Digital Media

The Olympic Games in Beijing is proving to be a hit in the workplace.

Traffic to Olympics-related Web sites soared Monday, the first full workday after the official opening of the games Friday, according to numbers released Wednesday by Nielsen Online (see chart below). More than 2 million people visited the video section of NBCOlympics.com, up nearly 140 percent from Sunday when the site had about 858,000 visitors, according to Nielsen. Overall visits to the site increased 40 percent to 4.6 million compared with Sunday's 3.3 million.

Traffic to Yahoo's Olympics site also skyrocketed, up 86 percent to 5.2 million visitors compared with Sunday's 2.8 million.

(Credit: Nielsen Online)

Mobile usage also saw a significant boost, increasing from 210,000 on Friday to 476,062 on Monday. NBC, which said it polled users, said it was "stunned" at the number of users who were using mobile video download for the first time.

Meanwhile, Nielsen Media Research reported that NBC's TV coverage averaged more than 30 million viewers for the first three days of the games, a 26 percent increase compared with the same period during the Athens Games in 2004. The opening ceremony was last week's most-watched program, attracting nearly 35 million viewers.

As well as NBC is doing both on TV and on online, it begs the question of whether NBC's policy of delaying popular events online until they have run on TV in prime time was a wise move or overly restrictive.

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I am sure that you were fearing censorship at these Beijing Olympics.

No, not censorship by the Chinese.

Censorship by those folks at NBC who would prefer you to watch what they want you to watch and, most specifically, when they want you to watch it.

Well, here I am live on a Friday night, freely watching NBCOlympics.com, and witnessing the quite glorious sight of a Chinese cyclist trying to mend his bike.

It looks to me as if his back wheel has suffered a case of the bends.

Looking beneath the screen, I see that his name is Zhang and he is in 135th place. Who knew there would be that many riders in this, um, race over some sort of distance along misty roads that resemble London at six o'clock in the morning (except that there are no drunks visible)?

Here's what is strange about NBC's online coverage: I have no idea what I am watching. Yes, I have clicked on the commentary, which takes the form of a live blog stream--except that the writer is endearingly honest about his predicament.

This is how he has just spoken to me in writing: "The first time up the major climb of the finish circuit has substantially damaged the peloton, but we are still waiting on names and time gaps."

So this commentator is telling me he has no idea who is winning, no idea who is second, no idea who is third, and no idea of the time differences between the riders.

The Beijing Olympic mascots. One from the right, The Tibetan antelope. Really.

(Credit: CC Tama Leaver)

If this commentary had appeared on NBC TV, the commentator in question would have been removed from his post quicker than persons of color and Mongolians have been asked to be removed from the bars of Beijing by the authorities. This commentator would have been sent to televisual Siberia.

There is a wonderfully eerie quality to the live online footage of this Olympic Some Sort of Cycle Race Along Roads.

The picture quality is quite spectacular. The mist is so real it could not possibly have been photoshopped in there by the Chinese authorities to provide some extra menacing ambience. This makes YouTube seem like student video. (Which I know some would contend it is.)

Meanwhile, the NBC livestream commentary is now telling me this: "Apologies for the data stream in the play-by-play window. We are trying to remedy the situation."

They cannot get a handle on the data. They are out of control. We have a situation here, people.

The riders, however, ride on. To the muted shouts of spectators who bang thunder sticks against the roadside barriers, as if they were praying for Kobe Bryant to miss another free throw.

Ah, NBC has heard my pleas and an overlay has appeared to tell me that we are watching a men's road race. The overlay, however, only stays on for a few seconds. Then it disappears again. So now I must rely on the official NBC Olympic online commentary. Here is the latest:

"The leading pursuit has shed some riders as they press towards the finish line 4'11" down on Patricio Almonacid."

No, I don't think they are four feet, eleven inches down. I think those are minutes and seconds. But all I can hear is the silence of a few rubber tires passing through a tunnel.

No voice is there to lead me through my bewilderment. No words of wisdom help to create excitement. Just the vague whistle of a spoke in the wildnerness. This is the live NBC Olympics.com experience.

Wait, wait.

The scrolling commentary has political news: "Iran, USA detente at the head of the main peloton as Iran's climber Hussein Askari takes a flyer and is joined by (we think) USA's Jason McCartney."

We think? We think? This might be a U.S. assault on Iran. And all they can say is "We think"?

I continue to ponder these words, watch the struggling bottom of the Iranian cyclist, and listen to the echoing nothingness that accompanies these besottingly shiver-making live images. It is as if NBC has hired John Carpenter to direct their online Olympic coverage.

And I can barely wait to see what he will do with the Romania versus Kazakhstan women's handball game.

I am tired, however. This has been live, uncensored (by NBCTV) online footage from the Olympics. I am comforted to know that I will slide beneath my comforter still a free man.

Free from the tyranny of NBC TV and happy in the otherworldly bosom of NBCOlympics.com.

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Google is making it easier to check up on the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing from your mobile phone.

Searching for any Olympic sport on Google's mobile Web site will bring up, in addition to the regular search results that Google would normally offer, a timetable of Olympic schedules and results for that event. The search also works in 35 other languages, and Google has created an additional mobile Web site as a general repository of Olympic information.

When results start to come in, mobile searches for things like "swimming medals" and "French medal count" will bring up relevant Olympic data too.

The Olympics tie-ins are a little bit more extensive on Google's regular browser search; other search engines, such as Yahoo, are doing something similar. Google is also serving ads on NBC's online-video coverage of the Olympics using its DoubleClick technology.

If text-based mobile search just isn't fancy enough for your precious handset, NBC will be serving up mobile video to customers of Verizon's V-Cast service, thanks to a partnership between the two companies. Additionally, video-on-demand will be available to Verizon's Fios television service.

Click here for more stories on tech and the Beijing Olympics.

The Olympics are a media feeding frenzy, as everyone tries to capitalize on the huge audience for the global sporting event, and now Yahoo is trying to get in the action.

Medal results are one customized result that Yahoo now shows with Olympics-related searches. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: Yahoo)

The Internet pioneer said on its Search blog on Tuesday that it's launched a number of shortcuts to present Olympics-related information through Yahoo's search engine. The shortcuts package up information such as the overall medal count, a country's specific medal count, and information for individual athletes.

The customized results present content including video on the search results, blurring the lines between an Internet portal and a search engine. The results also include a link that can take users to various related Yahoo Sports Olympics coverage pages, which at least at present feature a lot of advertisements by Visa.

Google also is getting business out of the Olympics because NBC Universal is using its DoubleClick ad delivery technology for online video of the Olympics. Microsoft, too, has a stake: its Silverlight technology could get a big boost in adoption because NBC's video player is built using the software.

Update 4:17 p.m.: Search Engine Land found Google is doing the same thing as Yahoo with specialized Olympics search results.

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Google's DoubleClick technology now can be used to deliver video advertising shown with Microsoft's Silverlight technology, and it will be used for that purpose with the Olympics video that NBC Universal plans to show online using a player based on Silverlight 2.

Google announced the Silverlight ad capability, called DoubleClick In-Stream, on Tuesday. It already could be used to deliver video ads using Flash, RealMedia, and Windows Media technology. In-Stream also can show static ads within video, which Microsoft and NBC concluded was the best approach for live video.

NBC Universal, already a DoubleClick customer, was bullish about the Sliverlight support. "Thanks to DoubleClick, In-Stream's new support for Silverlight 2, we are able to monetize our groundbreaking online-video coverage on the same platform we already use for display and mobile advertising. This lets our sales and operations teams work together really efficiently," Steven Gold, vice president of sales planning and operations at NBC Universal Digital Media, said in a statement.

(Credit: Susan Dove/CNET News)

Microsoft is betting on the Olympics to help spur adoption of Silverlight, a browser plug-in technology that competes with Adobe Systems' Flash for bringing multimedia, animation, and other rich content to the Web. Distributing the Olympics online coverage, both prepackaged and live, is a technologically complicated task given how popular the sporting event is among viewers.

DoubleClick In-Stream is integrated with Google's DART technology for letting publishers serve ads over the Internet as well as target ads at specific categories of users, track ad campaign success, and create ad forecasts.

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Updated at 1:30 p.m. PDT with comments from YouTube and the hours of online live content offered by NBC.

Citizens of Ethiopia and Thailand (we originally said Taiwan here, which is not included) are among the international Web users who will be able to view online content from the Beijing Olympics via YouTube, according to an announcement made by the International Olympic Committee Monday.

While NBC holds the Olympics digital video-on-demand rights in the U.S., rights have not been sold on an exclusive basis in more than 70 countries. In those countries, people can access the specialized YouTube Olympics channel youtube.com/beijing2008, starting on August 6.

The IOC said the Olympic Broadcasting Services will produce the YouTube channel content and will include highlights, news clips, and daily videos of the international games. YouTube, and parent company Google, will also help pull videos that violate the IOC copyrights on Olympics content, The Wall Street Journal reported. YouTube said it would not disclose exact terms of the deal, but that the IOC is "is using our industry-leading VideoID technology to manage and protect its content on the site."

A YouTube spokesperson also said the site will only sell advertising on the channel to any of the IOC's 12 exclusive sponsors.

For countries like the U.S., where exclusive rights to content have been bought, YouTube will use geo-blocking, based on a user's IP address, to prevent access to the channel. However, NBC will also be broadcasting the Olympics on the Web, with more than 2,000 hours of live content available on its Olympics site. NBC paired with Microsoft in its effort to broadcast online videos into homes across the U.S, although some of the most popular sporting events will not be streamed live.

Users in China, where the Olympics are being held, will view exclusive video content at China Central Television's Web site.

The IOC granted online Web access for some countries beginning with the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics, and 23 territories could view videos online during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, but its YouTube channel can reach the most people yet--about 200 million Web users.

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Olympic officials on Saturday said there was "no deal" with the Chinese government to restrict Internet access for foreign journalists covering the Beijing Games.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said during a press conference in Beijing that he is "adamant in saying there has been no deal whatsoever to accept restrictions," according to the BBC. In addition, he applauded the organization of the Summer Games, falling short of an apology following widespread public criticism that China had backtracked on assurances that members of the media would not be restricted.

Rogge did not address reports that had surfaced earlier this week that some Olympic officials had been aware of negotiations with the Chinese government. On Wednesday, IOC press chief Kevan Gosper told Reuters that committee members had cut a deal to let the Chinese government block sensitive sites.

"I regret that it now appears BOCOG (Beijing's Olympic organizers) has announced that there will be limitations on Web site access during games time," Gosper had told Reuters. "I also now understand that some IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered games related."

While China has since unblocked a number of sites, The Associated Press said that, as of Saturday morning, many sites the Chinese government disapproves of continued to be blocked, though the sites that are blocked appear to change daily.

The Chinese government and the IOC are facing ever more international scrutiny, as critics voice concerns that the country could be trying to restrict the gaze of its world audience during the upcoming Olympic Games. Besides the limited Net access, some broadcasters have complained about restricted live television shots of Tiananmen Square.

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Allowing journalists access to an uncensored Internet apparently isn't on the International Olympic Committee's list of things to do before the Beijing games begin next week.

A day after journalists learned their Internet activities would be limited, a senior IOC official admitted to Reuters on Wednesday that committee members had cut a deal to let the Chinese government block sensitive Web sites, despite promises of unrestricted access.

"I regret that it now appears BOCOG has announced that there will be limitations on Web site access during games time," IOC press chief Kevan Gosper told Reuters, referring to Beijing's Olympic organizers. "I also now understand that some IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered games related."

The revelation came a day after journalists learned that organizers had backtracked on earlier guarantees that journalists would have access to an uncensored Internet at the Main Press Center and athletic venues. The announcement meant that thousands of reporters working in Beijing during the next several weeks won't have access to a multitude of sites deemed embarrassing to the Chinese government, such as Amnesty International or any sites related to the crackdown in Tibet or the banned spiritual group Falun Gong.

When Chinese officials were bidding for the right to hold the games seven years ago, they assured international organizers that there would be ''complete freedom to report.'' In April, Chinese organizers told International Olympic Committee members that Internet censorship, which is routine for China's citizens, would be lifted for journalists during the games.

However, IOC members issued a clarification Tuesday, saying that Internet freedom applied only to Web sites related to ''Olympic competitions.'' Some journalists expressed frustration at the slow download rates and even voiced suspicion that it was deliberate and intended to discourage use.

Media watchdog Reporters without Borders said it was increasingly concerned that journalists would face many cases of censorship during the Olympics.

"We condemn the IOC's failure to do anything about this, and we are more skeptical about its ability to ensure that the media are able to report freely," the group said in a statement.

With the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games a mere 10 days away, members of the media have learned that there is at least one thing they can expect not to be open: the Internet.

Despite earlier assurances that journalists would have unfettered access to the Internet at the Main Press Center and athletic venues, organizers are now backtracking, meaning that the some 5,000 reporters working in Beijing during the next several weeks won't have access to a multitude of sites such as Amnesty International or any site with Tibet in the address, according to an Associated Press report.

When Chinese officials were bidding for the right to hold the games seven years ago, they assured international organizers that there would be ''complete freedom to report.'' In April, Chinese organizers told International Olympic Committee members that Internet censorship, which is routine for China's citizens, would be lifted for journalists during the games.

However, IOC members issued a clarification Tuesday, saying that Internet freedom applied only to Web sites related to ''Olympic competitions.'' Some journalists expressed frustration at the slow download rates and even voiced suspicion that it was deliberate and intended to discourage use.

''This type of censorship would have been unthinkable in Athens, but China seems to have more formalities,'' Mihai Mironica, a journalist with ProTV in Romania, told the AP. ''If journalists cannot fully access the Internet here, it will definitely be a problem.''

This development is only the latest in a long string of headaches the media have suffered in China while preparing to cover the games.

When a senior vice president for NBC Sports, which paid about $900 million to broadcast the games, asked organizers last month to lift broadcast and interview restrictions at Tiananmen Square, the response was reportedly clear: "Don't push the issue."

Having the Chinese government telling you where you can and can't go on the Internet is not only frustrating but a bit unnerving as well. You can bet they are also watching journalists very carefully. Considering the way China dealt with YouTube during the Tibet crackdown earlier this year, what kind of "journalism freedoms" will reporters have if their stories offend Chinese officials?