Archive for: olympics
Mobile web junkies, London 2012 will be the place to go. Not only will you have thousands of athletes from across the globe competing for the gold, but fresh, speedy WiFi to boot. This comes from London’s mayor, Boris Johnson himself. According to the good mayor, by 2012 tourists and inhabitants alike can expect wireless access points in every light post, street sign, bus stop, etc., etc come games time.
So far, 22 boroughs have jumped on board the monumental task of outfitting a city such as London with all the needed hardware to make true wireless mobility a seamless experience. The only thing that remains mystery for now is the pricetag on such a project as well as the price tag (if any) on user access fees. I would hope that the city would budget such things into tax payers’ tab instead of continual access fees which no one likes. Either way, someone’s going to have to pay, right?
Ever find yourself looking at the $500 lens on your $5800 camera, wishing you could poor liquid goodness deep down inside and carry it around as a “custom” mug, showing off the true nerd lifestyle you long to live? Ya, not so much, do ya? But what if someone went through the trouble of making a mug that looked like some expensive photography equipment? Might be a little more welcoming huh? Apparently photographers shooting it up at the Olympics in Vancouver were given some pretty sweet shwag — 70-200mm camera lens coffee mugs.
Similar trinkets have appeared here and there over the years, but no major company or manufacturer has ever really gotten behind such projects and actually marketed them. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure there would be a decent following willing to pick up a few lens mugs. What better way to simultaneously freak out a buddy/co-worker and look like the real geek you are? Canon/Nikon/Konica/everyone else…are you listening?
NerdApproved > CrunchGear
I as a commoner, a mere spec in the population bucket of the United States can sit here ranting and raving all I want about how NBC single handedly ruined the Olympics for the entire country. As an American, I’m ashamed and embarrassed to say NBC represented our country as the sole provider of Olympics coverage. And until today, you could even say I was alone (though 30 3 seconds on Google will quickly paint a vivid — and expletive ridden — picture). It is today however, March 1st 2010 that senator Herb Kohl actually assumed his role as a “voice of the people” and asked NBC straight up: “WTF?!”.
The good Mr. Kohl sent NBC a letter asking them why they severely restricted web content for users in general, but also to users who weren’t subscribers of their new almost monopoly across several different entertainment mediums.
The few statements NBC has released so far amid criticism has been your typical PR response of “We’re more than happy with our super fantastic coverage” and other empty, meaningless fluff. The voice of one senator standing up to this broadcast giant is certainly a warm welcome. Will it change how they handle the next Olympics? I can only hope. Regardless, the next Olympics I’ll be using a VPN for the entire games, not just the second half. I’ll be dammed if NBC get’s my viewership!
So what have you: a genuine fuzzy feeling for Senator Herb Kohl and his righteous stance?
TechDirt
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- February 28, 2010 2:41 pm
It’s no secret that the general consensus surrounding NBC’s handling of the Olympics is that it sucks. Plain and simple — horrible. Between tape delays, “old farts”, and utter lack of any real selection of online content means for an increasingly digital generation, the Olympics was an epic let down. Don’t believe me or the countless other sites highlighting such travesties? Just look at Crimson Hexagon’s data (above) collected across various online sources, namely 20,000+ Twitter posts and 5,700 blog posts, social networking comments, etc.
While 20-40,000 data points are hardly enough to generalize across an entire country of 250 million+, the sentiment shared by the internet going crowd at least is pretty unanimous — NBC’s Olympic coverage sucks. Seeing as how I have to use a VPN to fake that I’m in another country just to watch a damn live stream of any particular event mean NBC is doing it all wrong. Very wrong. I can only hope that they either get their act straight for the next Olympics or someone else takes over. Because as it stands now, NBC is bad for the Olympics.
TechCrunch
- February 17, 2010 11:17 pm
You know, with each passing day of not being able to see the Olympics live either how I want on TV or god forbid, stream anything worthwhile, it becomes more and more clear — NBC flat out sucks as a network. Earlier this year they handled the whole Tonight Show/Jay Leno/Conan Obrian fiasco in a less than stellar manner and now they are in the process of making this one of the worst Olympics yet. To say coverage is terrible is a gross understatement. The blatant tape delays until prime time are greed at it’s worst and a complete pain in the ass for those who actually care about the games, as by the time they actually see the tape delayed events, the outcomes of each have been spilled onto the internet in one form or another. But so far, this is all from the viewers perspective. That is until US Skier Jake Zamansky started tweeting of NBC’s shit filled Olympic’s broadcasts as well. Then it got interesting.
Earlier today, Jake Zamansky made a few critical tweets calling out NBC. The tweets were then automatically pulled onto the NBC Olympic website’s live scrolling Twitter feed. Pretty funny stuff huh? Oddly, NBC didn’t feel the same way. Instead, they’ve gone ahead and begun removing any and all negative or critical tweets from Jake Zamansky’s athlete Twitter page — censorship at it’s finest.
Perhaps the saddest part is in the fact that CCTV in China — a government run TV channel in a communist country who routinely takes pride in censoring outside media — has more and better live coverage of the Olympics. What does that say for NBC’s corny “fireside chats” each and every night, recapping old news and Olympic highlights that our hours upon hours old? All of this grief is merely touching on the TV aspect. We haven’t even gotten into the whole live streaming thing yet.
To recap: NBC completely butchers live Olympics coverage for their own personal gain — not in any way to actually broadcast and showcase the games in any sort of way….and they censor the hell out of critics. Awesome! Hopefully NBC doesn’t get their hands on the next Olympics and ruin them too. Then again, they couldn’t suck any more than they do now…
AlleyInsider
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- February 12, 2010 11:37 am
The Olympics are a grand time for many people and groups all over the world. It’s a time for said groups to represent their country on the world stage, proving that they are just a cut above the rest. For decades, watching the Olympics meant catching time in between your busy life schedule to sit down and enjoy the (tape delayed) games. And then there was the VCR. Recording the not only the Olympics but TV in general was a huge revolution, as now people didn’t have to babysit their TV. Then the digital revolution took over and has brought us to where we are today.
Consuming any type of media is easier that it’s ever been — except if you want to watch live Olympic coverage over the internet. This year for the Vancouver Winter Olympics, NBC is going to great lengths to talk up their exclusive coverage. Part of their big marketing push for the 2010 Winter Olympics is the vast amounts of all-HD video footage and other high tech overlays such as “best line” and ghosting effects for skiers/snowboarders to make it easier (and cooler) to watch them fly through the air. Topping it off, a nifty little factoid has surface concerning the amount of cable being used to make this whole shebang run this year — 730,000 feet!
Yet the digital only avenue for Olympic consumption (read: online streaming) is a joke. A paltry ~400 hours worth of live coverage on NBCOlympics.com with the bulk of free online content being “highlights” and athlete bios. If you recall, the 2008 Beijing Olympics featured over 2,200 hours of live online/streaming Olympic coverage on the same site. So what gives?
Even worse, this year NBC is using an authentication layer of DRM of sorts to limit the bulk of honest live coverage to paying cable subscribers. Those whom don’t pay for cable — SOL.
It’s a collection of decisions and policies built on greed no less. It frustrates me that NBC continues to do this as the bulk of the population hoping to watch the Olympics online this year have moved more twoards online streams. It is these people who will suffer, not knowing how to get around NBC’s draconian attempts to earn an extra buck.
For me and many other more tech savvy people however, there are plenty of sources and outlets to fool NBC’s lame attempts to prevent live Olympic streams.
If you find yourself curious on this whole “beating around the NBC bush” type of approach to Olympic streaming, spend a little time Googling proxies and VPN’s. They’ll be a big factor, though not the only options.
If you must take anything away from this, let it be this: NBC is yet again missing the entire point of the digital world we live in today by artificially limiting content and coverage — essentially what consumers really want. Doing so will only drive them away and to other sources — what NBC doesn’t want. NBC has yet again ruined the online Olympic experience.
Dvice
NewTeeVee 2
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You know, it’s getting to the point now where writing about the absurd and asinine decisions by media executives just isn’t fun anymore. Instead, anger and frustration have largely taken over, removing some of that childish joy I used to get. So who’s done it this time? NBC. No, this isn’t a repeat of the Conan O’Brian/Jay Leno fluster cluck that radiated throughout media world last month. This time it involves something a bigger than a simple TV show. It involves the Olympics.
The last Olympics flat out sucked to watch online. Well, that’s because there was hardly anything online. NBC put a few stray events online for streaming that were of little interest to the mass population. In turn, that caused those monitoring the last Olympic’s online viewership to conclude that customers “don’t really watch the Olympics online, they go their for stats and highlights instead”. If stats and highlights are the only thing consumers have access to, then no shit. That reasoning is exactly what NBC is using in defense of blocking most of the Olympics from live online streams.
And no big publicized event can go on without some mention of the evils of piracy ruining the world with Rick Cotton, the dumbest human to ever walk the planet NBC General Counsel, claiming that the whole big live stream limit is to prevent piracy. Don’t these people read the internet and see that most of the general population thinks these people are quacks? How does limiting access to a highly sought after event prevent piracy? As TechDirt notes, it increases it. Give the people what they want and they will fill your pockets with cash. Go against what they want to make a quick buck yourselves and no body comes out happy.
Looks like I, along with countless other individuals this year will have to go out in search of illegitimate live streams of the Olympics just to get our fill. Gee, Conan O’Brian was right. NBC does stand for Nothing But Cocksuckers.
**BTW: The only two events being streamed for the winter olympics are Hockey and Curling.
TechDirt
MediaWeek
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