July 21 - 4:25pm EDT   Ahead of Apple's earnings announcement, Nielsen Online on Monday sent out a compiled list of statistical data on the company, showing that overall brand awareness and iPhone users are up this quarter. Nielsen reveals that over the second quarter, web traffic to Apple.com grew 12-percent, from 44.3 million unique monthly impressions to 49.7 million, while total time spent on the website grew from 8.7 billion minutes to 10.1 billion over the course of the last year. [full story]

July 19 - 3:00pm EDT   Apple is in the top ten for both parent companies and brands, according to Nielsen Online. Apple placed 10th in the Top 10 Parent Companies/Divisions as well as on the Top 10 Web Brands for June 2008. Apple had a unique audience of nearly 50,000 visitors, averaging over an hour per person in browsing time, good for 10th, with Google leading the way (nearly 130,000 visitors, spending almost two hours browsing). Microsoft and Yahoo finished second and third, respectively, among the Top 10 Companies. Other companies of note were Ebay (7th), the Wikimedia foundation (8th) and Amazon (9th). [full story]

June 11 - 3:40pm EDT   Nielsen Online has reported May 2008 data for the Top Sites by Parent Company and Top Brands. Google tops the list with 127 million unique visitors. Microsoft is close behind with 123 million, while Yahoo! comes in third at 115 million. Time Warner pulled 107 million visitors, News Corp. Online 79 million, eBay 66 million and InterActiveCorp 64 million. Wikimedia Foundation, Amazon and New York Times round out the list with between 50 and 60 million unique visitors. The data indicate that, for example, that 51.1 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the New York Times Company-owned sites or launched a New York Times Company-owned application during ... [full story]

April 22 - 4:40pm EDT   According to new data from Nielsen Online, Web traffic to the Apple Inc's sites collectivly grew 13 percent year over year in the first quarter of 2008, from a three-month average monthly unique audience of 42.9 million to 48.4 million. Total minutes spent on the site grew 12 percent year over year, from 9.4 billion in Q1 2007 to 10.5 billion in Q1 2008, while total purchases at The Apple Store grew 32 percent month over month, from 322,000 purchases in January 2008 to 424,000 purchases in February 2008. iTunes, Apple Store and QuickTime were the top three fastest growing Apple Computer Web channels year over year in Q1 2008 [full story]

February 14 - 1:10pm EST   Digital video recorders (DVRs) are increasing the amount of time people spend watching TV, says the Nielsen research group. While DVRs can theoretically make people extremely selective, it appears to simply be enabling people to watch more programming they would ordinarily miss, due to inconvenient timeframes. A study specifically contrasted viewing from November 2005 -- before much DVR penetration, Nielsen says, although it did not track DVRs at the time -- and November 2007. [full story]

February 6 - 4:00pm EST   In brief: We've posted a Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M review, Polk Audio products will soon show up in Apple stores, Northwestern students used iPhones to gauge Super Bowl ads, Nielsen has Yahoo!/Microsoft merger metrics, and Tessera has acquired Fotonation ... We have posted a review of the Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M, which seems to be the one exception to various negative assumptions about scanners. It is a small scanner, about the size of a loaf of bread (11.2 in. × 6.2 in. × 6.2 in.), and weighs only 5.9 lb. The paper feeder can hold 50 sheets and it can scan a variety of paper sizes, including 8.5 x 14.17-inches (216 x 360 mm) down to 2 x 2-inches (50.8 x 50.8 mm). At best, ... [full story]

February 1 - 3:15pm EST   Blu-Ray is continuing to grow its stranglehold on the HD movie format, a new Nielsen study suggests. Contained in Nielsen's latest VideoScan First Alert is word that in the week ending January 27th, Blu-Ray accounted for 82 percent of HD disc sales, leaving HD DVD with a mere 18 percent. Similarly, all of the ten best-selling HD movies were for Blu-Ray, led by Saw IV, and followed by The Game Plan and 3:10 to Yuma. [full story]

January 25 - 2:15pm EST   The Blu-ray disc format is continuing to show clear gains over HD DVD in the second week after the potentially decisive Warner conversion to Blu-ray, according to the latest issue of Home Media Magazine. The industry publication notes that Blu-ray represented about 83 percent of movie sales were for Blu-ray versions of movies, leaving the remaining 17 percent to HD DVD. All of Nielsen VideoScan's top ten sellers for the week of the 13th were Blu-ray editions while all of the top all-time sellers are either exclusive to the format or available both in Blu-ray and HD DVD, the publication adds. [full story]

January 23 - 6:15pm EST   Traffic to Apple's website grew 18 percent over the same period last year, according to Nielsen Online. The Cupertino-based company's traffic jumped from a three-month average monthly unique audience of just under 40 million to 46.8 million. Statistics reveal a 14 percent growth in total minutes spent at Apple's website this year over last year, from 8.8 billion minutes in the fourth quarter of 2006 to 10 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. [full story]

December 5 - 11:55am EST   The well-known ratings firm Nielsen has produced a tool it vows will stamp out piracy of web-based video services, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Called Digital Media Manager, the feature will let content providers identify the nature of embedded Flash videos and prevent casual attempts at converting the clips into potentially illegal downloadable versions or preventing bootleg uploads. While the technology will primarily be marketed to companies that create the content they host, such as the NBC/News Corp joint venture Hulu or the Discovery Channel, it will also be applicable to sites that often host user-made video, such as MySpace or YouTube. ... [full story]

November 29 - 1:35pm EST   Blu-Ray remains the format of choice in the HD world, results from the week of Black Friday show. Data from Nielsen VideoScan reveals that of the HD discs bought during last week, 72.6 percent of them were Blu-Ray titles, leaving HD DVD at 27.4 percent. This is despite a massive influx of HD DVD players from Wal-Mart's $99 sale, and the success of particular titles such as Transformers. Simply by itself, the Blu-Ray version of Live Free or Die Hard sold nearly 100,000 copies, according to one Fox Home Entertainment executive. [full story]