“There is incredible demand for more accurate, reliable and high-quality Web audience measurement. Nielsen’s new panel is a huge leap forward in measurement to address that need,” said John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen’s online division. “Nielsen continues to strive to provide clients and the industry with the best, most insightful research possible. This enhanced platform enables us to do just that. One of the most exciting things about this new methodology is by including Nielsen’s TV/Internet convergence panel for online audience reporting, we are laying the foundation for better future cross-platform measurement.”

John Neitzel, Group Research Manager, for Microsoft Advertising noted: “We are excited to see Nielsen take this leap forward in the evolution of online measurement. In combination with increasing the number of sites, the new audience methodology will help ensure that a truly representative panel of the Internet is being measured, which can help improve online advertising effectiveness.”

For more on Nielsen’s expanded panel and methodology, read the complete media release.

For years, it has been assumed that home internet usage would cannibalize live television viewing, but there’s something interesting happening between social networking and live television.  Could it be that what Pete Blackshaw termed “telecommunities” – people simultaneously watching live television programs and chatting in real time with an online network of like-minded fans - will gain scale and give consumers a reason to stick with live viewing?

Let’s look at what happened during the Oscars.

During this year’s broadcast, we used Nielsen’s “Convergence Panel” – a sample of homes in which we measure both television and Internet in the same households — to monitor the people in our panel who were simultaneously following the Oscars on live television and over the Internet.  We saw some very impressive numbers.  Of course, it’s important to note that the base sizes for this research are small – in the dozens of users, not the hundreds — so we can’t draw truly scientific conclusions from the data.  That said, we did observe some interesting directional trends:

• More than 1 in 10 people (11%) watching the Oscars this year did so while logged onto the Internet.  This is nearly four times greater than the normal rate of simultaneous usage we observe.
• While there was some expected surfing to places like IMDB for more information on movies, the true winner of the night was Facebook.
• People who used Facebook during the broadcast used it for an average of 76 minutes.  This compares to a little more than 30 minutes on average for MySpace, and just a little more than 20 minutes for the major portals.
• People who used Facebook while watching the Oscars watched about 50% more of the broadcast than the average Oscar viewer.

Additionally, we estimate that more than 100,000 messages were sent via Twitter during the broadcast – that’s more than 400 message per minute, or nearly 7 per second.

What were people talking about?  From my personal observations of Tweets during the broadcast, it was just what you’d expect if you had a living room filled with thousands of your closest friends.  Comments ranged from the snarky (”OMFG when did SJP get a boob job?????”) to the gushing (”My faves from the Oscars – Kate<3, Penn, Ledger’s win and his darling family…I shed tears, I won’t lie.”)  Some directed to the broadcaster (”Dear CBS: Next time something big like, oh The #oscars is on, RESCHEDULE your shows! I’m sure many would LOVE to watch Amazing Race now!”) and others regarding the advertising (”after watching a billion diet coke commercials during the oscars, i caved in and got a can”)  Interestingly, Tweets came in from all over the world in a range of languages – a true world wide event.

The really interesting thing was that to be part of the telecommunity, you had to experience the conversation in real time with the broadcast.  At one point I paused the program to say goodnight to my kids – when I came back and starting viewing where I had left off, the Twitter comments were all out of sync with the broadcast.  I immediately jumped forward to the live broadcast so I could keep up with the conversation.  If you watched the program on DVR on Monday – forget it! – the telecommunity had disappeared and you’d be left to watch this very social program, all by yourself.  How sad.

While there is still a lot to learn about the interaction of social networking and TV, it’s clear that there is opportunity for programmers and advertisers to leverage telecommunities to drive audience participation with both the programs and the advertising.  And it doesn’t have to be just live programming such as awards shows and sporting events.  Any show with a deeply loyal fan base could drive live viewing and deeper engagement through these telecommunities.

As social networking because more pervasive, we will continue to study its impact on television and advertising. Learn more about how social networking is expanding its global reach.

“The American fascination with television and other video content is not easing up, as consumers keep turning to TV, Internet and Mobile at record levels,” said Susan Whiting, Nielsen’s vice chair.  “Viewers appear to be choosing the best screen available for their video consumption, weightinga variety of factors, including convenience, quality and access.  It is clear that TV remains the main vehicle for viewing video, although online and mobile platforms are an increasingly important complement to live home-based television.”

Other notable facts from the report include:

• Except for the teenage years, viewing of traditional television increases with age; the use of video on the Internet peaks among young adults while viewing mobile video is highest in the teen years.
• Men continue to watch video on mobile phones more than women, and women continue to watch video on the Internet and TV more than men.
• The work day (M-F, 9am to 5pm) continues to be primetime for Internet video.

To read the entire press release, click here.

On February 6^th, John Burbank and I led a Webinar about online brand advertising, and we came to this conclusion – publishers need to change what they’re doing to attract the best long-term advertising partners. Who are these most-coveted of advertisers? Long-term advertising partners tend to buy consistently in large volumes and high concentrations on just a few sites. They advertise more frequently on media brands with cultural cache – brands that friends are likely to recommend to each other.

So how do you court these long-term partners? First and foremost, our research indicates that publishers continually need to strive for increased customer satisfaction and an excellent reputation among consumers. And to some extent, size matters too. Long-term advertisers are looking for at least a moderate level of reach since they focus on fewer sites overall. Finally, your Web site should encourage visitors to spend time there and interact with the online environment. This increases the value of advertising inventory you’re selling, especially for long-term partners.

There are things publishers can do in terms of their advertising offerings as well. We recommend you move away from cutting up Web pages into small standardized ad units and toward a higher quality inventory with customized options.

These long-term advertising partners are looking to spend money online – and with the right strategic changes, we hope it will be with you. Please download the Webinar presentation here and feel free to contact me for more information.

Top 10 Online Broadcast TV Network Entertainment Programs* for December 2008 ranked by Unique Viewers (U.S.)

The rankings are based on broadcast networks that tag their online offerings. Hulu.com was excluded from the survey as it does not currently report VideoCensus data at the program level. Web sites included in the survey are: ABC.com, CBS Television, CWTV.com, Fox Broadcasting and NBC.com.

Watch a video from John Burbank, CEO, Nielsen Online

To read more about Nielsen’s VideoCensus, including additional rankings for top entertainment programs ranked by time spent online and information on our methodology, view the entire release here.

Want a firsthand lesson in the health of the Internet? Ask a friend a simple question: “What’s your favorite online ad?”

Chances are they’ll have a tough time giving an answer. Some may mention a dancing girl seducing you to refinance a mortgage; others may bring up one of the online executions of the Mac vs. PC television campaign.

But many people cannot recall any online advertising, despite all the time each of us spends on the Web and the thousands of ads we’ve all seen.

Why isn’t there more memorable advertising on the Web? The answer is multifaceted, but the bottom line is simple: While the Web is working fine for search and direct response advertisers (”What’s your credit score?”; “Rent from Netflix!”), it has yet to blossom for products that aren’t regularly searched for or purchased online.

This latter type of advertising, called “brand” in the lingo of the Web, relies on compelling, memorable creative to open the hearts or minds of consumers. Brand advertisers like Procter & Gamble use TV as their standard for creative excellence, and so far, the Internet hasn’t met the challenge, despite its potential. Pages are too cluttered; consumers have grown “blind” to the industry-standard spaces; and metrics like “page views” or “impressions” encourage sites to expose us to as many ads as possible during our time online.

So, while brands continue to invest in the Web, and there have been many documented cases of ROI, the real money continues to stay in traditional media — TV, radio and even print — despite the Internet’s gains in audience.

Combined with a crappy economy, this presents a very bleak situation for great sites like Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, and The New York Times. These sites must profitably cover their investments in content and innovation, yet they can’t compete with Google for search dollars, and what they earn from direct response advertisers typically comes in the form of pennies-on-the-dollar remnant sales via ad networks.

The big sites need brand advertisers to come onto the Web and pay premium prices for the privilege. Fat chance in today’s environment.

So, what is to be done?

First, sites must devote better — not necessarily more — real estate to advertising, and reduce page clutter. As long as publishers offer small ads in a cluttered environment, advertisers will continue to invest elsewhere.

Second, publishers need to consider selling on the basis of time, not just impressions. A small ad blinking away for a few seconds may be optimal for direct response advertising, but it won’t help Oil of Olay convince you of the benefits of its latest age-defying formula. Sure, video advertising may help solve this in the future, but it cannot drive enough revenue to support the rest of the Web. And frequency — showing the same weak ad 12 times — doesn’t make Web advertising more compelling.

Lastly, the industry must avoid pinning shortfalls in revenue on the bad economy. Sure, the economy will have some effect. But unless more of us can easily name our favorite online ads, the problem is clearly more fundamental. Let’s use 2009 as the year to set the Web on the right course for long-term profitability by improving its effectiveness for brand advertisers.

Adweek is a unit of the The Nielsen Company