Online engagement by Internet users is deepening, according to a new report on the online landscape released today by The Nielsen Company. This increased engagement is in part a result of a shift toward video content and social networking as popular online subcategories.
Nielsen Online CEO John Burbank takes a look at the economic and advertising impacts of the report.

Highlights Of The Report Include

The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339 percent since 2003.
Time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000 percent over the same …

A recent video made by two rogue and rude Domino’s employees left a bad taste in the mouth of customers who watched it. But, thanks to some social media tipsters, Domino’s was able to issue their own YouTube response quickly as a remedy to the potentially brand damaging viral video. The buzz online about the brand spiked during the crisis.

Patrick Doyle, President, Domino’s U.S.A., thanked the online community for the tip in his video and the brand also created a twitter account @dpzinfo to communicate.

Michelle McGiboney, Nielsen Online
Twitter.com continues to grow in popularity and importance in both the consumer and corporate worlds. No longer just a platform for friends to stay connected in real time, it has evolved into an important component of brand marketing. Unique visitors to Twitter increased 1,382 percent year-over-year, from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009, making it the fastest growing site in the Member Communities category for the month.  Zimbio and Facebook followed, growing 240 percent and 228 percent, respectively.
Fastest Growing Member Community …

About 6.5 million Australians belong to an online social network, and more than two-thirds of Internet users looked at other people’s content on social networking sites during 2008 according to Nielsen Online’s latest consumer generated media report.  The most popular sites are Facebook – which showed 32 percent growth in 2008, MySpace, which recorded a 2 percent gain and Flickr, which grew by 14 percent.  Among those who blog, MySpace was the favored vehicle, with almost one-third of users preferring it over any other site.  Twitter penetration remains low – …

John Burbank, Nielsen Online
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 …

Using the dramatic landing of US Airways flight 1549, Matthew Bachman of Nielsen Online takes a look at how Twitter tracks big events.
“During the crash and subsequent rescue operations for US Airways Flight 1549, major news teams flocked to the scene at midtown in Manhattan… Almost simultaneously, Twitter and Flickr users flocked to their iPhones, laptops, and other assorted devices to monitor the event—and even provide their own accounts. Beating bloggers to the scene (though they played a significant role overall), Twitterers perched in midtown offices described the scene. Heyathena …

Online social network giants MySpace and Facebook battled for supremacy in 2008.  The trend lines below show the percentages of consumer-generated online discussions that mentioned each site between June and December:

Kim Eugenio
Nielsen Online’s Pete Blackshaw gave a keynote speech on Friday, November 14th, at the WOMMA Summit in Las Vegas in which he stressed the importance of companies’ staying grounded in the “bread and butter,” the core values and core issues of their businesses, and not just focusing on the hottest CGM buzz words. These core objectives, especially customer service and product experience, play a critical role in motivating consumers to spread positive or negative word of mouth buzz.
One brand working hard to improve its customer service and reverse the …