Nike is not an official World Cup sponsor but, thanks to some creative marketing, that doesn’t stop consumers across the globe from linking the company to the world’s largest soccer tournament. The Nielsen Company analyzed online blogs, message boards and social networking sites and found that the sports shoe and apparel giant was more frequently linked to the World Cup than any of the tournament’s official partners and sponsors.

Microsoft and Sony are expected to give presentations at the annual E3 conference regarding their Project Natal and Move motion control systems, respectively. Nielsen Games surveys gamers’ expectations.

The Beautiful Game, or joga bonito as the Brazilians say, is coming to mobile. Globally, 21% of survey respondents said they would get at least some of their information from the Internet via their mobile devices.

Kickoff for the 2010 World Cup is little more than a week away and Nielsen took a look back to analyze U.S. viewing trends for the last World Cup.

Smartphone adoption and use of mobile applications is rapidly increasing… what are the most popular apps and who is driving the growth?

The much-anticipated series finale of ABC’s LOST on May 23, which dominated blogosphere chatter and was the most-watched primetime program of the night with an average 13.6 million viewers, also delivered a highly engaging environment for its advertisers.

Following its season premier in April, the music-themed TV show “Glee” saw track downloads from its four compilations jump from 50-350K in the first week. The show’s latest “Showstoppers” album topped the Billboard charts this week as digital sales of all “Glee”-related songs exceeded 500K.

While DVD sales declined for a third straight year in 2009, consumer appetite for viewing movies at home remains very healthy as new physical and digital services for buying and renting movies gain in popularity.

Nielsen research suggests that consumers are driven by many factors when buying a gaming console. Surprisingly, the purchase of a specific game title actually ranks lowest in a list of purchase motivators.

In April 2010, more than 133 million unique viewers streamed 9.4 billion videos in the U.S.