Webware

The 2008 Summer Olympics is the most online ever, which is no surprise. More of the world has broadband access than four years ago. But in the United States, at least, the old advertising-supported television model for distributing sports coverage is hanging on tight.

That isn't to say the Web is losing. On NBCOlympics.com, you can quickly jump to delayed coverage of the major events, as well as live coverage of less popular sports or qualifying rounds. What you cannot do is duplicate the live-television experience online for major events like swimming.

This is because NBC affiliate stations make advertising revenues when people tune in to those events on TV. NBC cannot just run all its Olympics video online in real time and compete with its own affiliates. We may not like it, but from a business perspective, this appears to make sense.

As good as streaming video is on the Web, TV programming still provides a better viewing experience.

Or does it? Could NBC offer a Web experience that's competitive with the television offering and end up still ahead of the game? I believe that it could.

In nearly every U.S. household, the best place to watch a sporting event is on the big TV in the family room. You have a better screen, more comfortable chairs, and a video feed that's fluid and detailed. So why isn't NBC showing the videos live on the Web and shunting people over to their couches for the viewing experience we all want, anyway?

Already, NBCOlympics.com asks for your location and cable provider before it will show you videos (this leaves over-the-air viewers out in the cold, but it's easy enough to bypass by giving the site the name of a local cable company you don't subscribe to).

NBC and its local stations--each of which has its own Web site--could, in theory, create a combined TV-Web schedule or experience for its viewers. The right combination of live big-screen events and Web-based packages for background and catch-up could be more compelling than either experience by itself.

The problem is not the technology. It's the business structure: the hold that the affiliate-based advertising model has on network television. I'm not saying that if we didn't have that model, NBC would nail the online-TV Olympics experience, but it would sure give the network a fighting chance.

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

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.

Ever since NBC announced their very ambitious plans for online coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, I have been very excited to see how well they execute it. Promising 3,500 hours of online video, with 2,200 hours of live streams, full event replays, and highlights, for free, how could they go wrong? It has recently come to light that the online coverage may not be as complete as we were hoping.

NBC will not be offering live online feeds of any events that will be broadcast on TV. The ones broadcast on TV will, of course, include the most popular events and the ones that people are most likely to tune into. The video of the events will be on NBC's site only after the events have been completed. With this in mind, it is clear that NBC views its online offering as a supplement to their TV broadcast and not as any sort of a replacement.

Many have been really quick to heavily criticize this move by NBC, but I'm not jumping on that bandwagon just yet. I am usually not one to defend old media (see my post on Why Broadcast TV Sucks), but I have some sympathy for NBC here. I applaud NBC for taking this major leap into the online distribution of this major event in the first place. It's an unfamiliar road and a departure from a model that has worked for NBC for a very long time.

Of course, we would love to see every live stream available to us, with videos and highlights that we could embed on other sites, but this may be too radical of a first step for NBC. Think of this year's Olympic webcast as testing the waters. If NBC's web offerings prove to be profitable this year, then maybe they will expand their offerings in years to come. The Olympics only happen every two years (the more popular Summer version every four) and I can understand NBC not wanting to gamble too much on this very costly venture.

An online feed of an event like the Olympics (or any sporting event for that matter) can offer all sorts of rich functionality, including realtime statistics, scores, and leaderboards. There is no doubt in my mind that rich functionality will eventually win out, whether it is viewed on your computer or through a new interface on your TV. If it doesn't look like they get it now, NBC and the other networks will eventually see the light, but these big companies may just need a little more time to make the switch at their own pace.

Amidst all of this, let's not forget who the potential big winner is with this year's Olympics. No, it's not all of the athletes competing for Olympic glory, it's Microsoft's Silverlight. Microsoft scored the exclusive deal with NBC for Silverlight to power all of their Olympic web offerings. Not having caught on that well yet, this will prove to be a good way to expose a lot of new people to Silverlight and get their plug-in installed on a lot more computers. While it may not be the gamebreaker, it will certainly give them a shot in the arm in their fight against Flash.

Don't believe the haters, NBC's online offering of the Olympics is a step in the right direction, just not two steps as a lot had hoped.

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

In case you were interested in keeping track of where the 2008 Olympic torch is at any given moment, the Google Maps team has put together a mash-up that tracks its position as it makes its way around the world via a series of runners and transportation mediums.

Beside the map you can track not only where the torch has been, but where it's going. There's a small information panel that tells you about the route through each city including any relevant landmarks. Information about future dates hasn't been made available (for security reasons), but you can read up on all the previous dates, and even play it like an automated slide show as it goes around the world.

The custom map is available as a standalone widget for your iGoogle page, or for your site. I've embedded it below, although for the full experience you should check out the standalone page here.

LAS VEGAS--Microsoft is looking to position its Silverlight Web technology as the coolest kid in school--one that is both popular and gets along with everyone.

At the Mix '08 show here, the company talked about its Mac, Linux, and mobile-phone compatibility and brought out customers like Hard Rock Cafe, NBC, and AOL to talk about how they are using the technology. It also showed Silverlight running on the newest compatible device--Nokia's smartphones.

Microsoft's Scott Guthrie also alluded to support for Apple's iPhone, saying Microsoft wants Silverlight running on "anything that has an SDK (software development kit)."

In the Hard Rock Cafe example, the restaurant and hotel chain used the technology to showcase its massive, 70,000-piece collection of rock artifacts. "This is 2 billion pixels," said a representative of the company who built the site for the Hard Rock.

AOL showed off a new version of AOL Mail, while NBC touted its plans to use Silverlight to bring more than 2,200 hours of video both live and on-demand.

It's all part of Microsoft's aggressive pitch to Web developers, a clear acknowledgment that Microsoft faces a tough battle to win the hearts and minds of those who build Web sites and applications.

"I know today you have many amazing technology choices," Ray Ozzie said in his introductory comments. "But I'd like you to bet on us because I think together we can create extraordinary experiences.

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LAS VEGAS--This summer, NBC plans to show 1,200 hours of video from the Beijing Olympics on five different channels.

But the company also knows that's not nearly enough for many people. At January's Consumer Electronics Show, Bill Gates announced a partnership with Microsoft to bring that video and another 1,000 hours to the Web, available both live and on-demand.

"It's going to be terrific and I am terrified," said Perkins Miller, a senior vice president for digital media for NBC Sports and Olympics. "One hundred fifty days from today we are going to take on the Olympics."

Now, it didn't make me cry, but the demo that Miller showed was pretty amazing. Using Silverlight as the underlying engine, NBC is allowing people to watch events live, pause them, and watch multiple video streams, share streams with friends, and see what the audience sees as the most popular highlights.

It seems like the Olympics is shaping up to be the biggest showcase--and biggest performance test--for what Web video can do.