Companies score gold at 2012 Olympics

Athletes captured the spotlight at the 2012 Summer Games but a social marketing web app helped companies score gold with consumers during what has been dubbed as the first social media Olympics. Wildfire, the social media management web software recently bought by Google and used by 16,000 companies worldwide, enabled firms to create Olympics promotions and campaigns on social platforms and track fan growth and engagement. Some of the official sponsors of the Games, which included Proctor and Gamble, Coca Cola and Visa, saw their fanbases grow by millions of followers, and a doubling of their engagement levels throughout the games, according to Wildfire data analyst James Lancaster. "Olympics on social media had a huge role for brands. Not only were fanbases growing by huge amounts but fans were really interacting with brand pages," he said. The company tracked a Facebook metric known as "people talking about this," which is a combination of the number of posts made to a brand page's wall, in addition to likes, shares and comments. "That's really important for brands because it really brings brand awareness when you have people who are liking, and commenting and sharing a posting because you'll see it in your newsfeed and it sort of takes off virally," Lancaster explained. For Proctor and Gamble, this score grew by 216 percent, for Coca Cola by 126 percent and for Visa by 67 percent. "P&G was an example of a sponsor who did this very well," said Lancaster. The company's campaign featured a series of videos showing athletes talking about their mothers, which were widely shared across social networks. "In the media and in terms of virality, this was one of the biggest campaigns that any of the brands ran during the games. It really resonated," said Emily Pereira, director of communications for Wildfire, which is based in Redwood City, California. Lancaster attributed social media success among the official sponsors to two things: the ability to leverage Olympics branding in their content and implementing social media best practices, such as engaging fans through polls, questions and photo-sharing. Whether it was for a multinational clothing brand or an outdoor gear shop, linking the product to the Games and the city that played host was key to consumer engagement. According to Pereira, thousands of companies ran Olympics-themed promotions such as contests, sweepstakes and polls using Wildfire on social platforms. Some firms also embedded live feeds and videos of events in London. "If there was any obvious way of tying the Olympics or London to what they were selling they definitely took advantage of that opportunity," she said. http://gadgets.ndtv.com/social-networking/news/companies-score-gold-at-2012-olympics-255014

Olympics 2012: The special ones

The London Olympics 2012, in the words of International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, was the ‘Athletes Games’. At the London Summer Games, there were some athletes who ensured their performances and names were etched in the history of the Olympics.

Maleeva Rebello takes a look at the special ones at the London Games.

Michael Phelps
Regarded as the Greatest Olympian of all time, the man nicknamed the ‘Flying Fish’ won a record 22 Olympic medals at the London Games. What makes this feat even greater is that Phelps has 18 gold medals in his kitty, winning eight of them at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 to create a world record for the most first-place finishes at any single Olympics.

After winning four gold and two silver medals at the London Games, Phelps decided to retire at 27, calling it quits rather than choosing to further his record at the Rio Games in 2016. Ryan Lochte, Phelps’ team-mate and long time nemesis was the favourite to win all the medals in the categories that they were competing in together, but Phelps had other plans.

Michael Phelps proved his critics wrong by winning the 200m individual medley to become became the first male swimmer to win an event three-consecutive times at the Olympics. Phelps then went on to win the 100m butterfly and repeat his feat of winning an event three-times.

The record Michael Phelps has created has left all athletes in awe of the ‘The Baltimore Bullet’. Fans will surely miss seeing him in the pool in Rio but Phelps has promised to be in the stands and cheer Team USA at the Games.
http://www.dnaindia.com/sport/slideshow_olympics-2012-the-special-ones_1727919#top

Olympics fans find ways to circumvent NBC's online control

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It took Jason Legate, a Walnut Creek, California-resident, all of 10 minutes to connect his computer to a London-based server and access BBC's coverage of the Olympics Saturday, thereby circumventing NBC's lock on coverage in the United States.

The 31-year-old system administrator said he has watched at least 12 hours of live BBC coverage (his favorite sport so far - judo) since he set up a virtual private network (VPN) connection to send all his Internet traffic to a server in London.

Legate is one of many viewers who, turned off by NBC's ironclad control of access to Olympics coverage in the United States and spotty online streaming, has resorted to a workaround--sometimes legal, sometimes not--to watch the Games when and how they want on feeds from countries such as the UK and Canada.

NBC, which spent $1.18 billion for the rights to broadcast the Olympics on the Internet and on television in the United States, has made it impossible for people without a pricey cable or satellite subscription to watch the Olympics live in the United States. Viewers can receive a complimentary four hours of live content with a temporary pass.

Only those customers who are first "authenticated" as paying cable or satellite subscribers have access to live streaming of every Olympic event, a move that has led to a explosion of anger at the network on Twitter under the unofficial "#NBCfail" hashtag.

Other complaints included NBC streaming that didn't work and the network bombarded viewers had too much advertising.

For its regular network coverage, NBC, which is owned by cable giant Comcast Corp , has tape-delayed some of the most popular sports for the U.S. prime-time audience, meaning they air nearly five to six hours after they have happened.

This helps NBC maximize its return-on-investment by saving the top events for the largest audience and thereby the biggest advertising pay-off. But it has also led to event spoilers and criticism that the network was putting the interests of its business over those of its viewers.

The tape delay and some glitches in the coverage fueled wider criticism of NBC. But NBC spokesman Chris McCloskey, who declined to comment on the matter, pointed to the 7 million live streams, which was a record on the first day of competition. The company is making every event available live online -- except the opening and closing ceremonies.
Enter a small but vocal group of tech savvy Olympics fans who are finding new ways to watch the world's biggest sports event away from their TV sets.

These fans use techniques that make it seem like their computers are located outside the United States, giving them access to streaming access to the Games held by companies other than NBC in countries such as Canada or the UK. Think of it as a sporting version of how Internet users in China access banned websites by routing traffic through servers in Hong Kong in order to fool government censors.

"Because all of my Internet traffic looks like it's coming from that box in England, the BBC thinks I'm located in England," Legate said of the workaround he utilizes.
Like NBC in the United States, the BBC's Olympic rights only allow it to show the games to users in the UK. For example, when from the United States towatch a BBC or CTV stream for example they are greeted with various messages telling them that they don't have access.
Legate still pays for cable service through his local provider Astound, but said he decided to boycott NBC after he was unable to find a live broadcast of the opening ceremonies last Friday. He was also miffed by comments made by an NBC spokesman to the LA Times on Friday about the opening ceremony not translating well online because it is "complex" and requires context for a U.S. audience.

"To me, it just felt like they were insulting everyone so I basically decided to boycott NBC for the duration of the games, which meant I had to find an alternative," he said.

Legate said he has set up the same connection for a friend who wanted to watch dressage, an equestrian event that she could not find on NBC.

People who are finding ways to circumvent NBC's restrictions seem to be spreading the word to friends, like New York City journalist Kate Gardiner, who sent out a public service announcement message on Twitter last weekend to urge her followers to use a service called TunnelBear.

The 26-year-old has been using the service to keep up with live swimming broadcasts even though she does not own a television.
TunnelBear is a VPN service that sends a user's Internet connection to different countries, so in Gardiner's case it appears her computer is based in London. The decision to avoid NBC was easy for her since she's one of the millions of U.S. residents without a cable subscription.

"I'm not going to buy a cable subscription to spend three weeks watching Olympics coverage. It's not going to happen," she said.

So far it is unclear whether NBC would take on the task of blocking or suing services like TunnelBear or StreamVia, a similar workaround. Typically, NBC has left it to the International Olympic Committee (IOC)to police the piracy of the games' TV rights.
NBC Sports spokesman McCloskey said the company never comments on issues involving security.
The workarounds--as well as the outrage--so far seem to be having no effect on TV rating for the Olympics. NBC has pointed to record-breaking success through the first three days of the games, with more than 36 million average viewers, including more than 40 million people watching the opening ceremony.

But while these fledgling services may seem popular on Twitter and blogs, many people could be turned off by them because they involve several steps that may be too advanced for a casual Internet user and can cost money, said City University of New York journalism professor Jeff Jarvis, who has tested them out. After 500 megabytes of streaming video, users need pay for a $5 subscription on TunnelBear, for example.

"While TunnelBear is easier than some services, you've got to geek out and you've got pay," Jarvis said, adding that the number of people using these services is a fraction of those tuning into NBC.
Jarvis said people circumventing NBC don't pose a threat and they are just consumers trying to make a point.

"It says 'Hey, we can go around you,' and the lesson there is, if you think you can control communication, content and culture around borders, it is going to be become increasingly difficult," he said.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/olympics-fans-ways-circumvent-nbcs-online-control-113301037--spt.html