San Francisco - Nearly half of U.S. "tweens" (ages 8-12), or about 20 million young consumers, are using cell phones, according to a report from Nielsen Mobile.

Los Angeles - An estimated 2.9 million U.S. mobile subscribers received Sen. Barack Obama's text message announcing Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate, according to Nielsen Mobile. Nielsen said that despite being scooped on his choice by news outlets, Obama's text message "still ranks as one of the most important text messages ever sent," and "inflated the already enormous press attention paid to his VP pick and further established a list of supporters' most coveted form of contact: their cell phone numbers."

New York - The Nielsen Company on Monday announced the launch of two new services, Nielsen Online and Nielsen Mobile, which organize the company's existing and recently acquired assets into two distinct units. Nielsen Online is comprised of the company's Nielsen/NetRatings and BuzzMetrics services, which measure ads, video, blogs, user-generated media, word-of-mouth, commerce and consumer behavior. The group will be led by former BuzzMetrics executive chairman Itzhak Fisher. Nielsen Mobile combines Telephia, the recently acquired mobile research firm, with several existing Nielsen mobile initiatives; the unit will be led by former Telephia CEO Sid Gorham.