Social media not only connects consumers with each other, but also with just about every place they go and everything they watch and buy. Nielsen's new Social Media Report looks at trends and consumption patterns across social media platforms in the U.S. and other major markets, exploring the rising influence of social media on consumer behavior.

1 day ago ... Nielsen, seeking to become a "go-to" source for data for new media , is releasing a report of a kind it says it has not published before -- a ...

Nielsen, most famous for its traditional media ratings, has been trying to keep up with the social media boom, announcing last month that it was teaming up with Facebook to offer ratings services for online marketing campaigns. And today, the ratings go-to has released the results of a comprehensive new study offering a big-picture look at social media, reports The New York Times.

Here's yet another study confirming that small businesses can market themselves to millions of consumers without paying a dime simply by tapping social media. Research firm Nielsen released a report on Monday showing that social networks and blogs now account for nearly a quarter of total time spent on the Internet, with Americans spending more time on Facebook than any other website.

Americans spend almost a quarter of their time online on social networking sites, says a Nielsen report released Monday. According to the report — which combines data from Nielsen mobile and online meters, buzz data and a survey — Internet users spend more than twice as much time on social networks (including blogs) as they do on online games, the next top web destination by time.

The Web has a winner: Facebook. According to new research from Nielsen's "The Social Media Report," American Internet users now devote more time to Facebook than any other website, spending a total of 53.5 billion minutes a month on the world's largest social networking site.

NielsenIn a report on social media published Monday, Nielsen breaks down how Americans spend their time on the Internet. The results are sobering for the online news industry. Americans spend 22.5 percent of their Internet time on social networks and blogs, and just 2.6 percent on current events & global news.

Nielsen released its latest quarterly report on social media today, and among other findings, Facebook was by far the largest social network in terms of monthly visitors, time spent on the site, and unique mobile users. According to Nielsen, this past May, Facebook logged 140.336 million visitors, dwarfing the second-place finisher on the list, Blogger, which tallied 50.055 million.

By Cynthia Boris on September 12, 2011 When you're cruising around the internet, how much of your time is spent on a social network or blog? According to a new study published by Nielsen, those two categories eat up 23% of internet usage overall.

Nielsen’s research in its latest Social Media Q3 2011 report shows that US Internet users spend a disproportionate amount of time on Facebook, a trend that should worry everyone else including Yahoo and Google, who used to control the majority of our web attention.

The winner and undisputed champion of the mobile app world is Facebook. Now the most popular mobile application across all mobile platforms, Facebook continues to reach new milestones. Just this year Facebook announced that it had surpassed 750 million registered users.

About a quarter of the time Americans spend online is passed on social networks and blogs, according to Nielsen's third quarter social media report. "Whether it's a brand icon inviting customers to connect with a company on LinkedIn, a news ticker promoting an anchor's Twitter handle or an advertisement asking a consumer to ‘Like' a product on Facebook, people are constantly being drive to social media," Nielsen said in its report.

In a finding suggesting that social media - both social networks and blogs - is now akin to the kind of penetration that cable TV has for the TV universe, reaching 80% of active U.S. Internet users.

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Tumblr is largely an experiment for media organizations. In fact, many big brands still don't have a presence on the social blogging platform. But there's increasing evidence that it may be time to take Tumblr seriously. Nielsen's Social Media Report, just released this week, backs up Tumblr's powerful growth story.

NEW YORK (MainStreet) - According to a new report from Nielsen, Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time on the Internet using social networks and blogs. And as always, the elephant in the room remains Facebook.