Brandon Eshman, Nielsen Online
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 …

The Nielsen Company released March 2009 U.S. data for the Top Parent Companies/Divisions and Top Web Brands, as well as average Internet usage. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! led the way for parent companies online.

Jon Gibs, Nielsen Online
At this point it is well documented that the halcyon days of the yellow pages are pretty much done. A mix of eBay, Craigslist and local search have removed the need for this type of service from most people’s lives. The need for a big, bright, yellow local directory in paper form or online with some advertising thrown in, seems to be a hopelessly out-dated concept. If you’re SuperPages, what do you do? What services can you add that will make your offering …

Online advertising remains strong, even as ad spending has decreased across other media, and MySpace has benefited from this trend with several large-scale campaigns from auto makers.  But in recent months, Facebook has surpassed MySpace in terms of monthly unique audience and stickiness: its monthly unique audience grew 177 percent in the last year compared to a 9 percent decrease for MySpace and time per person on Facebook went from 1 hour 8 minutes in March 2008 to 3 hours 16 minutes in March …

We have seen that many “Power Moms,” women 25-54 with at least one child, are using the Web to provide information and advice, as well as to build relationships with other parents. They are also becoming increasingly engaged with online video. In February 2009, 13.1 million Power Moms, 10 percent of all online video viewers, viewed video content online.
Sites like Momversation.com, where well-known mom bloggers create video conversations, and newbaby.com where moms contribute vlogs, speak to a broader trend of receptivity of video content among Power Moms.
Interestingly, among the top …

Nielsen’s analysis of online video viewing habits in March shows that more than 9.6 billion streams were viewed by an estimated 130 million web users. In total streams, the figure represents a nearly 9% jump over the previous month, and 38.8% increase over figures released for March 2008.
YouTube, hulu, and Yahoo! were the top three sites for streaming video, serving up more than 6 billion video streams among them.

Charlie Buchwalter & David Wiesenfeld, Nielsen Online
More and more researchers are waking up to the reality that mining the growing volume of conversations on blogs, message boards and social networking sites (i. e., “listening” to consumers) can provide timely, penetrating insights on a wide range of issues and brands.
A series of parallel studies we conducted with Procter & Gamble demonstrates that both surveys and listening are often required to tell the whole story. We looked at a number of brands and products: everything from orange juice, to razor blades, to …

The Conficker computer virus, which has been infecting computers since late 2008 and threatens to impact PCs starting April 1, is getting big buzz in the blogosphere. In the last week, buzz has grown so much that it recently eclipsed chatter for another web hot topic, March Madness and the NCAA Championships. While viruses often spread thanks to mass misinformation on the web (and dubious emails), could the abundance of this computer bug buzz be acting as an early viral warning for PC users?
Recent Buzz On Conficker Vs. March Madness

Spring …

Jeff Herrmann, The Nielsen Company
Recession or not, for good reason there is no shortage of innovation in the mobile media industry (e.g. iPhone 3.0, the upcoming Palm Pre). The bottom line: consumers still want more! According to recent research across the U.S. and Western Europe conducted by The Nielsen Company on behalf of Tellabs, consumers are still bullish on the use of the mobile device beyond voice calling services and plan on continuing to adopt and use mobile data services. Of the 200 million current users of advanced mobile data …

Rochester, NY, is the top U.S. city for newspaper readership, according to a new analysis of Integrated Newspaper Audience (INA) data from Scarborough Research, a partnership between Arbitron and The Nielsen Company. A higher percentage of adults in Rochester, NY, are reading newspapers in print or online than in any other U.S. market. The INA of Rochester is 87% – meaning that 87% of adults in the Rochester DMA read a printed newspaper, a newspaper’s website, or did both during the past week. Following closely behind are Cleveland, OH and …