Web Surfers Get Behind Olympic Effort

Aussie ticket hunters and Kiwi fan mail sites drive surge, Nielsen//NetRatings 'Web Olympics Index' shows

AUCKLAND: September 17, 2000 - Olympics fans on both sides of the Tasman surged to the web in record numbers yesterday to support their teams on the first day of competition at the Sydney 2000 Games. New Zealand hits on Olympics sites soared, while following the success of Friday night's opening ceremony Australians rushed to the gamesinfo.com.au site to score last minute tickets, according to today's Nielsen//NetRatings 'Web Olympics Index'. The Index provides a daily analysis of web traffic to Olympics and related sites around the world during the previous 24-hour period. The service is provided by ACNielsen eRatings.com, Nielsen Media Research and NetRatings, Inc. and will cover 14 countries worldwide. Key findings from today's Nielsen//NetRatings 'Web Olympics Index' show:

* Australian ticketing and Games information site, gamesinfo.com.au, was the fastest-growing site for the day amongst Australian home-based surfers, recording a 1,394% increase in total page views, suggesting Australians are accessing the web to search for last-minute information on timetables and tickets.

* New Zealand web surfing activities focused more specifically on sites providing results and information. Page views generated by the official Olympic site www.olympics.com increased by more than 600% over yesterday's levels ensuring that this site maintained its number one position with New Zealand surfers.

* Local New Zealand broadcast site, www.oneolympics.nzoom.com, was the fastest growing New Zealand site with a day on day page view increase of almost 1700%, moving them to second position for the day.

* Both these New Zealand sites came up winners in relation to "stickiness", holding fans on their sites from four to six minutes. Page views were also extremely high at these sites, indicating that users were accessing an increasing range of information. * Overall, the official web site, olympics.com, still heads the pack as the most popular site reporting more than 85,000 page views for Saturday 16th.

* With saturation TV coverage commencing on Saturday, the One NZoom site has surged to second position among New Zealand surfers.

* Other sites to feature in the Index today included (alphabetically) nzherald.co.nz sports.yahoo.com and sportsillustrated.cnn.com.

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, 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. 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 behavior, 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.

ENDS

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