Nielsen Archive

Nielsen is out with a new report which brings together TV, Internet and mobile usage together for U.S. households. They found that Americans are watching more than 127 hours a month of television programming. Could the higher gas prices and food prices be a factor in this increase?

Average Internet usage was up 9% to 26 hours a month. New metrics in the report include 2 hours of Internet video per month on average and 3 hours of mobile video for users who are subscribed to a mobile video plan.

The interesting chart is below – this is a breakdown of the above stats by age group. Teens who are subscribed to a mobile video plan are viewing over 5 hours of mobile video a month. For Internet users we see a bell curve with those in the 35-44 age bracket using the Internet the highest amount. But look at those 65+, they are using the Internet over 26 hours on average.

I’ve said many times that the 65+ market is one to consider as you think about creating a startup. I know it’s cool and hip to make a Twitter or FriendFeed, but there are other groups to consider – and many of those groups have money to spend and aren’t demanding free.

The Nielsen Company is announcing the launch of a new measurement tracking service today. Named TotalWeb, the company describes the service as, “…integrates data from Nielsen Mobile and Nielsen Online to show the unduplicated, unique audience for more than 200 leading Internet sites across the PC and mobile Internet space.”

The first TotalWeb report is out today and it shows how the mobile Web increases reach and audience lift. For example, weather sites averaged a 22% lift in overall audience reach through mobile web traffic, over home PC traffic alone. That’s pretty darn significant!

I would have thought map and traffic sites would have made the list. It looks like the list is heavily dominated by entertainment and productivity — not shopping (poor Godiva!). Nielsen notes that 87 million U.S. mobile users subscribe to mobile Internet services, and more than one in ten mobile subscribers (13.7 percent) actively uses mobile Internet each month.

This will be an interesting report to watch this year and see how mobile Internet usage shifts. I use my new Samsung Ace only for productivity currently.

TotalWeb – Average Online Audience Lift Provided by Mobile Web, by Category (Q4 2007)

Source: TotalWeb Q4 2007, The Nielsen Company. Based on 200+ Internet sites measured across both Home PC and Mobile Internet.