Web browsing on the cellphone is shifting to the mainstream, as growth among women, seniors and teens outpaced that of earlier adopters, according to new data from Nielsen.

The research firm said that the mobile Web audience grew 34 percent to 56.9 million in July, up from 42.5 million a year ago. That jump was led by consumers aged 65 and older, whose use increased 67 percent, as well as women, whose use rose 43 percent. Thirteen- to 17-year-olds saw a 45 percent increase.

“As with other forms of Internet technology, more men were early-adopters of the mobile Web and still make up a slightly larger presence today,” Chris Quick, client services manager of mobile media, said in a blog post.

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The average Internet user in the U.S. spent more than 4.5 hours on Facebook in June, more time than he whiled away on Google (GOOG), eBay (EBAY), Yahoo (YHOO) and other online hubs, according to new data from Nielsen.

Google’s family of Web sites retained the biggest U.S audience, reaching 155.6 million home and work users, the report shows. The ranking of the top 8 remained unchanged from May, while No. 9 Apple (AAPL) knocked Amazon (AMZN) down a peg (the online retailer was ranked No. 9 in May), with 59.7 million and 59.6 million June visits, respectively.

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The recession has affected the videogaming industry in some unexpected ways, with consumers buying more games and spending more time playing them, according to a new survey of 2,400 gamers by Nielsen.

The number of games purchased and the time spent playing them have been on the rise in the first half of 2009, with 42 percent of gamers saying they’ve increased their playing time. And 35 percent say they’re spending more money on gaming this year, while 39 percent say that they’ll spend about the same amount.

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A small new survey from Nielsen about the five fastest growing “member community destinations” in the U.S. reveals what we all kind of knew already: Twitter is at the top. From February 2008 to February 2009, it clocked in at a whopping 1,382 percent growth rate. That’s to be expected, considering the amount of press the still-without-a-business-model microblogging service has gotten in recent months.

In third place is Facebook, with 228 percent growth year-over-year according to Nielsen. That’s not terribly surprising, as Facebook is still growing in the U.S. but not quite as exponentially as it once was.

There are, beyond that, a handful of interesting things to note. Two of Nielsen’s top five, for example, aren’t social networks but rather wiki creation services: Zimbio (240 percent growth) and Wikia (172 percent growth). And in fourth place is Multiply, which probably got a surge of activity when it recently acquired the MSN Groups service that Microsoft (MSFT) was spinning off.

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When NBC Universal and News Corp. created Hulu, they gave the video portal a valuable but short-term asset: exclusive rights to distribute NBC and Fox shows outside of the media giants’ own websites.

From that base of content, Hulu.com has become the fourth-biggest online video distributor by unique visitors in January, behind YouTube, Yahoo and MySpace, according to the latest from Nielsen VideoCensus. In total video streams, it’s No. 3, with 232 million, behind YouTube (5.8 billion) and Yahoo (277 million).

But the exclusive part of that NBC-News Corp. deal lasts only two years, and Hulu knows all too well that the scarcity that helped it establish an audience (and brand) is going away soon. Hulu has never said exactly when the deal expires, but it’s likely within a year after the first anniversary of Hulu’s public launch, in March.

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People of a certain generation remember when a wire connected the headset to your phone, your phone to the wall and your wall to the world. The big advance in the 1990s was–amazingly–freeing the handset from the wire, allowing you to roam more than a few feet while talking.

Now, according to new data released this morning by Nielsen, more people are taking the wire completely out of the equation. And the whole concept of a landline appears to be going the way of the bulky rotary phone.

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The more things change, the more they stay the same: In May, Americans watched more hours of television than ever before, according to Nielsen.

In May, Nielsen reports, the average American watched 127 hours and 15 minutes of television, which comes to something just over 4 hours a day. That’s up 4 percent from 121 hours, 48 minutes in May 2007. There are some signs of change elsewhere in the data, however. Those figures include a jump in time-shifted TV to 5 hours, 50 minutes, from 3 hours, 44 minues, an increase of 56 percent. Average Internet usage increased to 26 hours, 26 minutes per month, up 9 percent from 24 hours, 16 minutes last May. The average American watched 2 hours, 19 minutes of video on the Internet in May; mobile video subscribers watched an average of 3 hours, 15 minutes on their devices in May. (Nielsen has no year-ago data on Internet video or mobile video.)

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Has television “jumped the shark”? Has the medium, as the industry metaphor implies, run its course in a rapidly expanding digital universe? The short answer is no. Despite scores of advanced technologies and new digital media sources, television remains the most popular form of consumer entertainment.

According to a Nielsen report released earlier this spring, the average American household receives a record 104.2 channels–eight more than the year before, and more than double that of a decade ago. Though TV viewing is down slightly this year compared to last, Americans continue to watch at some of the highest levels ever recorded by Nielsen Media Research. Indeed, television consumption eclipses any other medium by a wide margin, and 90% of viewing is still done at home.

Nonetheless, television is changing, and all signs point to even more dramatic alterations ahead, as a confluence of technology, economic forces and social dynamics create what can aptly be described as the medium’s version of a perfect storm. Programmers are investing billions to develop or acquire digital media content. Advertisers are leveraging new technologies to mount ever more sophisticated campaigns. And consumers are becoming adept at moving, manipulating and using content on their own terms.

The ability to convert all forms of information into myriad streams of ones and zeros is dissolving the barriers that have traditionally isolated television from other media. Consequently, companies that never had to compete before are going toe-to-toe to capture audience attention and advertiser dollars.

Today, broadcasters are not only doing battle with conventional rivals like cable operators and satellite TV, but also with Internet sites, telecommunication companies, computer software- and hardware-makers, and consumer-electronic and video-game manufacturers–all providing new means to engage viewers.

Even relatively low-tech print media are entering the fray. Last year, local newspaper sites captured about half of total online video advertising revenue, as publications of all stripes have begun requiring reporters to provide video feeds to their Web sites along with stories written for print editions.

Improvements in digital technology have markedly enhanced the capabilities of video cameras, making them smaller, easier and far less expensive to use. At the same time, the increasing ubiquity of broadband has engendered widespread downloading and uploading of video clips across an array of devices. The upshot is that just about anyone can become a video producer with the potential to reach, literally, millions of viewers around the world. A generation of technology-savvy consumers is taking full advantage of the opportunity in ways that were unimaginable just a short time ago.

This course of change, however, is not unique to television. Nor to the 21st century. The history of media is a chronicle of innovation, during which each new system has built on the technology platforms and business models of its predecessors. In fact, television is part of a long lineage of communication systems that dates back to the telegraph, and includes the telephone and radio.

These developments basically occurred one medium at a time and were the results of decades of interactive, interwoven processes. But the global digital network has made such collaboration immediate and ongoing, and, for the first time, it is having a direct effect on multiple media.

Yet the current pace of change is uneven. For every “early adopter” who has embraced DVRs, iPods and YouTube, there are scores of “couch potatoes” who still prefer to plant themselves in front of the TV the old-fashion way. Other variables such as age, gender, ethnicity and geography require the industry to find new ways to deliver content to, and measure its impact upon, viewers who will increasingly decide for themselves when, where and how to watch television.

No doubt new digital technologies are altering the television environment. Time-shifting systems like digital video recorders and video on demand are amplifying TV viewing in the home, while place-shifting devices such as Slingbox and video iPods expand the medium’s reach by essentially transforming any digital platform with a broadband connection into a television set.

For their part, smarter, more-discriminating and more-demanding viewers are challenging the television industry to reinvent itself continually. In response, companies will continue to collide and converge to effectively meet the wants and needs of anywhere/anytime/any-way consumers.

Ultimately, television will become different things to different people. But it will remain a vital part of their communication experience.