“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.

Time spent online among children aged 2-11 increased 63 percent in the last five years, from nearly 7 hours in May 2004 to more than 11 hours online in May 2009. Time spent among kids outpaced the increase for the overall population, which grew 36 percent in the last five years

Boys spent 7 percent more time online than girls; while girls viewed 9 percent more Web pages than boys did in May 2009.

Online Parents Keep the Camera Rolling

According to Nielsen’s @Plan Summer 2009 data, 26.3 percent of the online adult population, or 38.2 million, have children 11 years old or younger in the household – a 7 percent increase from Summer 2008. Online adults with children under age 12 in the household were 1.7 times more likely to purchase a digital camcorder.

Jack Spends More Time Viewing Videos than Jill

Online video viewership among 2-11 year olds was split evenly between boys and girls, with 5.1 million boys and 5.2 million girls viewing video online in May

Online video consumption between boys and girls was not so even. In May 2009, boys led in viewing and time spent: consuming 61 percent of video streams among children and comprising 57 percent of the time spent viewing videos.

So what are Power Moms doing online?  Where they spend time varies by demographic categories.  For example, “Established Moms,” those aged 40-50 with three or more children at home, are heavy online shoppers, with Shopzilla.com the most popular site.  Newbie Moms, aged 25-34 with one or two children at home, also enjoy online shopping, but social networking sites play a much more prominent role.

Power Moms all share a concern for the economy and seek money-saving strategies and solutions online and the number of conversations continue to grow. “Mom bloggers review everything from beauty products to cars to inkjets, enabling marketers unparalled reach to their target consumers. In an increasingly connected world, moms seek the wisdom of their online counterparts as trusted advisors,” said Jessica Hogue, research director, Nielsen Online.

To read more about the power these moms wield, including Nielsen Online’s Power Mom 50, a list of influential sites, click here.

Have a favorite site you think should be in the Power Mom 50? Let us know with your comments.

More proof that Boomers should be looked at by advertisers is Nielsen research from January which shows baby boomer households represented more than 50% of sales in 98 of 122 consumer packaged goods (CPG) product categories analyzed in a recent report by Nielsen and the Hallmark Channel.  That adds up to almost $200 billion in total sales in those categories.

In the New York Times today, Nielsen’s Howard Shimmel said, “Especially in this economy, with marketers’ budgets under so much stress, advertisers would prefer to spend dollars on today’s sales instead of thinking about establishing brand loyalty.”

Read the full article in the New York Times.

If you think the internet can support unlimited content and you’ve been enjoying your all-you-can-eat web surfing… just wait. At the same time that consumers are increasing their use of the internet to view content at their convenience, some cable companies and ISPs are setting limits on how much content you can access in any given month – or risk paying a penalty for going over the limit the same way your phone company budgets your anytime minutes.

Comcast has levied a 250-gigabyte cap on its users, (that’s about 120 full-length standard definition movies or 65,000 songs). Time Warner Cable has a program of bandwidth caps that lets customers choose from several levels, ranging from 5GB to 40GB at prices that range from $29.95 to $54.90 a month, with the possibility of a 100GB tier in the future. Verizon’s FiOS service has said it has no immediate plan to cap bandwidth usage.

This boom in video streaming is just getting started. Case in point: the uber-growth of Hulu. Unique viewers to that site alone have increased just over five-fold from February 2008 to February 2009. From September 2008 through February 2009, unique viewers have grown 49%, while the time spent viewing has risen 54% (from 114.7 minutes to 176.9 minutes).

Not only are more consumers viewing video content, but they tend to spend increasingly more time on the numerous outlets (iTunes, Netflix, Xbox 360) consumers have for accessing content. YouTube has also just begun offering full-length TV shows and movies at youtube.com/shows.

Cable companies have a right to control their pipes as they wish, but smaller, more cost-effective caps may have a real effect on how not only individuals consume content, but also families with media-hungry kids and teens. Lower caps increasingly come in to play as the premise of caps move away from individual usage to combined usage as habits of downloading movies, video, music, and so on may change given the fear of overage costs, especially as personal and household budgets tighten.

At this point, it appears consumers are not yet willing to accept bandwidth caps.  Responding to consumer and political social media buzz, Time Warner Cable announced that it would halt current expansion plans for caps in additional cities.

How much extra will you as a consumer be willing to pay to see, read, watch or play something over the Internet? Will you change your viewing/consumption habits before you change what you pay for internet access?

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.

The study found that Hispanic Internet users are 21% more likely to download digital content than the average adult online. Forty-two percent of Hispanic Internet Users have downloaded some form of digital content during the past 30 days, compared to 35% of the total Internet population. Music is the top download category for both Hispanics and the total Internet population. Almost one-third (32%) of Hispanic Internet users and almost one-quarter (24%) of all Internet users have downloaded music during the past month.

“Increased high-speed Internet access among Hispanics is opening the door for online businesses to establish brand loyalty with this consumer group,” said Gary Meo, senior vice president of digital media services, Scarborough Research. “Offering Hispanics new and creative ways to interact with a brand online – particularly via downloaded digital content – could go a long way in successfully marketing to the Hispanic adult.”

Download the complete report from Scarborough Research.

“Social networking has become a fundamental part of the global online experience,” commented John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen Online. “While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing.”

More Time For Community

Time spent on social network sites is also expanding: Across the globe in 2008 activity in ‘Member Communities’ accounted for one in every 15 online minutes – now it accounts for one in every 11. In Brazil the average is one of every four minutes and in UK it’s one in every six minutes.

Not Just For The Young

While social networks started out among the younger audience, they’ve become more mainstream
with the passage of time. Not surprisingly the audience has become broader and older. This shift has primarily been driven by Facebook whose greatest growth has come from people aged 35-49 years of age (+24.1 million). From December 2007 through December 2008, Facebook added almost twice as many 50-64 year old visitors (+13.6 million) than it has added under 18 year old visitors (+7.3 million).

Mobile On The Move

As Mixi in Japan shows, the increasing popularity of social networks has resulted in increasing demand to access them on the move. Mobile is a natural fit for social networks, as consumers are used to connecting with friends via mobile calls and text. UK mobile web users have the greatest propensity to visit a social network through their handset with 23% of them (2 million people) doing so, compared to 19% in the US (10.6 million people). The numbers of people doing so are a big increase on last year – 249% in the UK and 156% in the US.

For additional trend data and insights, download the full report of Nielsen’s Global Faces and Networked Places.

“As Australians become increasingly less wired in the ways they access the Internet, a greater focus is being placed on laptop-style computers rather than fixed desktops,” said Tony Marlow, Research Director for Nielsen Online.

Other highlights of the report include:

• Australians spent an average of 89.2 hours per week consuming media, up from 84.4 hours in 2007 and 71.4 hours in 2006.
• They spent 16.1 hours per week online, up from 13.7 hours in 2007.
• They like to multitask, with 61 percent watching TV while online.
• Mobile ownership has almost reached a saturation point with 92 percent now reporting owning a mobile phone.

View the full press release with more information here.