the near and distant future. Marketing strategies that account for shifts in household size and demographic make-up will be most successful.

While people 65 and older still make up less than 10 percent of the active Internet universe, their numbers are on the rise. In the last five years, the number of seniors actively using the Internet has increased by more than 55 percent, from 11.3 million active users in November 2004 to 17.5 million in November 2009. Among people 65+, the growth of women in the last five years has outpaced the growth of men by 6 percentage points.

The fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago helped propel the growth of the European Union. Today, the EU economy is bigger than the United States and is still growing. Will the EU challenge U.S. historical economic dominance on a global scale?

Because insured and uninsured populations vary significantly, insurance companies will have to develop even more targeted initiatives and reexamine their current members’ ongoing medical and wellness needs.

The launch of the Droid by Motorola–which runs Google’s Android 2.0 operating system–is the latest smartphone to be tagged “a game changer,” and “the iPhone killer.”

Business-to-business marketers have borrowed a page from the consumer sector, using new segmentation models to optimize sales and tailor messaging by customer, product line and account representative.

Marketers looking to tap into high-growth population segments should turn their attention to the U.S. Hispanic segment. But if you are waiting around for Hispanics to fully acculturate, you may be waiting a long time—perhaps indefinitely.