Olympic athletes broke 132 Olympics records and set 43 new world records during the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.
Meanwhile, Olympics fans who logged on to the Internet to follow the events around the clock set a new online precedent during the Games,  Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.
Olympics Web Portals
In the U.S., NBC, an official broadcast partner for the event, drew an average of 18 million (week one) to 18.9 million unique visitors (week two) to its Olympics website during the Games.
Yahoo’s Olympics section drove more traffic than NBC’s site, but visitors to NBCOlympics.com …

New Zealanders are now more likely to surf the Web via broadband — rather than dial-up service, according to a new report released Tuesday by Nielsen.
The report found that in 2007, 54% of New Zealanders accessed the Internet via broadband — a significant increase that matches improvements in the country’s broadband coverage during the same time period.
Online social networking has also experienced growth in New Zealand, according to Nielsen.  As of the end of 2007, nearly half of all New Zealanders had visited Bebo, the country’s most popular social networking site.  …

With digital coverage of the Beijing Olympics more ambitious than ever before and industry analysts issuing dire predictions of the death of TV, The Christian Science Monitor had to pop the question: “Is this the summer that the Internet finally kills television as we once knew it?”
Short answer: the jury is still out.  Monitor staff writer Gregory Lamb, who queried a range of experts on the topic, outlines the arguments on both sides, but steers clear of drawing any conclusions.
The story briefly addresses the prospects for video viewing via mobile …

Social networking sites like Facebook.com, MySpace.com, Xanga, Bebo and online video sites like YouTube head InternetSafety.com’s list of ”Top 10 Online Time Wasters.”
But where does most of this time wasting occur?  At work, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported Tuesday, citing new research by Nielsen Online.
According to Nielsen, the greatest number of Internet videos are watched on weekdays between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. — when most people are at work. 

On Tuesday, The Nielsen Company released the first U.S. figures showing video and TV usage across the “three screens”: television, the Internet, and mobile devices.
Nielsen’s findings show that TV users are watching more TV than ever before (127 hrs, 15 min per month), while spending 9% more time using the Internet (26 hrs, 26 min per month) than last year.
A small but growing number of Internet and mobile phone users are also watching video online (2 hrs, 19 min per month) and on their cell phones (3 hrs, 15 min …

MarketWatch and The Los Angeles Times reported that NBC will become the first television network to make online streaming data available for specific programs.
The data, which will be released via Nielsen Online’s VideoCensus service, will allow advertisers to compare NBC.com’s audience numbers, show by show.
The move could help to make advertisers “more comfortable” with online video advertising, the LA Times reports.

Kids and teens consume more online video content than adults at home, Nielsen reported Monday.
The data, compiled by The Nielsen Company’s online measurement services, Nielsen Online and VideoCensus, shows that kids consumed more streams than those over 18, and spent more time watching online video from home in April.
Kids 2-11 viewed an average of 51 streams and 118 minutes of online video per person during the month, while teens 12-17 viewed an average of 74 streams and 132 minutes of online video. Those over 18 viewed an average of …