Microsoft’s Xbox is the most buzzed about game console so far this holiday season, Nielsen Online reported Thursday.
The Xbox 360 garnered the largest share of online buzz between November 1 and December 9, with 41.6% of blog messages mentioning Xbox, Wii or Playstation.
In comparison, Nintendo’s Wii was mentioned in 29.8% of game console blog messages, while Sony’s Playstation ranked third with mentions in 28.6% of gaming-related blog posts.

Web traffic from home and work to sites included in Nielsen Online’s Holiday eShopping Index increased 10% year over year on Cyber Monday, Nielsen Online reported Tuesday.
Unique visitors to the sites included in the Index reached 35.9 million, a 13% increase over this year’s Black Friday Web traffic.
Many of the top online retail destinations on Cyber Monday were the same as those on Black Friday. eBay drew the largest unique audience (10.6 million), while Amazon and Wal-Mart claimed second and third places, with 9 million and 5.2 million unique visitors, …

Nielsen Online reports that traffic from home and work to the Holiday eShopping Index increased 10 percent year over year on Black Friday, growing from 28.8 million unique visitors in 2007 to 31.7 million unique visitors in 2008 across more than 120 representative online retailers.
“Even with the weakening economy, an unstable stock market and a rising unemployment rate, Black Friday traffic to online retail sites grew at a double digit rate this year,” said Ken Cassar, vice president, industry insights, Nielsen Online.
Black Friday Online Conversations and Consumer Perceptions
To gauge …

American consumers will continue to shift their gift buying online this holiday season, citing convenience, time saving, and price according to Nielsen Online. Amid the current economic downturn, 53% of consumers cite price as a reason to buy online, compared with 46% last year. However, convenience continues to trump price as 76% of consumers cite the ability to shop 24 hours a day and 74% cite time saving as key factors for choosing online shopping.
The results are based on a Nielsen Online survey, conducted November 6-11, intended to gauge online …

With the holiday season about to begin, Americans are already flocking online to do their shopping.
According to Nielsen Online, 78% of adult online consumers in the U.S. made a purchase via the Web within the previous six months.
Travel-related transactions were most common, with 38% of adult online consumers making at least one travel purchase on the Web in the previous six months.
Large percentages of online consumers also went online to manage their credit card accounts (36%) and conduct personal banking transactions (35%).

Rank
Top
Online Transaction Categories
(U.S. Adults)
Composition
Percentage
Reach
(in 000s)

1
Online Travel – Any (p/online 6 mo.)
38%
54,417

2
Credit …

Good news for retailers with companion websites: multichannel consumers — those who shop both on- and offline – typically spend significantly more than those who shop only online or only offline, Nielsen PreView reported Monday. 
Shoppers who browsed for products both on- and offline at Wal-Mart, for example, spent 38% more than the store’s average customers.
The online/offline consumer connection goes even further, according to Nielsen. 

NYTimes.com’s “Bits” blog, citing Nielsen Mobile data, reported that 3.6% of all mobile phone users in the U.S. – about 9.2 million people – have shopped online via their phones.
That number is expected to grow dramatically in the future, according to Nielsen Mobile’s study, which found that about half of all consumers who transmit data via their phones anticipate making a “mobile purchase” in the future.
But some consumers are steering clear of shopping online by phone — at least for the time being. More than 40% told Nielsen researchers they were wary …