The Nielsen Company today reported September 2009 data for the Top Parent Companies/Divisions and Top Web Brands, as well as average Internet usage.

Charles Buchwalter, Senior Vice President, Research & Analytics
There has been much talk in the Internet industry around the importance of the “long tail” (niche content and service-oriented sites) and how consumers gravitate to it. The central concept is that people tend to be most engaged in content that is core to their specific interests, rather than more generalized content.
Looking at our newly expanded panel that includes more than 30,000 sites, we have found that short tail sites (those with a greater than 1 percent reach) remain the most engaging …

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 …

RANK
Provider
Searches (000)
YOY Growth
% of all Searches

All Search
8,608,488
4.40%
100.00%

1
Google Search
5,510,366
7.80%
64.0%

2
Yahoo! Search
1,406,416
-2.80%
16.3%

3
MSN/Windows Live Search
852,998
7.20%
9.9%

4
AOL Search
321,205
-8.80%
3.7%

5
Ask.com Search
181,617
5.90%
2.1%

6
My Web Search Search
59,110
3.60%
0.70%

7
Comcast Search
45,338
-1.80%
0.50%

8
Yellow Pages Search
37,160
N/A*
0.40%

9
NexTag Search
22,845
3.90%
0.30%

10
Dogpile.com Search
17,010
3.10%
0.20%

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

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.

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.

According to Nielsen Online, approximately 8.5 billion Web searches were conducted during February 2009, a 10% percent jump from January 2008.
Google searches accounted for 63.5 percent of all Web searches with nearly 5.4 billion queries. Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask.com continued to round out the top five.

RANK
Provider
Searches (000)
YOY Growth
Share of Searches

All Search
8,494,653
10.10%
100.00%

1
Google Search
5,394,190
19.20%
63.50%

2
Yahoo! Search
1,415,354
4.00%
16.70%

3
MSN/Windows Live Search
881,050
2.40%
10.40%

4
AOL Search
320,098
-19.90%
3.80%

5
Ask.com Search
162,226
-16.90%
1.90%

6
My Web Search
55,772
-21.60%
0.70%

7
Comcast Search
42,895
1.30%
0.50%

8
Yellow Pages Search
37,636
N/A*
0.40%

9
AT&T Worldnet Search
17,371
-27.60%
0.20%

10
Dogpile.com Search
15,880
-28.90%
0.20%

Source: Nielsen Online, MegaView Search

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

With more Americans out of work, career development web sites have seen a surge in traffic, according to a new report from Nielsen Online.  In January 2009, there were 49.7 million unique visitors to these sites, up from 41.5 million unique visitors in January 2008, an increase of 20 percent.
CareerBuilder Network was the top destination with 20.8 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! HotJobs and Monster, with 11.7 million and 9.5 million unique visitors, respectively.  Among age groups, the number of unique visitors to career development web sites age 65 and …

According to Nielsen Online, there were approximately 9.5 billion Web searches conducted during January 2009, up an impressive 27.5 percent from January 2008.
Google searches accounted for 62.8 percent of all Web searches with more than 5.9 billion queries.  Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask.com continued to round out the top five.
Searches represent the total number of queries conducted at the provider.

Rank
Provider
Searches (000)
YOY Growth
Share of Searches

 
All Searches
9,461,583
27.5%
100.0%

1
Google Seach
5,945,064
40.8%
62.8%

2
Yahoo! Search
1,528,779
8.7%
16.2%

3
MSN/Windows Live Search
1,057,677
18.3%
11.2%

4
AOL Search
381,769
8.9%
4.0%

5
Ask.com Search
181,205
1.0%
1.9%

6
My Web Search
66,649
-6.9%
0.7%

7
Comcast Search
50,311
25.8%
0.5%

8
Yellow Pages Search
25,392
NA*
0.3%

9
AT&T Worldnet Search
24,061
-2.0%
0.3%

10
NextTag Search
23,145
30.0%
0.2%

Source: Nielsen Online, MegaView Search

* A year-over-year comparison is not possible because …