nielsen

Apple's line of iOS portables are in the lead for products desired by kids ages 6 to 12 in the U.S. this holiday season, a new study from Nielsen has found.

According to the research firm, the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone are the top three most desired products by that age group. Leading the pack is the iPad, which 44 percent of those surveyed listed as wanting to buy in the next six months, up from the 31 percent from the firm's same study this time last year.

The iPad was also the most desired product by those in the "13+" age category, knocking "computers" down to the second-most wanted product. By comparison, last year's study had computers leading, with the iPad trailing in fourth place. Tablets from other manufacturers come in at fifth place in both age groups. … Read more

Smartphones keep luring more mobile users, especially those under the age of 45, according to a new survey from Nielsen.

Only 43 percent of all mobile users own a smartphone, Nielsen noted in its third-quarter survey. That figure covers the gamut of 13 to over 65. But ownership has hit more than 50 percent among some specific age groups under 45.

Of those in the 25 to 34 range, a whopping 62 percent now own a smartphone. And 54 percent and 53 percent of those 18 to 24 and 35 to 44 do as well, respectively. Teenagers are known to … Read more

We love smartphone and tablet statistics just as much as the next guy, and we got an earful of them at today's Mobilize conference this morning, thanks to Nielsen general manager of digital, Jonathan Carson.

Unfortunately, we couldn't get our hands on all the great pie charts and graphs--at least not yet, anyway--but we did walk away with some interesting numbers floating through our brain. Some we've already known for some time, and some are new to us. Seeing them in context creates a bigger picture of how tablets and smartphones are being used in America--or at … Read more

The folks at Nielsen have confirmed what we've long suspected--we waste more time on Facebook than anywhere else. The famed media metrics and ratings company says in its latest social-media report that Americans spend more time on Facebook than any other destination on the Web--about 53 billion total minutes in the month of May 2011 alone.

That's even more time than we spend streaming Pandora, which last quarter ate up 1.8 billion hours of listening time, an activity that requires much less interaction, or even being in the room. The Facebook tally is also just short of the amount of total hours spent by gamers playing on XBox Live, which at one point last year Microsoft estimated to be a total of a billion hours a month. That's a global number though, so take away all those overseas game junkies, and odds are that Facebook is still bigger here in the land of the free and the home of the Liked.… Read more

According to new data out of Nielsen, 40 percent of U.S. mobile consumers now use smartphones, up from 30 percent just one year ago. And of those smartphones, Android takes the biggest share of 40 percent, followed by Apple's iOS at 28 percent.

Nielsen asked participants a number of questions to determine what kind of buyers they were in order to better understand their attitude toward new technologies. The company found that while iOS tends to attract most early smartphone adopters, very early adopters (aka "innovators") tend to favor Android as the platform of choice.

Though &… Read more

Android owners like to use mobile apps over the mobile Web, says a new study from Nielsen.

The average Android user in the U.S. spends 56 minutes a day surfing the Web and firing up apps on their phone. In that amount of time, two-thirds is spent using mobile apps, while only one-third is spent using mobile Web sites.

Even further, among the hundreds of thousands of apps available in the Android Market, only a small number of them are used the majority of the time.

The top 10 Android apps chew up 43 percent of the time spent … Read more

Android reigns as the top smartphone OS in the U.S. with a 39 percent slice of the market, according to a report out today from Nielsen.

In second place is Apple's iOS with a 28 percent share, followed by RIM's Blackberry with 20 percent.

Trailing the three top platforms, Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 combined grabbed 9 percent of the market, leaving HP's Palm/WebOS with 2 percent, and Nokia's Symbian also with 2 percent, Nielsen said.

Looking at the mobile industry by device makers, Apple is the only company making smartphones … Read more

What are all those Netflix and Hulu viewers watching, and how are they accessing that content? A new study out yesterday from Nielsen offers some answers.

Among Netflix subscribers, 53 percent watch movies, 11 percent tune into TV shows, and 36 percent catch a mixture of both. But among Hulu viewers, only 9 percent are streaming movies, 73 percent are watching TV episodes, and 18 percent grab both equally.

Those results aren't surprising since Hulu isn't exactly known for its vast movie library, focusing instead on providing current and past seasons of popular TV series. In contrast, Netflix … Read more

On today's show, special guest Thomas Dolby drops in to talk with us about the state of the music industry and digital distribution, his new album, and the amazing sounding MMORPG that goes along with it. We're pretty overwhelmed by his brilliance. But we recover a bit for tech news, like Hulu's 1 million paid users (and imminent death), and whether the Droid Bionic can catch up to the Atrix 4G.