Anticipatory buzz around the release of the latest model of the iPhone most likely helped Apple secure the top traffic spot among hardware manufacturers in May 2009. The site drew 55.7 million unique viewers, more than double that of Hewlett Packard which attracted more than 21 million visitors.

Hardware Manufacturer Destinations: May 2009*

Rank
Brand
Unique Audience
(000)

1
Apple
55,716

2
Hewlett Packard
21,294

3
Dell
16,826

4
Sun Microsystems
3,410

5
Nintendo
2,212

6
XBOX
2,212

7
Gateway
1,847

8
MagicJack
1,812

9
Intel
1,648

10
IBM
1,606

Source: The Nielsen Company
*U.S. Home and Work

In June, anticipation of the new iPhone 3G S sent blog mentions up 1,226 percent week-overweek on June 8, the day of the announcement. After the initial …

Analysis by Emily Luger, Nielsen Online
The Iranian election is yet another watershed moment in the ongoing evolution of news and media, further blurring the lines between being, reporting, and following the story. In the two weeks since the controversy and conflict surrounding the election, a number of insights have emerged about how the Internet and social media continue to be a transforming force for the News industry. Initial Nielsen analysis of search results provides some conclusions, while others areas beg additional probing.
Findings from an  Internet snapshot from June 18, 2009:

Wikipedia …

David Wiesenfeld, Vice President, Insights & Innovation, Nielsen Online
What’s driving all the excitement and energy around “listening?” After all, the basic notion of “listening” – observing and interpreting naturally occurring consumer behavior – is not new. In fact, when the first professional market researchers sat in consumers’ living rooms and talked with them about their lives and their needs, they were engaging in “listening” as much as they were asking questions. These pioneers were literally the eyes and ears of their organizations. They brought consumers to life in ways that …

May 2009 data from Nielsen Online shows that people continue to spend more time on social networking and blog sites than ever before, with total minutes increasing 82 percent year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 67 percent year-over-year in May 2009. Twitter.com was the fastest-growing Web brand in May 2009, increasing 1,448 percent year over- year, from 1.2 million unique visitors in May 2008 to 18.2 million in 2009. Despite being the fastest-growing brand year-over-year, Twitter’s month-over-month growth has begun to slow, increasing 7 percent from April. The …

Image-based online ad spending by consumer goods companies increased 57 percent over the last two years, growing from $99.8 million in the first quarter of 2007 to $156.2 million in the same quarter in 2009, according to new Nielsen research.
Quarter-over-Quarter Growth in Online Display Ad Spend by U.S. Consumer Goods Industry

Quarter
Estimated Spend
Quarter-over-Quarter Growth

Q1 2007
99,814,750
n/a

Q1 2008
122,785,505
23%

Q1 2009
156,221,975
27%

Source: Nielsen AdRelevance

“While direct response advertising has been very successful on the Internet, with categories like finance and travel devoting a significant portion of their budget to online advertising, on-line advertising will not continue to …

Nielsen Online today reported data for the top U.S. search providers, ranked by total searches, the top companies/divisions and web brands in May 2009.  Total searches increased 20 percent over May 2008.
Top 10 Search Providers for May 2009 (U.S.) 

Provider
Searches (000)
YOY Growth
Share of Searches

All Search
9,440,467
20.3%
100.0%

Google Search
5,968,840
28.2%
63.2%

Yahoo! Search
1,625,253
22.3%
17.2%

MSN/Windows Live Search
891,502
-14.6%
9.4%

AOL Search
364,784
13.1%
3.9%

Ask.com Search
205,438
21.9%
2.2%

My Web Search
77,283
44.7%
0.8%

Comcast Search
55,853
33.1%
0.6%

Yellow Pages Search
33,141
n/a*
0.4%

NexTag Search
27,189
29.9%
0.3%

AT&T Worldnet Search
17,719
-32.4%
0.2%

Source: Nielsen MegaView Search

 * A year-over-year comparison is not possible because of a definitional change to Yellow Pages Search.

Nielsen Online today released overall online video usage and top online brands ranked by video streams for May 2009.  Compared to the same month in 2008, unique viewers, total streams, streams per viewer and time per viewer were up, led by a 49 percent growth in time per viewer.
Overall Online Video Usage (U.S.)

 
May-09
Year-Over-Year
Month-Over-Month

Unique Viewers (000)
133,797
12.8%
14.7%

Total Streams (000)
10,043,049
34.8%
6.2%

Streams per Viewer
75.1
19.6%
-7.3%

Time per Viewer (min)
188.7
48.9%
-8.3%

Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus

 Note: Includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising. 
YouTube was far and away the top online destination by video streams, with more than 6 billion total streams during …

Dave Osborn, SVP, Product Leadership, Nielsen Online
Recently, there’s been a fair amount of buzz about supposedly new and revolutionary ways to measure audiences online. Just this week, a press release from a competitor promised that their new “hybrid” methodology (panel + census) will provide “a comprehensive accounting of the complete digital media universe.”
The Nielsen Company has long believed that using panel and  census data – the best of both worlds – is a great way to measure the Web, especially in the increasingly layered, three-screen world. In fact, …

Dave Osborn, SVP, Product Leadership, Nielsen Online

Nielsen’s VideoCensus provides timely statistics and insights into how consumers use video online.  This includes the size and demographic composition (age, gender, race, etc) of the viewing audience for each website, as well as important measurements like the total number of streams viewed and the time spent watching by the average viewer. All this information helps content providers and websites more effectively sell their assets and audience, while providing tools for advertisers trying to decide where to …

As news came out about Time Warner’s decision to split with AOL, blogs were buzzing, with most in consensus that this could be a great move for both AOL and Time Warner. Many blogs discussed how AOL, under the new leadership of Tim Armstrong, could definitely make headway as an independent company. With all of the buzz surrounding the subject, conversations have already more than tripled today compared to yesterday, increasing from less than .01 percent on Wednesday the 27th to .05 percent by the end of the work day …