Kiwis log-on for Olympic news

Internet use in New Zealand has risen this week as Kiwis turn to the Web for Olympic news.

The latest Nielsen//NetRatings Web Olympics Index reports the Olympics are drawing higher total numbers of home users to Olympic-related websites.

Included among these figures are net-savvy children aged under 11 looking for games offered on many Olympics-related sites.

The Web Olympics Index covers 15 countries and provides a daily picture of web traffic to Olympics and related sites every 24 hours.

Managing director of ACNielsen eRatings.com Pacific Brian Milnes said the Herald Online has shown rapid growth in traffic.

"In the week up to September 3 the site's Olympics pages generated just 2.5 percent of the audience. A week later that had grown to 9.5 percent, and by September 17 was attracting 16 percent of the site's audience," Mr Milnes said.

"The total site audience was up 25 percent over the three week period."

Mr Milnes said three weeks ago the official games site olympics.com did not even register in the list of New Zealanders' favourite sites.

But in the week ending September 17, it drew a unique audience of over 20,000 people in the week.

"The story was the same for the other sites offering news of the games, such as the oneolympics site at nzoom.com."

The sites are not only drawing big audiences, but holding them as well.

In the week up to September 17, the Herald Online held visitors for an average of almost 10 minutes, each viewing 15 pages.

On the olympics.com site, New Zealand home users spent over eight minutes viewing 16 pages.

It's a similar story in the United States, where Internet audiences have had some wins over television viewers due to the delayed telecast caused by time differences, Mr Milnes said.

"These Olympics are showing very clearly how the Internet is not so much replacing existing media as becoming part of the mix of sources of entertainment and information that people are using."

- HERALD ONLINE STAFF

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