Although Twitter’s growth rates continue to rise, relatively few online Americans use the microblogging service. According to new estimates by eMarketer, 16.4 million US adults, or 9% of the adult internet population, used Twitter at least monthly in 2010. Growth will surpass 26% this year as Twitter reaches 11% of internet users and 16.5% of US adult social network users. By 2013, nearly 28 million Americans will be tweeting.

eMarketer’s estimate of Twitter usage includes individuals ages 18 and older who access their Twitter account at least monthly via any device, including access to third-party apps as well as to Twitter.com. Younger users are excluded due to a lack of third-party data on Twitter use by those under 18. This forecast represents a downward revision of eMarketer’s prediction made in April 2010, based on data from several surveys.

“eMarketer’s estimate of the US Facebook and Twitter populations presents a realistic assessment of actual usage, in contrast with widely publicized data that track numbers of user accounts, site traffic or other metrics that don’t fully reflect usage,” said eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna, author of upcoming reports on Facebook and Twitter users.

“Twitter has continued to gain traction but at more moderate levels than we had expected,” Verna said. “Our updated figures put Twitter usage in a clearer perspective than published data showing hundreds of millions of Twitter accounts, or site traffic stats that include visitors who browse public tweets on Twitter.com but don’t actually use the microblogging service.”

You can read the full press release here.

With all the discussion about Facebook’s worth and potential in the face of Goldman Sachs’ $450 million investment, a lot of data has been tossed about regarding Facebook’s size and growth—particularly in relation to Google.

Last month, before the deal was announced, Hitwise released its annual list of most-searched terms. Facebook made the top of the list for the second year in a row. This data led many media outlets to claim that Facebook has finally beaten Google and taken over the internet. But is search term data really that meaningful in determining who is winning the internet war?

Four different terms for Facebook were in Hitwise’s Top 10 search terms, including “Facebook login” and ”www.facebook.com.” These accounted for 3.48% of all searches in the US among the top 50 terms. Facebook.com also topped Google.com as the most-visited website of the year, and first did so back in March 2010, according to Hitwise.

Some critics of the data said that it was inaccurate because anyone already on Google.com, wouldn’t search for “Google.” Other criticisms include the fact that Googling Facebook just proves that users are not invested in the site enough to bookmark it or remember the URL.

Data for unique visitors and page views provides a more accurate picture of the popularity of a website. And, when looking at the information, Google’s entire portfolio, including YouTube, should be taken into account.

Ad revenues and monetization plans are also determining factors in the success of a site. In August, eMarketer estimated Facebook ad revenue would be $1.3 billion in 2010, below Yahoo and Google. (Our next social network ad spending report—with an updated Facebook forecast—will be out soon and Facebook will not have higher revenues than either portal.)

Hitwise reported that the combined Google properties accounted for 9.85% of all US website visits, while Facebook’s properties accounted for 8.93%. The just-released J.P. Morgan “Nothing But Net” investment guide estimated, based on comScore data, that 70% of US internet users are also Facebook users, compared to 81% who are Google users and 84% who are Yahoo users. And Google sites were still above Facebook in terms of unique visitors in November, comScore reported.

Earlier this week, eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson wrote about the benefit for marketers in the recent $500 million investment by Goldman Sachs and Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies in Facebook. Facebook uses its social graph to more effectively target advertisements, and the funding will help improve that targeting and expand it across the web.

“Where Facebook and Google are meeting head to head is in going after advertisers that typically buy search ads,” Williamson told me. “Performance-based advertising is where Facebook is putting major emphasis this year. Secondarily, I predict Facebook will go strongly after the local-ad market. Once it gets Deals up and running it’s got a pretty powerful promotional mechanism for local businesses.”

The bottom line: While Facebook is the dominant site for social networking, with the right innovation, it can use the new investment to expand its footprint online and increase competition with Google and other companies. Google, for its part, is also working to improve its search and trying to succeed in the social realm as well. In the immediate future, these two sites will continue to battle for users and ad dollars, but they will share the internet throne.

The news may be unpredictable, but its appeal to consumers is not: 92% of consumers use multiple platforms to get news on a typical day, according to the Pew Research Center.

As I point out in my new demographic report “The Digital News Audience: 24/7 Participation,” these highly engaged consumers see news as a form of social currency and even as a civic obligation. Their need to keep up with current events has them searching out digital news throughout the day, checking in with more than one outlet on more than one device.

Pew found that 75% of US adults got their news from one or more traditional media “yesterday” literally, the day before the survey was taken, and 44% used one or more digital platforms.

While online advertising has now surpassed overall newspaper ad spending, according to eMarketer estimates released December 20, newspaper and other news sites are still a viable place to advertise.

For marketers, the appeal of the online news audience is in its demographics: predominantly male, between 30 and 64 years, and well-educated, according to Pew.

More young adults ages 18 to 24 check out online news than seniors ages 65 and older, too.

Brand marketers looking to target young, educated males would do well to use digital news platforms and email rather than social networks. News sites are also good places to find educated women in their 30s and 40s who have careers and children—and very little time to spend on social networking relative to younger online females.

Social media offers brand marketers creative ways to reach the news audience, but a distinctly different one. Here, females are more likely than males to get news on social sites, and a younger audience is posting and re-posting links to various news stories.

They see social media playing a vital role for monitoring news: 90.4% of social media users told TEKGroup International that these channels are important or somewhat important for following the news. Of course, the sample was comprised solely of social media users, which does color the results depending on one’s perspective.

The importance to marketers is that this audience is very, very interested in tracking news via social channels.

The downside in news sites for marketers is the volatility of the news itself. While online news sites attract many internet users, marketers can find their brand messages appearing alongside some very unflattering content. To counter that, marketers should have a contingency clause in place that requires online publishers to remove or reposition ads away from adverse stories.

The bottom line: Online news sites are a proven place to attract males, young people and women in their 30s and 40s. Many younger women look to social sites for their news.

The average adult still spends far more time watching television than on the internet, according to new analysis by eMarketer.

The firm reports that in 2010 the average adult spent about four and a half hours per day watching television—or 30 hours per week—compared to an average of just two and a half hours per day spent online—or about 18 hours per week. eMarketer estimates time spent online grew 6% this year, compared to a 1% decline in time spent watching TV.

eMarketer bases its estimates on a meta-analysis of dozens of studies from research firms using a variety of methodologies, including online panels, phone interviews, in-person interviews, automated recordings, and observations. eMarketer’s estimates reflect total time spent on each media channel, regardless of multitasking or simultaneous usage. In addition, the estimates apply to average media usage of the general public, not confined to the total users within each individual medium.

“While consumer usage of digital platforms is growing at a rapid pace, television is still consumers’ most-used media channel,” said Haixia Wang, forecasting director at eMarketer.

Consumers now spend as much time on their mobile devices as they spend reading print newspapers and magazines—combined. And while time spent on mobile devices grew 28% in 2010 to reach an average 50 minutes per day, time spent reading print magazines and newspapers decreased 9% in 2010.

Radio is slightly stronger, with consumers listening to an average 96 minutes per day in 2010, down from 102 minutes per day in 2008.

The European Commission (EC) is taking the UK government to the European Court of Justice for its failure to comply with regional legislation on internet privacy.

This is the latest installment in the long saga of BT (formerly British Telecom) and its trials of behavioral targeting in selected areas of the UK in 2006 and 2007. Unbeknownst to internet users in these areas, BT collaborated with targeting company Phorm to collect online browsing data. This information was used to select ads for delivery to individual computers. After many complaints, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (the country’s personal data protection authority) began an investigation into the country’s monitoring and handling of such incidents in April 2009.

Its conclusion: no laws had been broken by BT or Phorm. But that judgment implied another question: were UK laws on internet privacy sufficient? The EC has said no—that the UK does not comply with European Union rules, specifically the ePrivacy Directive and the Data Protection Directive, which state that a person’s consent to interception of their communications must be a “freely given, specific and informed indication of a person’s wishes,” rather than a default presumption. The EC is also concerned that the UK has no national body to deal with such matters of communications interception and related complaints.

In October 2009, the EU Telecoms Commissioner asked the UK to amend its national laws to ensure compliance with regional ones. This has not happened; hence the court summons.

Advertisers and marketers are not directly affected by the legal proceedings. The court case relates to actions that only the government can take; moreover, the EC is not aiming to prohibit behavioral targeting, but to ensure that consumers are notified that targeting is taking place, or may take place, and that they are able to manage their own exposure to it.

But the EC’s move serves to remind the industry that it must “bite the bullet” on behavioral targeting and institute transparent practices that will allay consumer worries. Several recent studies have revealed significant levels of concern among web users. Earlier this year, for example, a survey by the Financial Times and Harris found that 52% of UK internet users said they were somewhat or very concerned about personal data accessible to the search engines they used.

Transparency is especially important in a world where mobile, online and broadcast channels are converging. A growing number of people in the UK are communicating, searching, viewing and sharing content, playing games, shopping and transacting across multiple screens and platform providers—who naturally want to monetize the user data they capture. It has never been more vital to reassure consumers that their privacy is respected.

As new media age magazine points out, the digital industry is already developing, in consultation with the European Union, “a pan-European self-regulatory framework for behavioral ad targeting.” In the UK, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has issued Good Practice Principles and launched a website, Your Online Choices, to explain the principles of digital data collection and consumers’ options.

Marketers should make sure that they too are fully informed about how their ads are targeted and whether those techniques pose any potential issues for consumers. As the industry moves on from the early days of opt-in email newsletters, and ad-serving technology permits ever-subtler pinpointing of specific audiences, advertisers and brands can gain respect and loyalty if they are seen to acknowledge and act on consumer concerns.

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