The U.S. audiences for three key Olympics related websites, NBColympics.com, Olympic.org, and USolympicteam.com, grew by significant percentages from the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games to the 2006 winter Games in Italy, according to Nielsen Online.
Olympic.org experienced the largest growth of the three sites; its unique audience (both home and work) in the U.S. grew from 330,000 in 2002 to 1.39 million  in 2006 — a 323% increase.
USolympicteam.com’s unique home and work audience in the U.S. grew from 508,000 during the 2002 Games to 716,000 in 2006 — a 41% increase.
Although NBColympics.com easily …

For perhaps the first time in Olympics history, a significant number of viewers will track the Games’ results via their mobile phones. 
American consumers are particularly likely to view Olympics content on their phones, a recent survey by Nielsen Mobile found. 
Consumers in the UK and Spain also showed strong interest in watching the Beijing Games and receiving Olympics results from their mobile phones, according to Nielsen Mobile.  Those in the UK said they plan to read Olympics-related Web articles and monitor the medal count via their phones, while Spanish consumers reported they will most likely …

Nielsen Online is partnering with Adweek Media (a unit of The Nielsen Company) to produce this year’s Buzz Awards. 
The competition celebrates innovative advertising and marketing efforts, with prizes awarded across seventeen categories, ranging from viral marketing, radio and print, to wireless promotion, public relations, and social media.
The Grand Prize winner will receive a four-color ad spread in Adweek, Brandweek, and Mediaweek (valued at $64,100).
The deadline for submissions is August 18.  Click here to enter.

TIME reported Monday that the iPhone may provide the burgeoning cell-phone gaming market with just the boost it needs to establish itself as a portable gaming mainstay.
Currently, millions of Americans play games on the portable Nintendo DS and Sony PSP every day — but, the story noted, fewer than 10% of cell-phone users in the U.S. do the same on their mobile phones, according to Nielsen Mobile.
Armed with a spate of newly improved downloadable games and ample hardware capabilities for running games, the iPhone seems poised to lure gamers away from …

The average European mobile consumer uses 1.4 SIM cards, according to a new report by Nielsen, released Wednesday. 
Mobile users who own multiple SIM cards are likely to spend more money on their mobile service, the findings also show. 
A French consumer who owns 3 SIM cards, for example, will spend 28% more, on average, than a consumer with a single SIM card.  Elsewhere in Europe, the numbers are even higher: +51% in Italy, +52% in the UK, +79% in Spain, and + 89% in Germany.
“The additional revenue brought to the operators by …

Nielsen Mobile and Mediamark Research & Intelligence announced Thursday that they will jointly launch Mobile-MRI, an integrated database that will track the lifestyle and behavior of mobile media consumers. 
Nielsen Mobile collects data on consumer mobile usage, audience sizes and composition across all mobile media vehicles, while Mediamark provides data on media and product consumption, psychographic characteristics, and geodemographic characteristics.
Nielsen and Mediamark’s joint database will offer detailed behavioral, psychographic, demographic, and product usage information on mobile users. 
The new tool will help mobile media companies and advertisers better target audiences with mobile ad campaigns. 
View the …

U.S. newspaper websites attracted more visitors in 2008, CNNMoney.com reported Tuesday.
During the second quarter of this year, newspaper sites saw a 12% increase in unique visitors, compared with the same time period a year ago, according to data compiled by Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).
In all, newspaper sites had a combined average of 66.4 million unique U.S. visitors per month during Q2 2008 — up from 59.2 million in Q2 2007, Nielsen and the NAA reported.

Brand Republic reported Tuesday that the fastest-growing UK websites over the past 12 months were those offering consumer discounts, according to Nielsen Online.
Nielsen’s list of the 10 fastest-growing UK websites included a site offering UK travel discounts, two coupon/reward sites, a shopping comparison site, and a site with classified ads for jobs, cars and homes.
“Sites tapping into consumer concerns about the economy, giving them the opportunity to save money, dominate the fastest growing list,” Alex Burmaster, Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online, told Brand Republic.
View the full press release.

Can the mobile Internet revive struggling local newspapers? 
The New York Times reported Monday that Encinitas, Calif.-based Verve Wireless, which helps newspaper publishers create news websites for cellphones, thinks it can.
Verve has already created mobile compatible versions of 4,000 U.S. newspapers — and it recently received a $3 million investment from the Associated Press.  The newspaper industry is betting that Verve’s mobile approach will help to boost dwindling newspaper readership, the Times reported.
The story noted that Americans are increasingly surfing the Web via their mobile phones: of the 95 million mobile …

The new book from Pete Blackshaw, Nielsen Online’s EVP of Digital Strategic Services, is continuing to garner critical praise. 
On Monday, Adweek and the Miami Herald published reviews of “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000” (Doubleday).  The Herald referred to Blackshaw as a “guru on customer interaction,” while Adweek’s review featured a video interview with the author (full disclosure: Adweek is owned by Nielsen) . 
“Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000” has also received rave reviews from CNBC’s Gloria McDonough-Taub and TIME’s Andrea Sachs.