New York - Buoyed significantly by the Beijing Olympics and the kick-off of football season, online sports destinations saw a 26% increase in unique visitors at work during August, according to New York-based Nielsen Online.

Reston, Va. - While the U.S. may have edged China for the most medals at the recently completely Summer Olympics in Beijing, those roles were reversed when it came to visits to the official Olympics website, according to comScore.

Beijing - NBC and Yahoo are both claiming to be the top Web destinations for the Olympics, with NBC citing a mix of internal, Nielsen and Hitwise data, and Yahoo looking to comScore to claim the top spot, PaidContent reported.

London - China has been blocking its citizens' access to Apple's (NASD: AAPL) iTunes Store as of Monday, after it was found that some 40 athletes in the Olympic Village downloaded a "Songs for Tibet" protest compilation, Guardian.co.uk reported, citing a report on the state-sponsored China.org.cn.

Baltimore - Fresh off his record-breaking performance at the Beijing Olympics, Baltimore swimmer Michael Phelps also continues to make giant waves online. As of Tuesday morning, the 23-year-old's Facebook fan page had just over 1 million members. As the Baltimore Sun pointed out, that's second only to presidential candidate Barack Obama, who had 1.35 million Facebook fans. "So many comments poured in [Monday], part of his fan profile site temporarily crashed," The Sun reported, citing Facebook officials. By comparison, Phelps -- who on Sunday broke Mark Spitz's Olympic record with eight gold medals during a single Olympics -- had more fans than the two most popular bands on Facebook, Coldplay and Linkin Park, combined.

Los Angeles - After the International Olympic Committee on Monday asked the Swedish government to crack down on Swedish file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay -- which reportedly has facilitated 1 million downloads of Olympics-related footage, the group responded by temporarily renaming itself "The Beijing Bay," Wired.com reports. The Swedish government already has a pending copyright infringement case against The Pirate Bay.

Los Angeles - The Olympics opening ceremony telecast has already been downloaded over one million times via the BitTorrent file-sharing network, TorrentFreak reports. In addition to a 5GB HD file, an iPod-ready version of the first hour and several other versions are currently available for download. TorrentFreak compiles a weekly chart of the most-downloaded TV shows on BitTorrent, from what it calls a representative sample of BitTorrent sites.

New York - Some three million of Cablevision's (NYSE: CVC) subscribers aren't able to view all of the 2,200 hours of Olympics video on NBCOlympics.com, due to its reluctance to pay a premium NBC Universal is charging premium TV providers for the privilege, Cablevision-owned Newsday.com reports. Before viewing video, visitors to NBCOlympics.com must first enter their zip code and choose their cable or satellite provider from a list -- which generates local TV listings for Olympic events. "To date, Cablevision has not elected to offer its customers the enhanced Olympics package," NBC said in a statement.

Beijing - NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) has announced record traffic to its NBCOlympics.com website, which counted over 70 million page views on Friday, the first days of the games -- up from the peak traffic day during the Athens games four years ago (20.6 million).

Tempe, Ariz. - Limelight Networks (NASD: LLNW), a provider of content delivery network services, announced on Tuesday that it will provide live and on-demand video streaming services to NBCOlympics.com on MSN for its 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage. The deal includes around 2,200 hours of live streaming and 3,000 hours of highlights.

New York - NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) this week granted both Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T) rights to air its Olympics coverage on the broadband, IPTV and mobile platforms. Live event streaming, NBC Olympics video-on-demand and daily highlight clips will be offered on AT&T's U-Verse and Verizon's FiOS TV digital TV services, while on-demand content and interactive widgets will be available to the companies' broadband subscribers. NBC's Olympics 2Go mobile TV channel will be available to both AT&T Mobile TV and Verizon V CAST mobile TV service subscribers; both services are powered by Qualcomm's MediaFLO USA.

Shanghai, China - PPLive, a provider of peer-to-peer-based Internet TV broadcasting and online video streaming in China that claims over 100 million users worldwide, said on Monday that it has signed a deal with China Central Television's CCTV.com, to provide live online broadcasts of Olympic sporting events, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies.

New York - NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) announced on Wednesday that it will offer 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage across its flagship NBC and six cable networks, including nearly 2,900 hours of live coverage, and 2,200 hours of streaming Web video. The company said its coverage of the event nearly triples the total hours offered from Athens in 2004. "With 25 sports streamed live at NBCOlympics.com and significant live coverage on our cable platforms and NBC, highlighted by all swimming finals, the biggest nights of gymnastics and beach volleyball live in primetime, the viewer has plenty of options for live coverage," said Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics. A PDF file of the network's coverage itinerary is available from a link below.

San Antonio, Texas - AT&T (NYSE: T) announced on Monday that a number of top-selling artists will record exclusive tracks for a "Team USA" soundtrack for the U.S. Olympic Team, with proceeds from music downloads and ringtone sales to benefit the team. NBC will also feature excerpts from the songs and music videos from the album in its Olympic Games coverage. Contributing artists on the project include 3 Doors Down, Army of Me, Colbie Caillat, Sheryl Crow and Nelly.

It's hardly an original insight to note that traditional media companies are trapped in their legacy business models at a time of rapid change in technology and consumer behavior. But rarely do you see the old and the new in such stark tension as in the case of NBC Universal's plans for presenting the upcoming Summer Olympics in Beijing. According to this AP story, NBC will offer an unprecedented 1,400 hours of TV coverage across its six networks--more than all previous Summer Olympics combined--as well as 2,200 hours of live coverage on the Web and over 3,000 hours of highlights available on-demand from NBCOlympics.com.

New York - NBC on Monday announced that it will offer free downloads of its Olympics coverage on laptop computers running Microsoft Windows Vista Media Center. Powered by Wavexpress' TVTonic, the NBC Olympics on the Go service will automatically download selected events on a sport-by-sport basis, "so viewers will have a fresh slate of Olympic content to watch on their morning commute."

New York - The Associated Press announced on Tuesday that it has signed a deal with NBC Sports and NBC Olympics, to provide NBC-produced text content and video links related to the 2008 Olympic Games through a premium online service. News publishers that subscribe to the premium AP service will receive the news agency's own Olympics coverage along with links to footage from NBC, which owns the exclusive broadcast rights to the Olympics.

Beijing - China's CDC Games, a publisher of online multiplayer games, on Tuesday announced it has invested an undisclosed sum in Xiakexing Network Technologies (XNet), a developer of online games and game technologies.

Shanghai - Baidu, the leading search engine in China, has won a license from the Chinese government to provide original news reports on its website, Reuters reported, citing government and industry sources.