NBColympics.Com Takes ‘Gold’

NBColympics.Com Takes ‘Gold’ To Become Most Popular Global Web Site In Inaugural ‘Internet Olympics’

Site sets record of 60 million plus page views during two weeks of competition

AUCKLAND: October 2, 2000 – With the flame of the Sydney 2000 Games now extinguished, US broadcaster NBC has outshone all competition to win ‘gold’ and become the world’s most viewed web site in the inaugural ‘Internet Olympics’, according to the Nielsen//NetRatings global ‘Web Olympics Index’.

The global ‘Web Olympics Index’ provides a snapshot of web traffic to approximately 250 official and unofficial Olympics-related sites in 15 countries from a global home-based panel of 165,000 surfers. The service is provided by ACNielsen eRatings.com, Nielsen Media Research and NetRatings, Inc.

The gold, silver and bronze winners in the ‘Web Olympics Index’ were:

 Gold Medal Winner: nbcolympics.com
nbcolympics.com established the benchmark for web Olympics traffic, generating over 60 million page views from surfers from home during the two weeks of competition – an average of almost four million page views a day. This was more than any other site has recorded in the history of the Olympic Games.

The NBC site did not take long to exert its dominance, taking the lead on the second day of competition and holding that spot most of the way through the event. Not surprisingly, the site generated most of its traffic from surfers based in the US, where NBC was the official broadcaster of the Games. In fact, only a very small proportion of the site’s traffic came from beyond the US.

 Silver Medal Winner: olympics.com
olympics.com took out the silver medal, generating over 45 million page views during the Games. The site ranked second on the Index most days of competition, but outgunned NBC’s web site on several occasions including the first 24 hours of the Games when it set the pace as the “go to” site for content.

As expected, olympics.com had far more international appeal than NBC online, attracting traffic from all parts of the world. Indeed, olympics.com consistently rated among the top sites in a host of nations including New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, United Kingdom and the US.

 Bronze Medal Winner: sports.yahoo.com
Indicating the drawing power of portals, sports.yahoo.com gave the two major sites a run for their money, consistently appearing in third spot on the Index, and even outscoring olympics.com on occasion to move into second place.

 Yahoo’s global strength was reinforced during the Olympics with its Japanese-based site sports.yahoo.co.jp also generating strong traffic and maintaining a spot among the top 10 global sites in the Index throughout the Games.

Other key findings from the Index included:

 The make-up of both the Top 10 Index and the next 15 most popular sites outside the leading group remained fairly similar during the period of the Games, reinforcing a trend documented by Nielsen//NetRatings generally that surfers tend to fall into a pattern of behaviour over time, book-marking their favourite sites and visiting fewer new sites.

 Portals proved their crucial role in providing surfers with information snapshots such as up-to-the minute results and latest medal counts, as sites linked to both the Yahoo! and MSN portals performed well drawing surfers across all geographic regions.

 Surfers looking for detailed analysis and in-depth interviews with personalities often headed to key sports sites such as sportsillustrated.cnn.com, nikkansports.com and foxsports.com, all of which consistently rated among the top 10 most popular web sites.

 Olympics pages within news and information sites also proved popular. Such sites included USA Today, BBC online, the Oriental Daily in Hong Kong, the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia and the Irish Times.

 Not surprisingly, the official sites of the national Olympic teams attracted strong web traffic in most host nations. This was the case in many countries including New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, and the UK where the respective Olympics team site regular appeared in the global ‘Web Olympics Index’.

 Beyond the top 3 most popular domains, the following sites appeared regularly within the Top 10 Index:

- sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics
- usatoday.com/olympics
- sports.yahoo.co.jp/sydney
- nikkansports.com/olympic
- sportingnews.com/olympics
- foxsports.com/olympics/2000
- olympics.com.au
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The Nielsen//NetRatings Web Olympics Index
The Nielsen//NetRatings Web Olympics Index measures online user activity of more than 165,000 at home panellists across more than 250 key Olympics and related sites in New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Singapore, UK and the USA.

About Nielsen//NetRatings
Through strategic partnerships between NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research and ACNielsen, the Nielsen//NetRatings audience measurement service collects real-time data from more than 165,000 Internet users around the world. The U.S. panel sample currently consists of 57,000 at-home users and 8,000 at-work users. International panels are under development with over 100,000 at-home users currently being measured. These panels collectively represent the largest media research sample of Internet users in the industry.

Nielsen//NetRatings uses unique technology capable of measuring both Internet use and advertising to provide the most timely, accurate and comprehensive Internet usage data and advertising information in the global marketplace. Nielsen//NetRatings tracks the entire spectrum of Internet user behaviour, leveraging proprietary data-collection technology from NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research's 50 years of expertise in research and audience measurement, and ACNielsen’s international leadership in offering market research information covering more than 100 countries. For more information, please visit www.nielsen-netratings.com.

About ACNielsen eRatings.com
ACNielsen eRatings.com is a venture between ACNielsen (NYSE: ART) and NetRatings Inc. (Nasdaq: NTRT). ACNielsen is the world's leading market research firm, offering measurement and analysis of marketplace dynamics, consumer attitudes and behavior, and new and traditional media in more than 100 countries, and NetRatings is the leading provider of Internet audience measurement technology and analysis. Through the Nielsen//NetRatings service, ACNielsen eRatings.com is creating the first global service for tracking audiences, advertising and user activity on the Internet in more than 30 countries worldwide.

About NetRatings, Inc.
NetRatings (Nasdaq: NTRT) provides Internet audience measurement and analysis services that enable its customers to make informed decisions regarding their Internet strategies. NetRatings delivers accurate and timely information collected from a representative sample of Internet users and augments it with detailed, flexible reporting and in-depth analyses.
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