Mayor of London and Top Gear slowpoke Boris Johnson is trying to make London one of the most wired cities, just in time for the Olympics. During a recent conference, Johnson announced a plan to install wifi hotspots in “every lampost and bus stop.” → Read More
It was no surprise that the Olympics was a ratings blockbuster for NBC. The network’s ratings more than doubled during February Sweeps, up 105% from last year, according to Nielsen and RBC Capital Markets research. The interesting footnote, however, is GE’s cross-platform success on the Web and mobile. According to RBC Capital Market’s latest report, “Media and Entertainment: 1Q10 Preview & Outlook,” one third of the people watching the Olympics on their television were also on NBC’s website.
We may have stomped our feet and threw Twitter tantrums in response to NBC’s frustrating coverage—including chronic tape delays and the never-ending parade of the Marriage Ref. ads (Kelly Ripa’s laugh still echoes in my head)—but we watched, we clicked and we downloaded again and again. We watched Kim Yu-Na win the gold medal on live television then checked commentary online, we tracked the live blogging of the alpine skiers and watched a live web stream of curling. When we weren’t online many of us were fiddling with our Olympics iPhone apps. → Read More
The coverage of the Winter Olympics on NBC has been painful to watch. In addition to the tape delays which ruined the outcomes for anyone paying attention to any other news, sports or social media outlet other than NBC, there are a lot of other complaints. In between the hard-hitting reports of polar bears in the Canadian North and life among the lumberjacks, NBC did manage to squeeze in some actual Winter games, which were matched in quantity by the constant loop of the same handful of commercials on heavy rotation for McDonald’s, Visa, AT&T, Diet Coke, and NBC’s upcoming shows Parenthood and the Marriage Ref. (Thank goodness for DVRs).
We already know that NBC’s handling of its Olympics coverage sucks, if only because everyone on Twitter says so. Right now, Twitter Sentiment shows that 73 percent of Tweets about “NBC Olympics” are negative. But what are they complaining about exactly, and is it just Twitter? Some new data from Crimson Hexagon, another sentiment analysis service for brands, shows the breakdown of hate: → Read More
NBC is driving people on the Internet crazy by tape-delaying coverage of the Olympics until primetime. Okay, maybe it’s only driving Henry Blodget crazy, and everyone on Twitter.
Well, not everyone on Twitter—68 percent, according to a recent reading I took on Twitter Sentiment. Roughly two thirds of Tweets about the NBC Olympics are negative. Some examples of the venting occurring on Twitter about NBC’s delayed Olympics coverage: → Read More
Sky Sports HD, anyone? The Western economies may be slowing, but the past summer’s sporting events, including Euro 2008 and the Beijing Olympics, have boosted HDTV’s profile in Europe. Both events generated a “surge in the penetration of of High Definition technologies throughout Europe.” So says DEG Europe, which is a sort of HD lobby there that tries to convince consumers that HDTV is really, really cool (and worth the money). It’s estimated that by the end of the summer, or now-ish, about one-third of all Euro households will have HDTV. Not that I’m living at now Another caveat: consumers are still buying plain old DVDs, but DEG Europe sees that business soon topping off. IFA tells a similar tale. Despite the terrible economy—Germany’s retracted last quarter—companies like Panasonic and Sony and Samsung were still hawking the biggest and brightest TVs money can buy. Strange industry, this. → Read More
The Great Firewall of China strikes again! Chinese authorities have blocked access to iTunes because several Olympic athletes downloaded a pro-Tibet album. As an ignorant American, how China handles its business re: Tibet isn’t any of my concern, but blocking iTunes while the Olympics are still ongoing seems unsophisticated to me. Why play into the perception that you’re a dissident-crushing monster when the world’s media is crawling all over your capital? ::shoulder shrug:: The block was first noticed as Chinese folks began to flood Apple support forums saying they couldn’t access iTunes. It turns out that the album Songs for Tibet, by the band (of sorts, it’s mainly a compilation thing) The Art of Peace Foundation, didn’t please Chinese authorities, especially since Olympic athletes were offered it for free as a “subtle form of protest.” Not subtle enough! My favorite part of the story is how a Chinese Web site, china.org.cn, reported popular reaction to the album, saying that Chinese folks were “incensed” and that people were “rallying together to denounce Apple.” Also, those Chinese gymnasts were totally underage. Let’s be mad, together! At everyone! → Read More
The Hong Kong LEGO User Group used some 300,000 LEGO blocks and 4,500 LEGO people to recreate some amazing scenes and venues from the Beijing Games. Hit the jump for some views of the Water Cube, table tennis, beach volleyball, and more… → Read More
This isn’t soooo bad, I suppose, but apparently about 55 seconds of the opening ceremony for the Olympics this year was rendered as computer-generated imagery, or CGI as we like to call it 95% of the time. While I was all set to slam my broken-hearted fist down on my desk, screaming “How could you?!! You bastards!!!”, it turns out that the part that was computer generated actually did happen in real-life, it just had to be CGI’d for safety reasons. → Read More
Just noticed this graphic as NBC took a commercial break during Olympic coverage. Can’t wait to watch the upcoming “SWIMMMING” events. Nice work there, NBC. You’d fit right in here at CrunchGear. As we always say, “Proofreeeading, schmroofreedninng.” → Read More
The Summer Olympics begin tomorrow (time zone permitting), but you’re stuck in the office all day long and can’t watch. Not so! Using some of the same methods we discussed a few months ago, you can watch your favorite sport—I’ll be watching football (soccer) from the many watering holes in and around Barcelona—as it happens, in real time. Note that NBC is showing damn near everything (with some exceptions) on its Web site, but that’s U.S.-only. So if you’re in the mood to watch Lionel Messi give FC Barcelona a heart attack every time he touches the ball—seriously, the local papers here are treating “el caso Messi” like it’s a break-in at the Watergate Hotel—or to see the Chinese gymnastics team give the Americans a thorough shellacking, swing on over to Wired, whose Wiki has more than enough info to get you started. → Read More
The International Olympic Committee has filed a lawsuit in California accusing at least six websites of selling illegitimate or nonexistent tickets. Reuters has reported that the ticket scam is international with victims in multiple countries. While the IOC is taking action, it appears unlikely that replacement seats will become available. Tickets for events in the host city of Beijing completely sold out last week. One of the websites in question was named in the article — www.beijingticketing.com — was said to be up and running, but is now down, or moved. The Organizing Committee has official information regarding legit tickets here. → Read More
http://www.theonion.com/content/themes/common/assets/videoplayer/flvplayer.swfThe Beijing Olympics: Are They A Trap? We asked Peter Ha what this was all about and he smiled wryly and winked, inscrutably. → Read More
On Friday we wrote about how NBC were partnering with Microsoft and others to use the Olympics coverage as a test-bed for researching new user habits in viewing content between online, television and mobile. The web experience at NBC is powered by Silverlight, also giving Microsoft its first large-scale opportunity to gain distribution for the new web platform. It seems that there are very high expectations from not only NBC and Microsoft, but also advertisers, as Mediaweek today report that the online ad inventory for the NBC Olympics coverage is almost sold out. NBC says that 85% of all available inventory has already been sold, an extraordinarily high amount. NBC did not disclose exact details or numbers, but did say that they have signed corporations such as Mcdonalds, Coca Cola, Johnson and Johnson, Hilton and Anheuser-Busch as video advertisers for the web broadcasts. Since the International Olympics Commitee sets strict standards on advertising during the games, overlays are not allowed so video ads will take the form of short and 30-second spots both before and after clips and shows. NBC paid $4.2 Billion for the exclusive rights (both television and web) to broadcast both the four summer and winter games between 2006 and 2012. NBC experienced disappointing ratings with both the Sydney and Athens Olympic games, and suffered losses due to unhappy advertisers. The issue with the games at the time was the time zone difference causing a huge drop in audience – as events were shown in early morning hours or in the middle of the night (in the case of Sydney). With the NBC and Microsoft web strategy, the audience can now be expanded to those watching at work, on the road or those who watch clips delayed – which will in theory result in an audience much larger than television-only (and in-turn more revenue). For NBC, web video and technologies like Silverlight are playing a big part in expanding their audiences and increasing revenue. Who would have though that the whole online video thing would ever be responsible for actually saving and helping a company like NBC? CrunchBase Information NBC Universal Microsoft Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
