Results

The Summer Olympic games in Beijing will be different from previous contests. Unlike Olympics before, people will be able to download Olympics coverage right to their own mobile phone. On Yahoo.com there is a link that reads “2008 Olympics Coverage” and it leads to a site devoted exclusively to mobile coverage of the Olympics.

The exclusive site includes the time and weather in Beijing. There is also a clock counting down the days until the Beijing games begin. Below that is a section for news and photos about the games. The site’s content only makes up one corner of the browser. It is optimized for mobile use, to fit the screen of a smart phone.

Yahoo will have some competition. Another site providing mobile content is the United States’ official site for Olympic news, NBCOlympics. Along with a version of its site exclusively for mobile users, NBC will also be offering mobile alerts, video, and TV for phones. Additionally, MobiTV customers can subscribe to a mobilized channel showing NBC Sports coverage. During the 2006 Winter Olympics, NBC and MobiTV formed a partnership then and will continue to offer videos and highlights on the mobile phones of their customers in 2008.

Also, Google Mobile’s News feature will allow users to customize their page and search for the type of news they want. To start receiving news from Google, users can go to Google.com and type in their cell phone number to request mobile news updates.

Fring, a Mobile IM company is providing 3.5 G mobile phones with a camera, SIM card, and unlimited data plans to people attending the games and interested in micro-blogging, according to a ReadWriteWeb article. Fring will recruit users called “FringCommentators”, who will send updates of the action to different blogs via text messages.

This summer in Beijing, opportunities will be endless with the Olympics being a world event. Many mobile companies are counting on this Inaugural Mobile Olympics to be a success. Not only content providers and mobile news sites will be following the trends, but also any company who has invested advertising on sites specifically for mobile phones. We are likely to see some succeed while others fail, while industries like micro-blogging might see astronomical growth. We can only wait to see where the Mobile Olympics will lead the industry. It will be the first of its kind, which means there will be risks involved before the games begin and trends set after. Many companies, especially media companies should be willing to take the risk on the world stage.

Friday, June 27th, 2008 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

By Chris White