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:

Nielsen’s analysis of online video viewing habits in October shows that more than 5 billion video streams were viewed by almost 83 million YouTube users throughout the month.
Fox Interactive Media followed with 244 million streams and almost 18.5 million viewers. 
Hulu jumped from seventh place in September (142 million streams; 6.3 million viewers) to claim third place in October, with more than 206 million streams and 9 million viewers.

Google was the top-ranked Web brand in November, drawing more than 127 million unique visitors during the month, Nielsen Online reported Tuesday.  Yahoo! and MSN/Windows Live rounded out the top three, with unique audiences of just over 117 million and 104 million visitors, respectively.

Rank
Brand
Unique Audience
(in 000s)
Time Per Person
(hh:mm:ss)

1
Google
127,656
1:23:40

2
Yahoo!
117,656
3:17:36

3
MSN/Windows Live
104,090
2:13:19

4
Microsoft
95,543
0:45:44

5
AOL Media Network
86,308
3:43:45

6
YouTube
81,882
1:01:33

7
Fox Interactive Media
69,838
1:39:31

8
Wikipedia
58,335
0:18:39

9
Amazon
57,682
0:25:33

10
eBay
55,438
1:43:41

Source: The Nielsen Company (November 2008).

View the full press release.
View the top U.S. Web brands for September and October 2008.

Google was the top-ranked Web brand in October, drawing more than 122 million unique visitors during the month, Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.
Yahoo! and MSN/Windows Live rounded out the top three, with unique audiences of just over 116 million and 102 million visitors, respectively.

Rank
Top Web Brands
Unique Audience
(in 000s)
Time Per Person
(hh:mm:ss)

1
Google
122,325
1:23:07

2
Yahoo!
116,078
3:23:29

3
MSN/Windows Live
102,494
2:23:27

4
Microsoft
92,348
0:45:54

5
AOL Media Network
88,028
3:34:41

6
YouTube
77,480
0:53:25

7
Fox Interactive Media
67,182
1:37:12

8
Wikipedia
56,896
0:20:07

9
Apple
49,340
0:58:34

10
eBay
49,213
1:47:26

Source: The Nielsen Company (October 2008).

View the full press release.
View the top U.S. Web brands for September 2008.

Fall TV premieres, coupled with coverage of the presidential election and the financial crisis, boosted online video viewing at all four networks’ websites in September.
NBC.com, which grew 312% month-over-month, saw the largest September increase in video viewers, followed by FOX Broadcasting and ABC.com, with 165% and 105% growth, respectively, Nielsen Online reported Thursday.

Rank
(by UV) 
TV Network
Web Property
Unique Viewers
(in 000s)
% Change:
Unique Viewers
(Aug. – Sept. 2008)

1
NBC.com
5,557
312%

2
ABC.COM
5,246
105%

3
CBS Television
3,296
38%

4
FOX Broadcasting
1,371
165%

Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus (August – September 2008).

Note: Data includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising.

“A combination of series and season premiers, political news and parodies, and coverage …

As reported by Nielsen Online, YouTube delivered roughly 5.3 billion total video streams for the month of September, followed by Fox Interactive Media  with 242.4 million streams, and Yahoo! with 212.6 million.

Rank
(by total
video streams)
Brand
Total Streams
(000)
Unique Viewers
(000)

1
YouTube
5,352,898
81,865

2
Fox Interactive Media
242,428
19,250

3
Yahoo!
212,626
22,053

4
MSN/Windows Live
164,776
10,975

5
Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network
162,924
6,148

6
hulu
142,261
6,323

7
ESPN
127,794
8,433

8
CNN Digital Network
117,690
9,441

9
MTV Networks Music
97,199
4,757

10
Disney Online
87,116
9,145

Source: The Nielsen Company (September 2008)

Note: Includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising.  September results have been updated since their original release, reflecting the removal of video advertising streams from September Yahoo! results.

View the press release.

With Nielsen Business Media’s Marketing to Men 18-34 conference convening in New York City Tuesday and Wednesday, Nielsen assembled a full round-up of TV, online, mobile, and gaming data to illuminate how these younger male consumers use media.
Television
-Men typically watch less TV than women their age — with one exception: male teens actually watch more TV than female teens.  Men ages 18 to 34 tend to watch more cable and pay channels, while women gravitate to broadcast networks.
-When it comes to sports programming on TV, men 18-34 are more attentive viewers (+12%) than women of the …

Google and Yahoo! were again the number one- and number two-ranked Web brands in August, according to Nielsen Online.

Rank
Web Brand
Unique Audience
(in 000s)
Time Per Person
(hh:mm:ss)

1
Google
123,690
1:25:18

2
Yahoo!
117,702
3:22:31

3
MSN/Windows Live
103,953
2:21:25

4
Microsoft
93,558
12:38:39

5
AOL Media Network
93,070
3:33:46

6
YouTube
75,442
1:01:01

7
Fox Interactive Media
70,696
1:54:24

8
eBay
55,842
1:52:01

9
Wikipedia
52,987
0:21:24

10
Apple
48,766
1:10:42

Source: The Nielsen Company (August 1, 2008 – August 31, 2008).