Of the sites reviewed, web hosting site GoDaddy.com saw the largest lift in post-Super Bowl traffic, with a 41 percent increase in unique U.S. visitors during the week following the game compared to the week before. GoDaddy aired two commercials during the game with their 1st quarter ad starring Joan Rivers as the new GoDaddy spokesperson ranking as the ninth most-recalled commercial of the telecast.

Volkswagen and travel site HomeAway.com were the other two telecast advertisers reviewed who saw double-digit gains in web traffic during the week of February 7, both having a 27 percent increase in unique U.S. visitors. “Traditional” brand Mercedes-Benz also saw a noticeable uplift of 9 percent.

FOX, the Super Bowl XLV broadcaster, also saw traffic to its site increase by 11 percent to 1.5 million unique U.S. visitors during the week following the game compared to the week before.

On the other hand, when looking at online buzz, Groupon’s ads – a spoof on celebrity charity endorsements –caused plenty of conversation, placing the rookie Super Bowl telecast advertiser as the #5 most buzzed about brand out of all Super Bowl advertisers. Among the pure-online players, Groupon took the top spot, capturing 10.5 percent of total Super Bowl marketing buzz the day after the game, three times the buzz of GoDaddy, which had the largest increase in web traffic.  Discussion of Groupon continued over the next few days as buzz volume for the advertiser grew as high as 34 percent during the week following the telecast.

Methodology: This piece of research covered all the pure-play online advertisers (e.g. GoDaddy.com) and any “traditional” advertiser (e.g. Chevrolet) whose commercial appeared amongst the 10 most-watched during the Super Bowl XLV telecast. The piece measured the number of unique U.S. individuals who visited the advertiser website from a home or work computer between January 31 and February 13.

Buzz volume is depicted as a percentage of total Super Bowl marketing messages – any message with mentions of Super Bowl XLV and ad-related terms (e.g. advertiser, commercial, sponsor, campaign, marketer) – between January 31 and February 13.

Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent just a year ago (43 percent increase) according to new research released today from The Nielsen Company. The research revealed that Americans spend a third their online time (36 percent) communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal email and instant messaging.

“Despite the almost unlimited nature of what you can do on the web, 40 percent of U.S. online time is spent on just three activities – social networking, playing games and emailing leaving a whole lot of other sectors fighting for a declining share of the online pie,” said Nielsen analyst Dave Martin.

Additional findings include:

• Online games overtook personal email to become the second most heavily used activity behind social networks – accounting for 10 percent of all U.S. Internet time. Email dropped from 11.5 percent of time to 8.3 percent. (Source: Nielsen NetView)
• Of the most heavily-used sectors, Videos/Movies (which includes video-specific and movie-related websites only – and is not inclusive of video streaming behavior elsewhere) was the only other to experience a significant growth in share of U.S. activity online. Its share of activity grew relatively by 12 percent from 3.5 to 3.9 percent. (Source: Nielsen NetView)
• June 2010 was a major milestone for U.S. online video as the number of videos streamed passed the 10 billion mark. The average American consumer streaming online video spent 3 hours 15 minutes doing so during the month. (Source: Nielsen VideoCensus)
• Despite some predictions otherwise, the rise of social networking hasn’t pushed email and instant messaging into obscurity just yet. Although both saw double-digit declines in share of time, email remains as the third heaviest activity online (8.3 percent share of time) while instant messaging is fifth, accounting for four percent of Americans online time. (Source: Nielsen NetView)
• Although the major portals also experienced a double digit decline in share, they remained as the fourth heaviest activity, accounting for 4.4 percent of U.S. time online. (Source: Nielsen NetView)

Email Remains Top on Mobile Internet Activities
The way U.S. consumers spend their Internet time on their mobile phones paints a slightly different picture to that of Internet use from computers. In a Nielsen survey of mobile web users, there is a double-digit (28 percent) rise in the prevalence of social networking behavior, but the dominance of email activity on mobile devices continue with an increase from 37.4 percent to 41.6 percent of U.S. mobile Internet time.

Portals remain as the second heaviest activity on mobile Internet (11.6 percent share of time), despite their double digit decline and social networking’s rise to account for 10.5 percent share means the gap is much smaller than a year ago (14.3 percent vs. 8.3 percent).

Other mobile Internet activities seeing significant growth include music and video/movies, both seeing 20 percent plus increases in share of activity year over year. As these destinations gain share, it’s at the cost of other content consumption – both news/current events and sports destinations saw more than a 20 percent drop in share of U.S. mobile Internet time.

“Although we see similar characteristics amongst PC and mobile internet use, the way their activity is allocated is still pretty contrasting, added Martin. While convergence will continue, the unique characteristics of computers and mobiles, both in their features and when and where they are used mean that mobile Internet behavior mirroring its PC counterpart is still some way off.”

NOTE: This piece of research looked at the share of all U.S. Internet time each of the 84 “standard” NetView subcategories/sectors holds. Only the top 10 sectors were actually called out, the remaining 74 were grouped into “other” and not called out.

The Mobile Internet data is derived from a survey which tracks self-reported mobile internet usage from over 5,000 respondents each month.  Mobile internet universe is defined as people that they have used the mobile internet, email or instant messaging on their mobile phone in the past 30 days. The Mobile internet data is weighted back to benchmarks for age, gender, income, race/ethnicity and operator share collected in Mobile Insights.

The size of the U.K. Internet audience grew by five percent from 36.9 million people in May 2009 to 38.8 million people in May 2010. Of these 1.9 million new Internet users, 1.0 million (53 percent) were at least 50 years old.

Men over 50 were responsible for most of this growth, accounting for 722,000 (38 percent) new British Internet users followed by women over 50 who accounted for 284,000 (15 percent) new users.

Following the 50+ age group, women aged 21-34 accounted for 272,000 (14 percent) new British Internet users and ‘tweenage’ girls aged 12-20 who accounted for 231,000 (12 percent).

“The Internet is getting older in more ways than one. Not only is the medium itself maturing but the audience is shifting towards older age groups,” said Alex Burmaster, Nielsen’s vice president of global communications for online. “This growth is a reminder, if one was still needed, that it is very much a form of media utilized by all age groups. The fact that one in four Britons who use the Internet today are 50 to 64 years old proves it is no longer the sole preserve of the young and technical literati.”

The types of websites where people over 50 years old are most likely to be found are a varied mix of health, video, community, travel, fashion, genealogy, cooking and greeting cards.

People aged 50 or over account for 31 percent of people online. Health website RealAge has the highest concentration of people this age amongst its visitors – 89 percent are aged 50 or over. RealAge is followed by video site Flixxy (80 percent) and community site Saga – of which 78 percent of the audience is at least 50 years old.

Burmaster added, “This age group have a wide appetite when it comes to the types of sites they are using to supplement the interests and needs they have in the daily lives. Consequently, a number of brands across a range of industries, particularly travel, are showing the rest what a valuable medium online is when it comes to reaching a desired audience who haven’t grown up with the Internet.”

In April 2007, Social Networks & Blogs accounted for less than nine percent of all UK Internet time, but in three years the sector has grown to account for almost 23 percent of U.K. Internet time – the equivalent of one in every four and a half minutes. In other words, if all April 2010 U.K. Internet Time were condensed into one hour, 13 1/2 minutes would have been spent on Social Networks & Blogs.

The most heavily used sectors following Social Networks & Blogs are personal (non-work) Email (56 million hours / 7.2 percent share of time) and Online Games (53 million hours / 6.9 percent share).

The biggest casualty of the rise in social networking is Instant Messaging (IM) which, three years ago, was the most heavily used sector but has since dropped below Email and Online Games. IM’s share of U.K. Internet time has fallen from 14 percent to five percent – a relative drop of 66 percent. In contrast, personal Email, which many predicted to be another casualty of the social networking phenomenon, has actually increased its share of online time from 6.5 percent to 7.2 percent – a relative rise of 11 percent.

“Despite the large increase in the amount of time people spend online and the increasing proliferation of websites and online services, one thing has remained constant and that is the bulk of time accounted for by communicating, networking and playing games,” said Alex Burmaster, VP of Global Communications for Nielsen’s Online division. “These are the pillars on which the Internet as a heavily used medium are built.”

Globally, social networks and blogs are the most popular online category when ranked by average time spent in December, followed by online games and instant messaging. With 206.9 million unique visitors, Facebook was the No. 1 global social networking destination in December 2009 and 67% of global social media users visited the site during the month. Time on site for Facebook has also been on the rise, with global users spending nearly six hours per month on the site.

U.S. Growth in Average time Person on Facebook and Twitter Outpaces Growth of Overall Category
People in the U.S. continue to spend more time on social networking and blog sites as well, with total minutes increasing 210% year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 143% year-over-year in December 2009. Year-over-year growth in average time spent by U.S. users, for both Facebook and Twitter.com, outpaced the overall growth for the category, increasing 200% and 368%, respectively. Among, the top five U.S. social networking sites, Twitter.com continued its reign as the fastest-growing in December 2009 in terms of unique visitors, increasing 579% year-over-year, from 2.7 million unique visitors in December 2008 to 18.1 million in December 2009. However, month-over-month, unique visitors decreased 5%

Australia Leads in Average Time Spent per Person on Social Media Sites in December
When narrowed by individual country, with 142.1 million unique visitors the United States had the largest number of social media and blog users in December, followed by Japan, which had 46.6 million unique visitors during the month. Australia led in average time per person spent, with the average Australian spending nearly 7 hours on social media sites in December. The United States and the United Kingdom came in a close second and third, with 6 hours and 9 minutes and 6 hours and 8 minutes, respectively.

*Global data takes into account the following countries: U.S., U.K., Australia, Brazil, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain and Italy

Example:  The data indicates that 63.8 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the Apple Computer-owned sites or launched an Apple Computer-owned application during the month, and each person spent, on average, a total of 1 hour, 27 minutes and 45 seconds at one or more of their sites or applications.

The parent level is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single company or division. The brand level is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs that has a consistent collection of branded content.

Example:  The data indicates that 62.1 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the Apple Computer-owned sites or launched an Apple Computer-owned application during the month, and each person spent, on average, a total of 1 hour, 18 minutes and 23 seconds at one or more of their sites or applications.

The parent level is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single company or division. The brand level is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs that has a consistent collection of branded content.

Top 10 Web Brands for November 2009 (U.S., Home and Work)
RANK	Web Brand	Unique Audience (000)	Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1	Google	146,692	1:43:32
2	Yahoo!	129,998	3:04:00
3	Facebook	109,710	6:10:06
4	MSN/WindowsLive/Bing	108,911	1:55:03
5	Microsoft	94,840	0:44:32
6	YouTube	91,193	1:09:20
7	AOL Media Network	87,022	2:32:32
8	Fox Interactive Media	62,660	1:36:30
9	Apple	62,074	1:18:23
10	Amazon	60,894	0:28:01
Source: The Nielsen Company

Average U.S. Internet Usage, Combined Home & Work, Month of November 2009
Metrics	Nov-09
Sessions/Visits per Person	51
Domains Visited per Person	86
Web Pages per Person	2,603
PC Time per Person	66:28:44
Duration of a Web Page Viewed	0:00:57
Active Digital Media Universe	195,149,922
Current Digital Media Universe Estimate	234,372,000
Source: The Nielsen Company

“This growth suggests a wholesale change in the way the Internet is used,” said Jon Gibs, vice president, media and agency insights, Nielsen’s online division. “While video and text content remain central to the Web experience – the desire of online consumers to connect, communicate and share is increasingly driving the medium’s growth.”

Among those taking note of this trend: advertisers.  Estimated online advertising spending on the top social network and blogging sites increased 119 percent, from approximately $49 million in August 2008 to approximately $108 million in August 2009 – all despite a recession. Share of estimated spend on these sites has doubled, from 7 percent of online ad spend in 2008 to 15 percent in 2009.

Year-over-Year Percent Change in Online Ad Spend by Industry (U.S., August 2009)

*Estimated spend on social networking sites is based off of data for the top ad-supported member community sites ranked by unique visitors in August 2009
Read the full press release.

Beyond the typical issues such as values, morality, ethics, politics and religion, the generation gap extends to attitudes toward media.  For example, younger people still watch a significant amount of TV (those age 25-34 watch more than 150 hours per month), but people age 65 and over watch 38 percent more.  People age 35 and over spend more time online compared to the young.  But when it comes to mobile phones, the young are the clear leaders in adopting and embracing new technology and products.  For example, they are more likely to forsake landline phones in favor of mobile.  They send texts with abandon – the average teenager sent or received over 35,000 messages in 2008!  That’s 163 times more than the average 65 year old.

The U.S. in 2020 will be a very different marketplace from 2009, and the generation gap – the differences in values, outlooks and political perspectives – combined with the major demographic changes we analyzed last month, will play a starring role in shaping how media and technology are used.

Read a full analysis of the generation gap in the August edition of Consumer Insight.