Consumer confidence ticked upward for the first time since 2007. Around the world, consumers are becoming more comfortable with the prospect of shelling out some cash, even if they're still approaching the notion with caution.

According to a survey conducted by The Nielsen Company between September 28 and October 16, 2009, consumer confidence was highest in India, with Indonesia and Norway following. Japan, Latvia, Portugal, and South Korea were at the other end of the spectrum, though South Korea did show a significant quarterly improvement.

Was YouTube really worth $1.65 billion to Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) when the world's largest search company bought it a few years ago? By today's standards, that now seems like a bargain. Consider Yahoo! Inc.'s (NASDAQ: YHOO) impending purchase by Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Microsoft's "small" stake in Facebook that values the social networking site at $15 billion.

YouTube is probably one of the most-used sites I see from friends and family these days. Hours upon hours can be wasted navigating through all the content there, and now that YouTube has launched its YouTube Insight tracking tool, the equivalent of viewership tracking is now available to those who upload videos to the site.

Imagine being able to see details like when, where and how often your videos are being viewed. Previously only available to advertisers at YouTube, all YouTube video uploaders can now see this kind of information. To those who think web surfing time may be eating into television-viewing time, this should provide more detail on whether this is actually happening. Nielsen, eat your heart out.

Professionals and amateurs alike will now be able to test the popularity of different kinds of content at different parts of the days across different parts of each country to make the content as customized as possible. This is what Google is famous for -- relevancy. No blanket ads here -- the company wants its YouTube users to become more successful, which in turns makes it more successful. Rack up another content relevancy win for Google here.

Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) piece of the U.S. search market fell a bit in December. The benefit seemed to go to Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), according to Nielsen data. Google's market share dropped from 57.7% in November to 56.3% last month. Microsoft moved from 12% to 13.3% over the same period.

Microsoft has been offering video games and other merchandise to get consumers to use its online products, so there is a good chance the the shift is temporary. It is a bit like getting a new toaster to open a new bank account. Consumers keep their big account with their current financial institution and move $50 to get that toaster.

The loser in all of this movement was Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO). Its share continues to drop, and fell from 17.9% to 17.7%. Unlike Microsoft, Yahoo! does not have other businesses to fall back on.

Yahoo!'s problems are showing. Its stock fell to $20.07 yesterday, a 52-week low. Its shares have not been below $20 since late 2003. That may be about to change.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has cut a deal with TV ratings service Nielsen that will give the search company access to demographic data for ad targeting. Reuters says that, "Google will combine the data it receives from television set top-boxes with information that Nielsen, the dominant TV ratings company in the United States, provides on viewers by gender and age."

Google hopes that the additional layer of targeting will make its TV advertising sales package even more effective at aiming marketing messages at people who are most likely to respond to them. Today the company has access to a relatively small part of the country's ad inventory, about 14 million homes, through a deal with Echostar (NASDAQ: DISH).

Adding the Nielsen data to its current ad target system, which is used primarily on the internet, is likely to make network TV executives and sales organizations a bit tense. If the system works well, it could take the marketing and the pricing of inventory out of the hands that traditionally hold it. In other words, Google could destroy a system for selling TV ads that has been in place for decades.

It may not matter that networks and cable systems do not want Google to take away their roles as middlemen. If the new systems works, they are out of luck, and time.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor of 247wallst.com.

For the first time, Nielsen will be offering data on what people watch on television outside of their homes. According to the New York Times:

Beginning in September, Nielsen will release national ratings for TV viewing away from home in places like bars, hotels, gyms and offices. For decades, Nielsen has rated television viewing based on what viewers in its panel watch while at home. The moment those viewers traveled or went to the gym, any television they watched was not recorded.

This is good news for networks like ESPN, the leading provider of sports coverage, because sports are so commonly seen in bars and restaurants. Advertising rates are set based on Nielsen ratings, and sports coverage could see a pretty significant lift.

What might be most interesting is the way that Nielsen is tracking viewing in hotels and restaurants: They are providing cell phone tracking devices to 4,700 participants to take with them wherever they go. The devices can recognize what is on the television by sound. Pretty cool, huh?

The Alexa Internet ranking system is widely used as a technical gauge for reviewing performance of specific websites. While similar in concept to the Nielsen ratings for television viewership, Alexa data is drawn from a deeper pool of resources but some say from a narrower demographic.

Alexa rankings are gained by data submitted through users of the Alexa toolbar. With over 10 million of those toolbars currently downloaded, one could accept the suggestion that the Alexa user base represents a fair statistical sample. Alexa was founded in April 1996 and was acquired by Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) in 1999 for approximately $250 million in Amazon stock.

ACNielsen is coming to Wal-Mart, but no -- it won't be selling pipe tobacco. The industry's largest consumer monitoring and reporting service has teamed up with the world's largest retailer so that Wal-Mart can leverage ACNielsen's consumer insight, segmentation and targeting applications. What does all this mean? Well, it means that Wal-Mart is about to forage through reams of consumer behavioral purchasing and non-purchasing patterns in an attempt to grow sales by knowing customers much, much better. How does that sound?

With Wal-Mart about to start creating custom views of its customer base (in nth-degree detail, no less), Wal-Mart will be able to segment its shoppers into specific groups in order to target promotions and products, at the right time and with the right frequency, to lift sales in categories across the general merchandise level. Hopefully, Wal-Mart will see sales increases in higher-ticket areas as well (like consumer electronics) with this new knowledge gained. Of course, the leveraging and specific execution of that knowledge will have to be carried out for maximum effect.

Combined with existing Wal-Mart efforts to target consumers as customized as possible, these new ACNielsen services will help the retailer tailor the merchandise assortments in its stores to the needs and shopping habits of each store's customer base. Now, that's customized for you.

Brian White has worked in various executive positions in technology and telecommunications and now focuses on editing and writing.

I knew Nielsen didn't formally track the viewership of TV commercials as part of its television ratings, but somehow, I didn't know it. It seems like an obvious win -- after all, ever since the days when VCRs reared their 12:00-blinking heads in the world's living rooms (and don't even get them started on TiVo), broadcasters have been wondering whether people were watching commercials.

Well here you are, Nielsen: I watch TV ads, and so do my children, so they can nag me. But you'll know that soon, as you're about to start formally breaking out commercial breaks in the TV numbers you report. Everyone's expecting, of course, to see that viewership declines sharply during advertisements. And the natural evolution of the negotiation strategy: advertisers will start asking to pay less for their 30 seconds' worth of that reduced number of eyeballs. Money will flow away from the TV breaks and toward that other, far more measurable medium: the internet.

Or will it? So many advertisers have already made their mark by liberally sprinkling their products throughout the plots of your favorite shows. Take Kyle XY, the ABC Family show I've become addicted to. Kyle and his "brother" use Sour Patch Kids as currency. Watched the Hallmark Channel original movies recently? Boy have I never seen such loving treatment of an automobile. The camera loves the minivan ...

And isn't the "get up at the commercial and get a snack" contingent already calculated into the equation when advertisers decide how much they'll pay?